Bombay’s Beatle
First broadcast on: Radio 4
George Harrison travelled to India to record the soundtrack of the film 'Wonderwall'. Harrison's fascination with India for its spirituality is well known but his musical interest in India is less known. I travelled to India to revisit Harrison's time there and to speak to musicians who recorded with the former Beatle
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love at first site
this is a programme about the growth of internet match making amongst British Asians.
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little richard
an interview with little richard
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lennon’s private passion
Lennon spend his childhood holidays in Durness. I visited the northern tip of Scotland to speak to people who recall the former Beatle as a young boy.
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Bombay’s Beatle
George Harrison travelled to India to record the soundtrack of the film 'Wonderwall'. Harrison's fascination with India for its spirituality is well known but his musical interest in India is less known. I travelled to India to revisit Harrison's time there and to speak to musicians who recorded with the former Beatle
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brits in bollywood
This was a programme I made about young British Asians who are travelling to India to make it in Bollywood.
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In the Footsteps of Defoe 4
Sarfraz Manzoor retraces the footsteps of author Daniel Defoe, a prominent supporter of the Act of Union, in southern Scotland in the 1720s.
The ancient town was the site of many battles in the wars of independence between England and Scotland. But what remains of those former scars today and how do Scottish people view their identity?
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In the Footsteps of Defoe 3
Sarfraz Manzoor retraces the footsteps of author Daniel Defoe, a prominent supporter of the Act of Union, in southern Scotland in the 1720s.
The Act of Union brought new trade markets and an industrial boom, but these declined in the 20th century. Glasgow faced the problem of reinventing itself once more while retaining its identity.
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In the Footsteps of Defoe 2
Sarfraz Manzoor retraces the footsteps of author Daniel Defoe, a prominent supporter of the Act of Union, in southern Scotland in the 1720s.
In the 18th century the city was dark and overcrowded, but the Age of Enlightenment saw its reinvention as the cultural capital of Scotland.
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In the Footsteps of Defoe 1
Sarfraz Manzoor retraces the footsteps of author Daniel Defoe, a prominent supporter of the Act of Union, in southern Scotland in the 1720s.
Prestonpans, Port Seaton and Cockenzie, once major industrial centres, are now largely a commuter belt for an expanding capital.
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Outlook
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Jinnah
Jinnah is recognised as the architect of partition, the man who called for a separate Muslim homeland in 1940. He saw his dream achieved in the creation of Pakistan in 1947, just a year before his untimely death from tuberculosis. Sarfraz Manzoor returns to the country of his birth to find out more about the man called Quaid-i-Azam or Great Leader, and his legacy in Pakistan’s complex web of religion and politics.
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Make Yourself at Home
In 1965, the BBC Immigration Programme Unit broadcast the first in its series Make Yourself at Home. Sarfraz Manzoor looks back at the way Asians were introduced to their new lives in the UK. Using a huge range of archive material, he finds out how Britain has changed its outlook over 40 years. With contributions from journalists and broadcasters.
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Archive Hour: Debating the Divide
Sarfraz Manzoor chairs a debate at Southampton University on new ways of understanding the legacy of Partition 60 years on. Academics, writers and intellectuals from around the world gather to discuss the latest thinking, from fresh perspectives on British withdrawal, oral testimony, the reassessment of existing archive material and the ever-present problem of Kashmir.
Part of the India and Pakistan ‘07 season.
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The Archive Hour: Listen to Britain
Sarfraz Manzoor eavesdrops on contemporary Britain. Plugging almost at random into hundreds of hours if interviews gathered during the past night months of the BBC’s Voices project, he overhears how we live, we love and we like to think of ourselves.
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Knocking Down the Past 2
Sarfraz Manzoor continues his examination of the state of British housing today. Having swept away the tower blocks of the 1960s, residents of the Gorbals in Glasgow and Market Estate in London are looking forward to brighter futures. But what will they make of each other’s new homes? Sarfraz joins them as they swap places for the day.
