Graham Williamson: Song of the Suburbs

A film by Graham Williamson telling the surprising and intriguing story of a hidden Britain, in partnership with the BFI.

The BFI National Archive and Farrell Centre present Graham Williamson’s compilation of archive film footage to tell the surprising and intriguing story of a hidden Britain in Song for the Suburbs.

As part of the BFI’s National Archive Our Screen Heritage programme, Teesside based film-maker Graham Williamson has compiled nearly a century of archive footage from movies, television, amateur film and the internet to tell the story of the British suburbs. Are they conformist or eccentric? Conservative or radical? Normal or surreal? Song of the Suburbs reveals they’re all these things, and more.

Featuring extreme slum clearance, the foundation of the welfare state, poltergeists in suburban London, the North Korean embassy in a suburban semi, the rise of new towns and the fall of the high-rise flat, solstice rituals at Milton Keynes, allotments, extremely dangerous children’s games, a house shaped like a UFO, and a fluffy caterpillar. 

The footage gathered includes TikToks and YouTube travelogues, silent documentaries made by anti-slum campaigners, films by Jill Craigie and Charlotte Regan, animation from Bob Godfrey and Derek Phillips, Super 8 home movies and student films, news reports from Nationwide, government information films and more, all to tell the story of a part of Britain too often mislabelled as boring. 

Our Screen Heritage is supported by the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.