Britain on Film with Tony Robinson

PBS: Premieres from Wednesday 25 June 2025 10.50am

In the mid-twentieth century, while professional newsreel crews focused on filming political events and world leaders, a new breed of amateur filmmaker was using innovative, lightweight cameras and sometimes colour stock to capture everyday British life.

This four-part series collects some of the best amateur films produced from the 1930s to the 1960s, telling remarkable stories about the people in them and the self-taught filmmakers who brought their world to flickering life, recording it for posterity.

Presented by Tony Robinson, each programme looks in depth at a particular decade. Themes include rural life in the 1930s, the home front in World War II, postwar social change, fading traditions and the onset of modernity.