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The Thirties in Colour, Wednesday 9pm, BBC4 
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Film erupted into colour in the 1930s - a fact that's celebrated in BBC4's new four-part series. But rather than concentrate on professional movie-makers, the first episode explores the amateur films of Rosie Newman, an adventurous society gal whose next-door neighbours in London happened to include two future monarchs.
Plucky Rosie took up filming as a hobby in order to chart her grand tour of India in 1934. Although she didn't realise it at the time, her crackly but vibrant footage gave a fascinating insight into the last days of the Raj - something for which the BBC's somewhat guarded, almost apologetic commentary fails to give her full credit.
As the camera pans across a beach, for example, Rosie declines to linger over the political meeting taking place before her. Instead, she concentrates on filming grand parades, local craftsmen, tiger hunts and games of croquet - the minutiae of her everyday privileged life, rather than the bigger picture.
"Rosie failed to capture the divisions within the country," says one of the documentary's many talking heads. A later visit to Egypt provokes much the same reaction from the experts, as the intrepid Ms Newman filmed her visit to various tribes, but "made no reference to poverty".
Still, why should she? Rosie's hobby was initially intended merely to serve as a reminder of her travels, and to entertain her equally well-to-do friends. She just happened to be rich and well-connected enough to be able to afford colour film.
However, it's arguably her footage of life back in England that holds most interest for viewers today - particularly film of the future Queen playing in the garden with her sister, Princess Margaret, shortly before their father George became King. Like many great documentaries, it becomes all the more fascinating in hindsight because both film-maker and subjects could have had no idea how much their lives were about to change...
by Jane Murphy, Wednesday 16 July 2008
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