Waterloo to Regent's Park (S14E07)

Michael Portillo continues his railway exploration of the post-war Britain of his youth on a journey from London to Cambridge. He begins on the capital’s South Bank, where during 1951 a Festival of Britain drew more than eight and a half million visitors to admire fantastical buildings designed to inspire and celebrate the best of British in art, science and industry. After a spin on the London Eye, built to celebrate the millennium, Michael takes the London Underground to Chelsea to find out about one of the most influential cookery writers of the 20th century, Elizabeth David. In Covent Garden, he learns how Vidal Sassoon’s classic bob hairstyle took the fashion world by storm. Finally, in Regent’s Park, Michael visits a long-awaited mosque, first mooted in 1900 and completed in 1977 to a modernist design by architect Frederick Gibberd. (BBC)