BBC - The London Nobody Knows (1967)

“This theatre, the Old Bedford in Camden Town, used to be the favourite theatre of Marie Lloyd the famous music hall singer… now it's just a mess” This is the opening line of presenter/narrator James Mason as he saunters across the stage in an abandoned theatre in Camden, swiping at the rubble on the floor with the tip of his umbrella and it says it all. Welcome to 'The London Nobody Knows' - a glimpse into the crumbling remnants of Victorian London, viewed from the heady excitement of the capital in the midst of the swinging 60's. This documentary, which sets out to offer a glimpse of a fast disappearing world, is a car crash of the tragic, the experimental, the ridiculous and the downright weird. 'The London Nobody Knows'(1967) is an extraordinary documentary of London at a historic juncture in its history. The film was directed by Norman Cohen who was a regular sketcher for the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph where he recorded the evolution of the city in his column entitled 'London Day by Day'. Based on a book by London-obsessive writer and artist Geoffrey S. Fletcher, the film celebrates a kind of psychogeography now associated with Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd and features Mason strolling around the less well known areas of the city dryly commenting on what he encounters. 'The London Nobody Knows' focuses on underbelly of London in the 60s, from Islington's Chapel Market to historic pie shops and Spitalfields tenements. We glimpse elegant hipsters on Carnaby street juxtaposed with poor, shoeless kids, alcoholics and squalid Victorian estates and the 'true' Londoners - the market traders, meth drinkers, buskers and labourers - are celebrated in this melancholic and historic film.

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