40 MinutesTemporada 5
40 Minutes was a BBC TV documentary strand broadcast on BBC Two between 1981 and 1994. The documentaries could be on any possible subject, the only connection being that they last forty minutes.
Some documentaries in the original series were revisited and updated in a 2006 version, Forty Minutes On.
Some documentaries in the original series were revisited and updated in a 2006 version, Forty Minutes On.
Where to Watch 40 Minutes • Temporada 5
26 Episodes
- Animal CrackersE9
Animal CrackersAll over Britain are strange and delightful buildings with one thing in common - they were created for animals. Lucinda Lambton is your guide to such follies. Castles, temples, palaces, obelisks and pyramids, they are a happy by-product of the British passion for animals. - Our Man in ShanghaiE10
Our Man in ShanghaiThe Foreign Office opens a new mission in China. The film follows the new Consul-General during his first week in Shanghai. A high-powered trade delegation is due, led by Lord Young; our man has to look after them while finding his own feet. He succeeds in seeing the only performing panda in the world. - Flight from VatersayE13
Flight from VatersayThe Hebrides - idyllic isles of wild beauty, majestic, remote, peaceful? That's not how Neil Gillies, 23 years old and unemployed, sees his island home of Vatersay. For him it's a place of isolation, boredom and drink. He can't wait to leave Vatersay, his widowed mother and his eight brothers and sisters, to try his luck in Glasgow. His prospects aren't good. Jobs are scarce, accommodation hard to find. There are compensations - Vatersay has few girls; Glasgow seems alive with them. Over the months, the demands of fending for himself begin to tell. When Neil leaves his hard-won job he escapes into the illusory comfort of alcohol. Should he have stayed on the island? Or can he come to terms with this uncompromising city of bed-sits, the dole and bars? - Cry for HomeE18
Cry for Home'I'm British', says the young lady with strawberry blonde hair and a Midlands accent, 'but I don't have a drop of British blood in me.' Carmen Laanemagi is from Leicester - and Estonia. Pauline Riemers is a nurse in Epsom; her parents are Latvian. Algis Kuliukas, a British Airways computer programmer, lives in Hounslow; he's part-Lithuanian. Last July they embarked on the Baltic Star in Stockholm. It was the beginning of an emotional and exciting voyage. The aim was to sail as close as they could get to the coasts of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - now part of the Soviet Union. Forty years ago their parents had fled as refugees when the three Baltic states lost their short-lived independence. Now the lost children were returning - hoping for a distant glimpse of home. Narrator Ian Holm - The Fishing PartyE19
The Fishing PartyThey are four friends, rich young men - city commodity-brokers, the drinks trade. They belong to the right clubs. They hunt, shoot, play polo, make money. They had the idea of going fishing in Scotland for a few days in the autumn, to see if they could break the world record for a catch of skate. They ended up with something else. As the October weather squalls and shines, as the boat rolls on the stormy waters of the Pentland Firth, as the days pass without the big bite, so the jokes flow, the bottles are cracked, and Robert, John, Henry and Guy reveal their spirited, outspoken opinions. "Better for some to have privilege rather than nobody - let's lead from the top, not the bottom ... Many of our friends, in the City and the army, worry about the aggressive young men of the loony left...." - A Passage to WisbechE26
A Passage to WisbechCarrick is a dirty British coaster - a 30-year-old tramp carrying unglamorous cargoes from port to port in the Channel and the North Sea. Her skipper and owner is Rick Waters , once part-time butler to Edward Heath: 'I resent people calling my ship a rust-bucket. She's an old lady who needs the occasional helping hand.' George Norman, the mate, looks after the cargoes. The ship could capsize if a cargo shifts at sea. Tom Owen, ex-Royal Navy, struggles with Carrick's dodgy engine. 'Most other merchant seamen regard coaster crews as the scum of the earth,' he says. Carrick makes uncertain progress through the mad March days, carrying fertilizer to Exmouth, grain to Antwerp, and spuds, improbably, to Wisbech. Coasters like Carrick can reach the ports that other ships can't....