DVD REVIEW

Turn Back Time: The High Street (Acorn) eras. They taste work and life in the elegant, service-led Edwardian era and then the 1930s before the hardship of World War II hits; the 60s bring convenience shopping and then we get the punk era.

The series gives an inside view on the way that English towns evolved over a century. Shops come and some shops go, while others have to keep changing to survive. And because the show is focused on families, we get to care for their survival.

The human side is very much to the fore. When the men leave to fight in the war, the butcher’s young son has to take over completely. He charms the townsfolk into giving their support, endearing himself to the viewer as well.

It all works on several levels, and whether you want history, reality TV, sociology or simply a series that entertains as it informs, this works. It is an excellent idea: take several tradespeople and recreate the conditions of the past to see how they might have coped in the old days.

So we get a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker (ironmonger) among others, sent back to the Victorian era, working with the equipment that their forbears would have used.

Dressed in period costume, these families take over several empty shops in Shepton Mallett High Street, which has suffered the effects of out-of-town shopping, with the challenge to lure customers back.

Over six weeks we see the families sometimes thriving, but more often struggling to cope with the challenges of different

Derek Walker