Here and Now

From the collection of

Media Archive for Central England

MACE is the strategic lead organisation for screen heritage for the East and West Midlands regions. An independent charity based at University of Lincoln, MACE preserves and makes accessible a collection of more than 100,000 historic moving images representative of the diverse cultures and histories of communities throughout the heart of England from the Lincolnshire coast to the Welsh border.

Here and Now

Here and Now brings robotic dancing and classical music to the screen.

This edition of Here and Now, presented as usual by the actor Zia Mohyeddin, is nicely bookended by two items that show the scope of culture that was served up to Midlands viewers in this long-running magazine programme.

We begin with robotic dance duo Tronic, who perform in a style that screams early '80s and was soon so popular it was picked up by street performers up and down the country. In complete contrast, the musical guest at the end the show is the Indian classical musician Amjad Ali Khan, who performs a traditional raga on the sarod. Classical music and dance from the Indian subcontinent was frequently featured on Here and Now, with some performers making repeat visits.

The filling in this Sunday afternoon sandwich is a report by Vera Gilbert about the City of Birmingham Polytechnic's final year degree show for students on the senior graphics course. The huge range of project on show - from designs for Nigerian television to poster for the Birmingham Chinese community and a series of books for children with disabilities - indirectly reflects the policy of the programme itself, with its attempts to show as much of the world's culture as possible.

Here and Now was predominantly an arts programme that highlighted a vast array of dance, music, theatre and arts from across the multicultural Midlands during a ten-year run that had begun in 1980.

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From the collection

Multicultural TV

This collection covers programming that emerged from specialist multicultural and Black broadcasting units.

A multicultural Britain was forebodingly cast as an oncoming social issue. Only at the behest of campaigning by the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (established in 1965) did the programming introduced begin to frame Asian and later Black Britons as part of British society and cater directly to their needs. The earliest examples were programmes broadcast by the BBC Apna Hi Ghar Samajhiye (1965) and Nai Zindagi Naya Jeevan (New Life), which helped improve the English skills of recent Asian migrants. Targeted programming initially emerged regionally, and franchise holders in the midlands who feared the impending reallocation of franchises reacted quickly, leading to multicultural programming such as Here Today, Here Tomorrow (ATV, 1978), Here and Now (Central TV, 1978). In London, London Weekend Television produced Babylon (LWT, 1979), and the London Minorities Unit produced Skin (1980), an extensive focus of our collection. During the emergence of Channel 4, Black programming was in-built into the new channel. Black commissioners, researchers, and presenters emerged, leading to Black and Asian-led series like Black on Black (1982), Eastern Eye (1982), Bandung File (1985), and Black Bag (1985). These programmes catered not only with increasing specificity to their respective audiences but also took on an increasingly globally connective approach centred around acknowledging the intricacy of diasporic relations.

25 videos in this collection

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Bob Marley

  • 1981
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Black Actors

  • 1981
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Attacks on Asians and West Indians

  • 1980
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Immigration Laws Part 1

  • 1980
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Bengalis and the Rag Trade

  • 1980
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Here and Now

  • 1985
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After the Deptford Fire: A Watershed in British Relations

  • Deptford
  • 1981
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Here and Now

  • Birmingham
  • 1984
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Multi-cultural Education

  • 1981
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Divided Families

  • 1981
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Football

  • 1981
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Blues Parties

  • 1980
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Here and Now

  • Stoke-on-Trent
  • 1984
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Asian Doctors

  • 1980
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Here and Now

  • Wolverhampton
  • 1984
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25 Years of Black British Part 4

  • 1980
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Education in Haringey

  • 1980
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Benjamin Zephaniah, James Berry and Buchi Emecheta at Words to Life (Here and Now)

  • Cannon Hill Park
  • 1984
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The Deptford Fire

  • Deptford
  • 1981
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Police - Black Relations Part Two

  • 1980
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Black Churches

  • 1981
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Immigration Laws Part 2

  • 1980
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Villain Boroughs

  • 1980
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Housing in Southall

  • 1980
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Here and Now

  • West Bromwich
  • 1984
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