Season 1

Narrated by Peter Capaldi, this opening installment of a three-part BBC Four documentary in the acclaimed Britannia strand charts the road to punk in Britain. Timed to coincide with the 35th anniversary of the Queen's Silver Jubilee and the emergence of punk as a national and then international musical movement, the film traces the journey from the early 1970s when a young generation already feels they missed the '60s party' and face a Britain headed for economic woes and dwindling opportunities. Meanwhile the era's music—prog and super rock—appears to seek not their engagement but only their awe and their money. Before the punk generation can finally speak out in 1976, a cohort of pub rockers, a generation between the 60s hippies and the mid-70s punks, helps lay the groundwork for punk's short, sharp shock, only to be elbowed aside by the rise of the Sex Pistols, the Clash and their peers.