Why is a brilliant BBC serial kept in its most secret vaults?
If someone had managed to bottle the essence of the 1960s – the exciting, adventurous bits – wouldn’t you want to take at least one deep draught? I certainly would. I sometimes long for the power to recreate that odd, dangerous, thrilling time, if only to see if I have got it right in my memory. In fact, they did bottle it. But nobody is allowed to taste the vintage. Well, almost nobody, as we shall see.
The BBC possesses, beyond doubt, a full recording of its 13-part 1970 dramatisation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Roads to Freedom trilogy.