Michael explores the life of Victorian hop pickers and finds out about Maidstone's revolutionary paper industry.
Source: BBC 2
Series 15: 15. Northallerton To Chester-le-street
Michael Portillo confronts a detachment of Gurkhas, produces a fine heritage cheese and discovers a monster cracker that is key to making plastic, before ending his postwar jour ...
05-04-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 14. York To Skipton
Michael Portillo’s postwar exploration of Merseyside to Teesside finds him in York, a paradise for rail enthusiasts. In the company of some of the most famous locomotives ...
04-04-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 13. Lincoln To York
Michael Portillo’s postwar journey from Merseyside to Teesside resumes at Brayford Pool in Lincoln, where England’s oldest canal, the Fossdyke, meets the city of Lin ...
03-04-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 12. Derby To Nottingham
Michael Portillo reaches the jet age in the Derby suburb of Peartree, where he tours the engineering colossus Rolls-Royce. In Derby city centre, Michael is on the trail of littl ...
02-04-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 11. Liverpool To Uttoxeter
Michael Portillo twists and shouts through postwar Liverpool, arriving in the city where the 60s burst into life to find the strikingly contemporary concrete and glass Liverpool ...
01-04-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 10. Dundee To Loch Of The Lowes
Michael’s rail journey through postwar Scotland takes him over the River Tay to Dundee on the trail of Joseph McKenzie, the father of modern Scottish photography.\n\nIn Pe ...
29-03-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 9. Edinburgh To Queensferry
At the former Midlothian mining village of Newtongrange, Michael meets the son of a miner whose name loomed large in the disputes of the 1970s and 1980s, 'Red' Mick McGahey. On ...
28-03-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 8. Shawlands To Livingston
Michael Portillo continues his postwar Scottish railway adventure, this time from Glasgow to the capital, Edinburgh.\n\nAt Pollok Country Park in Glasgow, Michael joins a women& ...
27-03-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 7. Glasgow To Cumbernauld
At the home of Scottish football, Glasgow’s Hampden Park stadium, Michael admires the oldest football trophy in the world and hears how the 'passing game' was born there. ...
26-03-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 6. Loch Lomond To Kelvinbridge
Michael Portillo boards the West Highland Line to begin a railway journey across Scotland’s central belt, from the Arrochar Alps to the Loch of the Lowes. \n\nAt the head ...
25-03-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 9. Edinburgh To Queensferry
At the former Midlothian mining village of Newtongrange, Michael meets the son of a miner whose name loomed large in the disputes of the 1970s and 1980s, 'Red' Mick McGahey. On ...
28-03-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 8. Shawlands To Livingston
Michael Portillo continues his postwar Scottish railway adventure, this time from Glasgow to the capital, Edinburgh.\n\nAt Pollok Country Park in Glasgow, Michael joins a women& ...
27-03-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 11. Liverpool To Uttoxeter
Michael Portillo twists and shouts through postwar Liverpool, arriving in the city where the 60s burst into life to find the strikingly contemporary concrete and glass Liverpool ...
01-04-2024
BBC 2
Series 3 - Windsor To Didcot
Michael Portillo visits a station fit for royalty in Windsor, and views an engineering triumph built by Brunel to span the Thames at Maidenhead.
13-10-2014
BBC 2
Series 2 - Batley To Sheffield
Michael Portillo finds out about shoddy, a successful 19th-century recycling industry in the textile town of Batley, and meets a descendant of George Bradshaw.
10-06-2014
BBC 2
Series 1 - Edinburgh To Kirkcaldy
Travel documentary. Michael Portillo makes apple juice in the Clyde Valley orchards, scales the Forth Rail Bridge and relives childhood memories in Kirkcaldy.
14-10-2014
BBC 2
Series 5 - Ilford To Rochester
Michael Portillo heads along the Essex bank of the Thames before crossing the river into the Garden of England, Kent. He begins this leg at Barkingside.
22-09-2014
BBC 2
Series 2 - Newcastle To Chester-le-street
Michael Portillo visits the first locomotive factory in the world opened by George Stephenson and searches for the lost pit village of Marsden.
03-06-2014
BBC 2
Series 2 - Llanwrst To Porthmadog
Michael explores the Conwy valley, stopping at Britain's first artists' colony at Betws-y-Coed and visiting the Victorian slate capital of Blaenau Ffestiniog.
02-06-2014
BBC 2
Series 2 - Llanberis To Holyhead
Michael Portillo takes a train up Mount Snowdon, witnesses the revival of Anglesey's sea salt industry and discovers how the railways transformed Holyhead.
02-06-2014
BBC 2