Banned! The Mary Whitehouse Story

At a time when debates about free speech feel increasingly polarised, this series looks back at the life of Mary Whitehouse, a Midlands teacher and housewife who ran a 30-year campaign to turn back the tide of the permissive culture she saw sweeping through society with the advent of the sexual revolution.

Her first target was the BBC, with Director General Sir Hugh Greene her key adversary - a man she saw as heading a metropolitan elite whose desire was to revolutionise society through television.

Her campaign of complaints was about programmes as varied as Til Death Us Do Part and The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour, and by 1970 she’d become a keen manipulator of the media herself, consolidating her position as self-appointed watchdog for the nation’s viewers and listeners. The new decade saw her broadening her targets to include sexually explicit scenes in films, and with the advent of pornography as big business, she came up against then porn baron David Sullivan, who was ready for the fight.

Half a century on the series revisits her campaigns, from boycotts against films like Last Tango In Paris, and her contention that pornography, made mainly by men for men, was not going to lead to greater happiness for society. It culminates in a reflection on Mary Whitehouse’s legacy - and while her views on some issues are a long way from the prevailing attitudes today, questions about the after-effects of the sexual revolution continue to resonate.

Using a vast campaigning archive housed at The University of Essex, and featuring contributions from Gyles Brandreth, Michael Grade, Beatrix Campbell, Ken Loach and Peter Bradshaw, the films hear first-hand testimony from the people who knew her, who studied her work, including author Ben Thompson, and those who took her on: from activist Peter Tatchell to millionaire pornographer and now co-owner of West Ham Football Club, David Sullivan.

Banned! The Mary Whitehouse Story is a BBC Studios documentary. It was commissioned for BBC Arts and BBC Two by Mark Bell and the director and producer is Hannah Berryman.

Publicity contact: FE