The title THE SECRET FILES suggests that material is being brought to light for the first time, rather like government files being released in the public domain after a thirty-year time lapse to ensure that no one is incriminated by their contents.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The BBC's Written Archives at Caversham in Berkshire, west of London, are accessible to any researchers by appointment. They provide valuable material for anyone interested in finding out the way in which the Corporation worked in the pre-internet era, when all correspondence was laboriously typed out and carbon copies preserved for posterity.
This two-part documentary doesn't really tell us much more than we already know. Presented by the schoolmarmish Penelope Keith, it looks at some of the correspondence between BBC executives and some of its biggest stars, as well as other public figures during the mid- to late twentieth century. We learn about Morecambe and Wise's struggle to establish themselves during the Fifties and Sixties, as well as finding out how they asked for a pay rise (in a particularly evasive British manner). Both Peter Sellers and Tony Hancock had their ups and downs with Corporation executives, especially when they became extremely well-known during the late Fifties. Spike Milligan lived up to his name by writing a series of spiky notes.
On the political front, we hear a lot about Winston Churchill's long-running feud with Lord Reith, as Churchill accused the BBC of deliberately preventing him from talking to the people. Reith maintained a lofty disdain for the politician by arguing that it was not "in the national interest" to change the Corporation's policy. It was only after Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940 that the relationship thawed, and that was chiefly due to expediency.
Some correspondents were less strident in tone. When Sir Alec Guinness was offered the role of Smiley in TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, he doubted whether he was entirely suitable, especially when the part had already been essayed by Arthur Lowe. By contrast Barbara Woodhouse - of TRAINING DOGS THE WOODHOUSE WAY fame - bombarded the Corporation with indignant letters for over thirty years, until they finally gave her her own series.
The two programs are mildly entertaining, as examples of the ways in which attitudes towards celebrity, censorship and morality have changed over the last eight decades or so, but they did seem to be rather loose in terms of structure, with little sense of a theme running through them.
