British film and television has a rich heritage, but few modern viewers can reference it without images entering their heads of Barbara Windsor’s bra flying in Kenneth Williams’s face.
The BFI certainly knows it has a duty to illuminate such a glittering and diverse past for present and future generations, and has come up with Screen Online.
At its heart is the useful and extremely educational film and TV show database, where every entry, sorted by genre, is packed with filmographic information, articles, reviews and images.
Although access to digitally preserved and archived audio and video materials is limited to registered school and library users, all other material and a vast array of features, such as timelines and “oral history” interviews with figures such as Alan Bennett, are available for free. One such innovative feature is the Archive Interactive series. Jonathan Ross (above) has been recruited to add his expertise and brand of popular mordant wit to proceedings in The Studio with Team Spirit, his guide to Ealing Studios. The interactive angle finds Ross addressing users directly throughout, and asks questions to gauge how interested they are in particular topics. A choice of clips from films such as Passport to Pimlico and Went the Day Well? is then offered depending on the responses.
Displaying the same ease with his subject as he did in his successful BBC Four series Silent Clowns, Paul Merton looks at early film comedy in Britain in the other entry in the series. He uncovers a strange time when people actually thought giant possessed fish, four-year-old boxing champions and pantomime horse races were real.
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On second thoughts, maybe they are.
www.screenonline.org.uk