TV commercials have become so sophisticated, stylised and steeped in labyrinthine irony that the quality of being easily intelligible is now usually code for something being either very cheap, very useful for the elderly or excellent at keeping moisture out of wood. It makes sofa-life more interesting, I suppose, but for those selling us only well-meant advice on how to live and work, it must be very trying indeed.
The efforts in this respect of the Central Office of Information over the last 60 years are the subject of a season at the National Film Theatre. In nine thematically arranged programmes, we get a rare opportunity to see just how well the COI has fared with its task of cajoling us into thinking before drinking before driving, clicking our seatbelts after clunking our car doors, respecting the Countryside
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If the Countryside Code raises fond memories, this season at the NFT is for you, says guy dammann
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Code, and not expecting peculiarly dressed pharmacists to attend every single road-crossing child. All the favourites are there, from Jimmy "Now Then" Savile to Charley the Cat – the impeccable if inarticulate authority on childhood lore - and the comedy and gentle nostalgia is a big selling point.
The most valuable aspect of the season is the glimpse it affords into our changing self-image. From early morale-boosting features, such as the faintly surreal 1949 What a Life, to the cutting-edge anti-drink-driving campaign of 1982, we see the progress of a nation unified by its post-war rebuilding to one stricken by an omnipresent nuclear terror. And if at times the broadcasts are all a bit Big Brother, what with death-trap fridges and the sneezing menace, the COIs oeuvre is certainly far far better than more recent 'reality TV'. 
FIRST POSTED SEPTEMBER 28, 2006
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