The Magic Box: Viewing Britain through the Rectangular Window

Review If Electric Eden was the urtext for the occultist music of Britain, then The Magic Box does the same for the televisual delights and beguiling oddities that have shaped this strange island of ours. Rob Young seamlessly draws several thematic strands together to create a narrative that is the definition of gripping. Truly, a trove of wyrd treasures. -- Benjamin Myers An exhaustive, engaging study of postwar British film and television. It is a feat of argument, description and affection. -- Brian Dillon ― Financial Times A highly entertaining romp through the eccentric history of British TV . . . [a] fabulous treasure trove. -- Aidan Smith ― Scotsman A work of deep research . . . This is a reclamation, not just of a visual 'golden age', but of Britain as a darkly magical place: fearful, shimmering, violent, bewitched, enduring. The connections made are often enlivening . . . The Magic Box romanticises pre-digital television as a village oracle, knocking on the door to whisper often uncomfortable stories about ourselves. -- Graeme Thomson ― The Spectator A lovingly researched history of British TV [that] recalls the brilliant, the bizarre and the unworldly . . . [Young] is brilliant at evoking the sheer oddness of these "ghosts of movement", of otherworldly images emerging from "a hissing void, a blizzard of whirring white dots" to flood the living room. -- Sukhdev Sandhu ― Guardian Young unearths the ghosts of TV past - and Britain's dark psyche . . . a spooked vision of Weird Britannia . . . The Magic Box is itself an unearthing of the unusual, the "other" in TV and film history, a reminder that there are other narratives apart from the official British history of kings and queens and military victories. -- Teddy Jamieson ― Herald Young is a phenomenal scholar. ― Observer [A] forensic dissection . . . this tightly packed treatise takes pains to illustrate how what we view affects how we view ourselves. -- Neil Smith ― Total Film Comprehensive and absorbing . . . an impassioned and infectious rallying cry of a book. -- Dan Crains ― Sunday Times, on ELECTRIC EDEN Hugely ambitious . . . A thoroughly enjoyable read and likely to remain the best-written overview for a long time. -- Michael Faber ― Guardian (Book of the Week), on ELECTRIC EDEN Terrific . . . A lucid and patriotic guided tour, as vigorous as one of Heathcliff's strolls across the moors. -- Dwight Garner ― New York Times An admirable work of loving and careful research . . . superb. -- Alan Warner ― Guardian, on ALL GATES OPEN A music book like no other. ― Rough Trade (Books of the Year), on ALL GATES OPEN Product Description A LOUDER THAN WAR BOOK OF THE YEAR A riveting journey into the psyche of Britain through its golden age of television and film; a cross-genre feast of moving pictures, from classics to occult hidden gems, The Magic Box is the nation's visual self-portrait in technicolour detail. 'The definition of gripping. Truly, a trove of wyrd treasures.' BENJAMIN MYERS 'A lovingly researched history of British TV [that] recalls the brilliant, the bizarre and the unworldly.' GUARDIAN 'A reclamation, not just of a visual 'golden age', but of Britain as a darkly magical place.' THE SPECTATOR 'A feat of argument, description and affection.' FINANCIAL TIMES 'Young unearths the ghosts of TV past - and Britain's dark psyche.' HERALD 'Highly entertaining . . . [A] fabulous treasure trove.' SCOTSMAN 'Young is a phenomonal scholar.' OBSERVER 'Impassioned.' THE CRITIC Growing up in the 1970s, Rob Young's main storyteller was the wooden box with the glass window in the corner of the family living room, otherwise known as the TV set. Before the age of DVDs and Blu-ray discs, YouTube and commercial streaming services, watching television was a vastly different experience. You switched on, you sat back and you watched. There was no pause or fast-forward button. The cross-genre feast of moving pictures produced in Britain between the late 1950s a