Summary
Professor Mary Beard is a distinguished Cambridge Classical scholar with a string of highly-regarded books on Ancient Rome to her name, so it's slightly irksome to her that she is almost better known for her long grey hair.
In this highly-authored documentary, Mary Beard investigates a growing reluctance to embrace grey hair.
Starting in the Mayfair salon of "hair colourist to the stars", Jo Hansford, she's informed that her hair is "dreadful" and given a personal consultation by Jo herself about how and why she should colour it.
In favour of choice and the fun of colouring hair, (she has always hankered after pink streaks), Mary is particularly disturbed by the pressures in society for women to conceal their age.
It's not just about women, though. Mary has recently come to recognise that far more men now colour their hair, but why won't any of them talk to her about it? Eventually, fellow Cambridge Classicist, Professor Simon Goldhill, agrees to "come out" on air. In defending his use of colour and challenging Mary's own choice, he gives her a philosophical run for her money.
Ultimately, Mary has to admit the paradox of making a radio programme about grey hair, so she turns to a surprise, high-profile television presenter to learn more about the pressures on women in the public sphere to colour their hair.
Concluding that ageism may be the new "glass ceiling", Mary insists upon the right to be both an "enfant terrible" and also an "eminence grise".
The all-grey production team consists of production coordinator Anne Smith and producer Beaty Rubens.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Seriously with me Testament. |
| 0:09.0 | In today's image obsessed world, appearances are more important than ever, as more people head to tanning salons, nips, tucks, |
| 0:17.0 | tucks and chemical peals, growing old gracefully and naturally seems out of fashion. |
| 0:22.4 | Grey hair on men used to be considered distinguished. |
| 0:25.0 | I've certainly heard the term silver fox banded about, |
| 0:28.0 | never in reference to me, unfortunately. |
| 0:31.0 | But as Mary Beard finds out in this documentary, these days even men are |
| 0:36.3 | feeling the pressure to get their colour from a bottle. Join Mary Beard as |
| 0:40.0 | she investigates a growing reluctance to embrace grey hair. This is glad to be grey. |
| 0:46.4 | Of all the strange places my work has brought me, this is perhaps the most unlikely. |
| 0:51.6 | Celebrities such as Elizabeth Hurley, Vagella Lawson and Georgia Jagger |
| 0:56.7 | come to this upmarket street in Mayfair to have their hair coloured at the famous Johansford Salon and I'm about to meet Joe Hansford herself for a |
| 1:06.3 | consultation. |
| 1:07.3 | Joe suppose I walked into your salon and said I think I need something to into my hair and I would say definitely yes |
| 1:19.4 | Because I'm a very straightforward woman |
| 1:24.0 | What kind of color? Well, you're quite pale. |
| 1:25.0 | We'd never advocate to go back to whatever you used to be, |
| 1:28.0 | whatever that used to be. |
| 1:30.0 | But I wouldn't even say as dark as a light brown or anything I would say sort of maybe even a dark blonde and when I talk blonde I'm not talking Marilyn blonde |
| 1:39.7 | But I'm not talking brown. I'm talking like in between something very soft very muted |
| 1:45.2 | whatever you do as the face framer has to bring all your features out. You must have a very |
| 1:50.5 | different eye from me when you go out and I you know let's stay in |
... |
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