2/2. Sarfraz Manzoor visits the Gorbals in Glasgow and Market Estate in north London to find out why high-rises in those areas were a failure.
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Knocking Down the Past 2
Sarfraz Manzoor continues his examination of the state of British housing today. Having swept away the tower blocks of the 1960s, residents of the Gorbals in Glasgow and Market Estate in London are looking forward to brighter futures. But what will they make of each other’s new homes? Sarfraz joins them as they swap places for the day.
1/2. First of a two-part programme in which Sarfraz Manzoor visits the Gorbals in Glasgow and Market Estate in north London to find out why high-rises in those areas were a failure.
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Take the Cricket Test - Part 2
Sarfraz Manzoor gets unique access to the thoughts and ambitions of young British Muslims involved in the playing and watching of cricket. With the Pakistan team touring England this summer, many find their loyalties split between the visitors and the hosts.
Sarfraz uncovers the huge diversity of British Pakistani life, and he investigates the link between cricket and the radicalisation of young British Muslims
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Taking the Cricket Test Part 1
Sarfraz Manzoor gets unique access to the thoughts and ambitions of young British Muslims involved in the playing and watching of cricket. With the Pakistan team touring England this summer, many find their loyalties split between the visitors and the hosts.
Sarfraz uncovers the huge diversity of British Pakistani life, and he investigates the link between cricket and the radicalisation of young British Muslims.
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From Luton Streets to Jersey Shores
For most of America, New Jersey was the ‘stinking state’ - the densest, most polluted state in the USA. But for one Luton teenager listening to the music of Bruce Springsteen, it became impossibly glamorous.
Now in his thirties, writer Sarfraz Manzoor makes the pilgrimage to New Jersey, using Springsteen’s lyrics as his guide, to discover the landscape of his youthful imagination. And he finds that, after decades in the doldrums and being the butt of so many American jokes, the Garden State is reinventing itself by capitalising on the mythology Springsteen has created.
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A Class Apart
With the Government’s education bill under the spotlight faith schools have become part of the battleground over the future of Britain’s multi faith society. Some see them as a moral and spiritual compass, whilst others view them as apartheid under another guise.
Presenter Sarfraz Manzoor tours Britain in search of answers including one part of the country where 90% of pupils are educated in separate faith schools. Does Northern Ireland have anything to teach us?
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Don’t Call Me Asian
Sarfraz Manzoor investigates how the notion of a single Asian community has finally been exploded by 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror.
Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus are increasingly facing different issues in today’s Britain. But what dangers lurk when religion replaces race as a means of self-identification?
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Bruce And Me
Bruce Springsteen has been making music for over 30 years. With classic albums such as ‘Born to Run’, ‘Born in the USA’ and ‘The Rising’ and a reputation as one of the greatest live performers, Springsteen has won millions of fans around the world for whom his music has been the soundtrack to their own lives.
The writer and broadcaster Sarfraz Manzoor has been listening to Bruce Springsteen since he was a teenage boy growing up in Luton in the eighties. He credits Springsteen’s music with inspiring him to leave Luton arguing “more than anything else, it was Bruce who gave me the motivation to leave Luton, and provided the map of how to escape. During the years since, Springsteen has provided the looping soundtrack to my changing life.”
Manzoor, a Guardian columnist, film maker and cultural commentator, is now writing a memoir about growing up in the Eighties as a Springsteen fan. At the time he thought he was the only one, but having attended countless concerts around the world he discovered that there were many more men and women like him for whom Bruce Springsteen was more than just another rock star.
Sarfraz investigates the unique relationship between Bruce and his fans and explores why it has endured over the years. He meets some of Springsteen’s celebrity fans including Stephen Merchant, co writer of the Office, Danny Jones from McFly, Springsteen biographer Dave Marsh, author Nick Hornby and Prime Minister Tony Blair
This documentary tries to get to the bottom of what it is that makes Bruce Springsteen so special to so many of his fans.