In 1937, journalist Charles Madge and filmmaker Humphrey Jennings were joined by anthropologist Tom Harrisson to form a group called Mass Observation. The group placed an advertisement in newspapers all over Britain asking for people from all walks of life to write down their thoughts and lives in a diary.
The diaries would be compiled and the results calculated in an early version of an opinion poll. The group's reasoning was that the leaders of the country were out of touch with the common man and this was a good way to let the common man tell the leaders what was happening in the real world as well as creating an “anthropology of ourselves”. At the height of the programs, thousands of people participated.
One participant was Nella Last (Victoria Wood), a 49-year-old housewife from Barrow-in-Furness. Although outwardly appearing as normal with a husband and two sons in their early twenties, she had been having mental problems culminating in a nervous breakdown not long before applying to the program. When asked by her husband, who never failed to try and squeeze any enjoyment she might feel out of life like a wet dish towel, why she wanted to write down a diary, she couldn’t put her reason into words. Her first entries were in pencil on scraps of paper.
Watching Housewife, 49, which is based on Nella's diaries, I got the feeling that at least part of the reason she applied was a need to break out of her shell and grow emotionally.
The supporting cast is strong, led by David Threlfall’s portrayal of Nella’s Eeyore of a husband, Will Last. The sons, Cliff (Christopher Harper) and Arthur (Ben Crompton), are especially good foils for each other as well as the family. Nella’s sister-in-law, Dot (Lorraine Ashbourne), shares her brother’s world views to a lesser degree.
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