Synopsis:

A programme in the Special Inquiry series, a BBC- documentary series (1952-1957), which concerned itself primarily with investigation into contemporary social issues. It was the first full-length BBC documentary about race relations in Britain, investigating racial prejudice against immigrants, using the city of Birmingham as an example. Like all of the Special Enquiry programmes, it consisted of interview sequences and a filmed report by an on-location investigative reporter, in this case, Rene Cutforth. The series had something of the feel of an "access programme" becuase of its interviews, which were often presented as direct-to-camera testimony. This was in fact the convention at  the time and linked it back to the precedent of direct address by ordinary people in the 1930s "classic" Housing Problems. The frankness with which racial prejudice was revealed in the speech of some of the participants, including trade union officials, caused extensive public discussion in this "colour bar" edition. Also included was a powerful, partly dramatized, scene in which a newly arrived immigrant looked for lodgings, to be repeatedly turned away by landladies, sometimes with the reason made perfectly clear. The Daily Express at the time thought the programme to be "one of the most outspoken...ever screened."