The Mayfair Set (1999)

Directed by

Adam Curtis

Genre

documentary film

Country

United Kingdom

Length

1 season, 4 episodes

Rating

6.9 of 10 from 12 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary series looks at four British businessmen from the 1960s and 1970s. It shows how their actions helped bring about the political and economic changes of the Thatcher era.

probingcriticaldryanalyticalhistoricalunsentimentalsobermethodical

What happens

The Mayfair Set, subtitled Four Stories about the Rise of Business and the Decline of Political Power, is a BBC television documentary series by filmmaker Adam Curtis. It explores the decline of Britain as a world power, the proliferation of asset stripping in the 1970s, and how buccaneer capitalists helped to shape the climate of the Thatcher years, by focusing on Colonel David Stirling, Jim Slater, Sir James Goldsmith and Tiny Rowland—members of London's elite Clermont Club in the 1960s. It won a BAFTA Award for Best Factual Series or Strand in 2000. Curtis wanted to engage with the moral ambiguity of figures such as Goldsmith. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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