After the Flood

A whistlestop tour of 1970s Birmingham.

Terry Grimley, one of the Arts Lab's early members, has described the Lab as functioning like a 'Noah's Ark' amidst the concrete nightmare of 70s Birmingham. For those of us who weren't around in those halcyon days, here's a quick primer on the period. Alongside the industrial unrest, fragrant underpasses and spectacular trousers, there's a clip of cartoonist Hunt Emerson in action at the Arts Lab printing press in 1977. This is also a rare chance to see Tony Palmer's half-hour documentary on the city from 1971, a polemic on culture's role in regeneration which whizzes around the Bull Ring to the tune of 'Working Class Hero.'