Grayson Perry begins his investigation of British taste in Sunderland, a city with strong working-class traditions. Originally from a working-class background himself, Perry is interested in how our family background and the class journey we take shape the way we define ourselves through what we wear and buy, and how we live.
This week Grayson focuses on the middle class as he continues his exploration of British tastes, trends and lifestyles. He visits a new executive housing development in Kent where he believes the residents are more materialistic, and keen to separate themselves from their old working-class backgrounds. He then explores the more traditionally middle-class residents of Tunbridge Wells, who, with their organic food, gastropubs, vintage furniture and dinner parties are more self-conscious about what their taste decisions say about them. Finally, he invites the people he meets to view the tapestries he has made about them.
In his final journey to explore what our taste says about us, Grayson Perry lives amongst the upper classes of the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, and meets The Marquess of Bath and Longleat and bohemian Detmar Blow. 'A sucker,' as he admits, 'for a crumbly old stately home,' Grayson is interested in analysing the continuing hold that upper-class taste still has on the British imagination, and wants to know whether it's still something the rest of us should aspire to.
