The Trials of Oz

Following the rather highbrow legal dispute over Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1963, the Oz trials legitimised the 60s counter-culture in the UK, with representatives of Swinging London, from cult DJ John Peel (still going, bless him) to jazz-man and art collector George Melly, called upon to give evidence in defense of the Oz editors, who, perhaps naively, had given over control of the magazine to some schoolboys - who of course produced and printed some of the most hilariously and/or disturbingly obscene material to be found on the shelves of a UK newsagent. The great cast make the most of their cameos as real people, while the court transcripts and re-enactments meant that those of us who never got hold of the offending copy of Oz can see what all the fuss was about: and it still provokes laughter, horror and a deep unease about the British school system.