The Master Builders

From the British Museum, Peter France presents three films which reveal the way visionaries and others dealt with the 'outsider' as they set out to perfect a society, a state and a national image at the turn of the 19th century. To achieve the first, English reformers constructed a new prison system - only to find that within 20 years it was a total failure. To achieve the second, the Brothers Grimm falsified their country's original folk tales to define behaviour ' acceptable to the architects ' of the new Germany. And to achieve the third, satirical cartoonists vilified the national characteristics of the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish to build up the concept of pure Englishness.