We start to see, in apparently dreary places, a whole treasury of riches we’d never have guessed was there. Metro-Land is so successful because it is based on simple ideas: the camera, looking out of a train window, becomes the poet’s eye - our eyes. Indeed, if you went to the BBC today and said you had this simple idea, of an old man sitting on a train, going out into the London suburbs, and speaking about the scenery in verse - the programme controllers would laugh you out of the room. It was a winning combination.īut that was 50 years ago and they certainly don’t make programmes like it any more. It was released on BBC One on February 26, 1973, and was instantly recognised as a classic.Įdward Mirzoeff, one of the greatest directors to work in television, had teamed up with Betjeman, by then Poet Laureate - and a man who made shuffling about in front of a TV camera into an art form. John Betjeman’s 50-minute film, Metro-Land, must be one of the most brilliant things ever shown on British television.
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