Carol White and Ray Brooks in 1966's Cathy Come Home
Later this week we're going to have lots of celebrations of Ken Loach 's famous Wednesday Play Cathy Come Home. Great though it was, I have a feeling that the week might lead to two common misconceptions rearing up at us again.
The first is the well-known fact that the programme didn't bring about the foundation of Shelter. Shelter was already planned by the time of the screening on November 16 1966, although Cathy Come Home certainly helped the launch.
The question of why this myth continues to have currency whenever people talk about the programme leads us to the other common misconception. People - especially media people - like to think that Loach founded Shelter because it strengthens the argument that television documentary can change things. In fact, Cathy didn't change anything, as the current housing situation in the UK easily demonstrates.
Yes, it was a brilliant and even shocking play. However, it sits in the tradition of Dickens' sentimental depictions of 'the poor' which at best prick the conscience of the middle classes and at worst reconfirm the status quo. If television was going to change anything then a more factual programme about the inherent injustice of the current housing situation and successive government's failure to carry out the basic and utterly doable steps that would be necessary to do something about it would be much better.
But I have a feeling that our friends in the TV won't be doing that: they'd much rather keep pretending that their self-indulgent world of television documentary has the power to change life.
