Here’s a short excerpt from the first programme that looked at an ageing Britain obsessed with recapturing its youth. The result: trends and fads such as kidults, micro scooters and ‘middle youth’. But at the same time, the generation gap emerged as the most significant split in society. While older people pursued a more youthful image, real young people were demonised as ‘hoodies’.
Reflecting on the decade we spent ‘growing young’ are a host of leading commentators and experts including Andrew Marr, Tanya Byron and Will Self. Along the way we discover how rave culture led to binge-drinking, learn about Britain’s ‘baby gap’, and find out why downloads saved the Millennium Dome.
“This is just the kind of thumping, swirling, quick-cut obituary the noughties deserve. But it’s also crammed with canny insights and well-turned ideas: food for the brain as well as the eyes. The thrust of this opener is that the main faultlines of the noughties were not to do with class, as they had been in previous decades, but age. It’s all so sparkily put together, it almost makes you nostalgic.”
Will Self appears to enjoy his own sardonicism, which is what he’s there for. Andrew Marr and John Lanchester and the woman from Demos add weight. The people from the universities have done the research, and Toby Young has the dinner-party anecdotes. Oh, and nice Robert Webb from Peep Show does a knowing narration. Which all adds up to a fizzy, witty, insightful obituary of the most recent 10 years of our lives. With a banging donk on it.