Lecture: Sex, Class and Power in the Age of Profumo
23 May 2013, 13:15
Ondaatje Wing Theatre
Free
- Lecture
Places on our free events are allocated on a first come, first served basis and are subject to availability.
Marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Profumo Affair, Richard Davenport-Hines describes the era, people and scandals which provide a snapshot of a nation in the midst of social upheaval. Britain was then a country dominated by the legacy of two world wars, in which a conformist, well-drilled majority was fighting to keep a restless minority in check.
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan led a Conservative government dedicated to tradition, hierarchy and a morality that was hostile to independent women. Nevertheless, good-time girls, get-rich-quick property developers, Fleet Street scandal-mongers, spivs and Mods were all forcing a breakdown of social boundaries. Meanwhile, Cold War paranoia gripped the public imagination. Hear all about the perfect storm of the Profumo Affair; the story of how Sixties England cast off respectability and fell in love with scandal – a catastrophe for the Establishment. Sex, drugs, class, race, chequebook journalism and the criminal underworld – the Profumo Affair had it all.
Richard Davenport-Hines is a historian and biographer. Among his many books are biographies of W. H. Auden and Marcel Proust, and the recent, highly acclaimed, Titanic Lives. A fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Literature, he reviews regularly for the Literary Review, Spectator, Sunday Telegraph, Guardian and Times Literary Supplement.
Christine Keeler
by Lewis Morley
1963
NPG P512(13)
Places on our free events are allocated on a first come, first served basis and are subject to availability.
Marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Profumo Affair, Richard Davenport-Hines describes the era, people and scandals which provide a snapshot of a nation in the midst of social upheaval. Britain was then a country dominated by the legacy of two world wars, in which a conformist, well-drilled majority was fighting to keep a restless minority in check.
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan led a Conservative government dedicated to tradition, hierarchy and a morality that was hostile to independent women. Nevertheless, good-time girls, get-rich-quick property developers, Fleet Street scandal-mongers, spivs and Mods were all forcing a breakdown of social boundaries. Meanwhile, Cold War paranoia gripped the public imagination. Hear all about the perfect storm of the Profumo Affair; the story of how Sixties England cast off respectability and fell in love with scandal – a catastrophe for the Establishment. Sex, drugs, class, race, chequebook journalism and the criminal underworld – the Profumo Affair had it all.
Richard Davenport-Hines is a historian and biographer. Among his many books are biographies of W. H. Auden and Marcel Proust, and the recent, highly acclaimed, Titanic Lives. A fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Literature, he reviews regularly for the Literary Review, Spectator, Sunday Telegraph, Guardian and Times Literary Supplement.
