Throwback Century Crossing the threshold of a pretty house built at the beginning of the last century, a poor family from Norfolk is surrounded by trembling servants, and children are in the tenacious hands of a formidable nanny. Mr. Taylor’s great-grandfather was a wealthy industrialist, and therefore ensured a descendant of a decent life in the Edwardian era in the project “Turning Back Time”. Family. The five-part British series, designed to trace the evolution of kinship relations in the twentieth century, places the characters in painstakingly recreated conditions in the historical quarter, depending on the social status of their forgotten ancestors. The friendly families of the Meadows, Taylors and Goldings pursue different goals - to get a new experience, to try themselves in a different role, to get out of the usual circle of communication. But first of all, to find out if it is so good where we are not, and if before the trees were lusher, greener and taller?
Turning Time Back is a curious synthesis of family shows and reconstructions of historical canals, but without famous figures and events from their lives. A documentary analogue of the enchanting “Bal” by Ettore Skola, only the heroes travel through the eras not in the dance hall, but in the house on Albert Road in the town of Morcam. Created for just five days, the atmosphere of each era amazes with authenticity (touch the fur wall!) and the speed of changing scenery, and high quality elevates the project above the depreciated label of “reality show”. For the Wall to Wall production company, this is not the first time travel: there have been successful returns to the Regency, Edward VII and 1940s. The immediate predecessor of The Family was Turning Back Time. High Street immerses several entrepreneurs and their relatives in the economic realities of different decades. But the 2012 project, summarizing previous experiments, recreates historical realities in their entirety – with the economic situation, class division, social relations – with only one purpose: to show how they affect the cells of society.
The TV show is comical in its own way: the characters try themselves in the professions of those years and flaunt in retrofits, while the whole world and even neighboring houses live in the usual mode and are surprised by such eccentricities. The change of eras is illustrated by the development of engineering communications, fashion transformations, the growth of the number of cars and interiors, evolving from gray Edwardian pomp to motley kitschy. But in addition to striking innovations, each milestone in British history presents new challenges and hardships, highlighted by the emergence of new families – immigrants from the Caribbean and single mothers with sons. For heroes, boredom becomes synonymous with the 1900s, anxiety becomes the 20s, the 40s will reveal the true meaning of fear, the 60s will call for rebellion, and the 70s will become a symbol of limitations. The vicissitudes shown in the TV project serve as a vivid, lively and accessible illustration of the history of the XX century, with which you can acquaint children.
The historical reconstruction of the project would have lost its charm without the main characters, who believed that the next decade could only be lived on camera, but then very quickly got used to the skin of their ancestors. Even children who have little understanding of what is happening, after the first tears and stupid laughs, will also get used to the rules of the big game, in which parents squander their fortunes in a rewinded century, fear the explosions of a war that died down 70 years ago and vote for the now deceased ex-prime minister. These simple-minded, not scandalous people, however, have bright individual traits: active Mrs. Taylor loves the noise and noise created by four offspring, Meadows teenagers are distinguished by independence and spontaneity, and Mr. Golding seeks to take the place of the head of the family, but can not outdo his wife. Children and adults laugh, cry, believe in the healing power of good old family hugs and in any era dream of tea.
“Turning back time” not only has undoubted scientific value, but also promotes eternal values in a world that has gone off the rails: it is not for nothing that families here are large, full-fledged and happy. Reminding of ancestors who need to be grateful for hard work and fulfilled ambitions, he unobtrusively pushes to think about the need to create a better future and enjoy the present. Having a maid and wearing a cylinder is, of course, very pleasant, but with the Internet, electricity and sewerage to live definitely more familiar.