Heart Bypass

Brilliantly Birmingham triple-bill. Features a 1963 public information film about the ringroad, an episode of Rex the Runt, and Jonathan Meades' wry love-letter to the city.

A recent addition to the Media Archive for Central England’s collection, the evocatively titled Ringway: The Birmingham Inner Ring Road Stage 1 (1963) is a public information film that records the construction of this concrete marvel. From its auspicious launch, where various civic dignitaries get showered with rubble, all the omens pointed towards a positive outcome.

Some people are very fond of the city’s road network, among them Jonathan Meades. Heart Bypass (1998) is his love letter to the city, a typically erudite and contrarian half-hour video essay made for BBC2.

Completing this wonky triple bill is an episode of Aardman series Rex the Runt (also 1998) in which Rex wins the city of Birmingham as a lottery prize, and then shrinks it.