3D Week

In 1951, the BFI commissioned four short 3D films for the Festival of Britain and their success spawned a new movement of 3D documentary makers, Bob Angell and Arthur Wooster among them.

Royal Review - Bob and Arthur's cutting-edge 3D newsreel of the Queen's Coronation - is just one of a treasure trove of 3D documentaries that has been uncovered for this programme.

What those ground-breaking filmmakers chose to turn their cameras to conveys a great deal about Britain in the early fifties.

This programme reveals not only more of the Queen, but of the nation in post-war times.

More footage from the 'Royal Review' shows the Queen, in glorious 3D, arrive at the Derby, the bookies at work, the crowds loving the occasion and the race itself. Would the Queen's own horse, Aureole, win the race? Or would Britain's greatest jockey ever, Gordon Richards, finally triumph after 27 previous Derbys?

After the devastation and deprivation of war, early 3D films followed the rebuilding of industrial Britain, with huge chemical plants dazzling in 3D and vast machines turning farmland into coal mines in 'Sunshine Miners'.

Adding a touch of glamour and relief, the Queen Mother is filmed at Heathrow and going on holiday by flying boat to Madeira, all in 3D technicolor.

The film 'Black Swan' goes back to 1952 to see Dame Beryl Grey dance Swan Lake in 3D.

Bob and Arthur continue their search for the perfect 3D close-up of the Queen today, and the final scenes of Royal Review complete the 3D picture of her Majesty and her country more than five decades ago.