Continental Europe appears to have gone bananas for British popular culture this Jubilympics* summer, hence Franco-German arts channel ARTE’s new four-part series London Calling.

The programme was made by seasoned documentarist Simon Witter and looks to be a treat (particularly the intelligent use of archive material; great to see rare footage of John Stephen striding along Carnaby Street).

Witter roped me in to talk about various aspects of our visual culture over the decades, and there are contributions from many others, including writers Jon Savage and Paul Morley, photographer Jill Furmanovsky, Boy George, managers Simon Napier-Bell and Andrew Loog Oldham and artist/musician Fred Deakin (who is filmed at the relatively recently opened King’s Cross home of Central Saint Martin’s).

View a selection of trailers for London Calling here.

* Courtesy Siobhan Sharpe of Perfect Curve PR. See here.

Tags: Andrew Loog Oldham, ARTE, Boy George, Carnaby Street, Central Saint Martins, Fred Deakin, Jill Furmanovsky, John Stephen, Jon Savage, London Calling, Paul Morley, Simon Napier-Bell, Simon Witter