Discoveries

Highbury
1939-06
Sound
67m

This morale-boosting variety extravaganza – filled with radio personality Carroll Levis' discoveries - is like a wartime Britain's Got Talent.

Touring England in search of talent, something like a 1930s Simon Cowell, Canadian-born wireless personality Carroll Levis hosted a BBC Radio series in the pre-war years showcasing his "discoveries". This cinema spinoff includes performances by some of the young unknowns he discovered, including singers, comedians, and a couple of rather good Laurel and Hardy impersonators.

While this unashamedly patriotic variety spectacular was shot before conflict commenced, the clouds of war were visible on the horizon – and pride of place is given to a rousingly flag-waving rendition of There'll Always Be an England, sung by a well-scrubbed lad surrounded by the stoic Empire troops who stand at the ready.

Forgotten Features

A hand-picked assortment of hard-to-see British feature films, featuring mischievous mermaids, murderous minors and military mayhem.

Thanks to decades of DVD and online publishing, not to mention archive revivals and restorations, more of Britain’s screen heritage is available today than ever before. You might even be forgiven for imagining that the whole of British cinema is now just a click away.

But much of that history - from the silent era to the relatively recent past - remains out of reach. This selection from the vaults, hand-picked by the BFI's curators, goes some way to remedying that. These fresh rediscoveries offer something for all tastes: whether futuristic fantasy, battle-of-the-sexes comedy, subversive provocation or an Indian-British rarity.