[TV] Michael Palins New Europe

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Op zondag 28 oktober 2007 19:19 schreef rosstek het volgende:
Vanavond alweer de laatste aflevering. (BBC 1, 22.00).

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High in the Tatra mountains of Slovakia Michael learns how to make sausages before heading off to Turba's famous mime school in Brno, the Czech Republic's second city.

In the spa town of Karlovy Vary he has a mud bath with Miss World whilst in Prague a pedalo ride under the famous Charles Bridge with sultry chanteuse Bara, leads to a discussion on why the Germans are less than loved.

In Terezin, a Jewish ghetto during the Second World War, survivor Lisa Mikova tells Michael the story of how the Nazis made a propaganda film to convince the International Red Cross that there was no such thing as The Final Solution. Entering the former East Germany, the GDR, in Dresden, he learns from engineering student Felix that despite Germany's unification there is still a wall inside people's heads.

A paddle steamer down the Elba takes Michael to the famous porcelain manufacturing city of Meissen, where he gets a crash course in German toilet design, whilst in Leipzig, cabaret artist Gunter Bohnke, vividly portrays the evil of the Stasi, the state security police, who spied on a quarter of its citizens. At the vast industrial complex of Bitterfeld Michael is given the 'stinky tour' with Hans Zimmermann, a genial Santa Claus look alike eco-warrior and another victim of the Stasi's oppression.

Near the Polish border Michael ends up in another relic of the old GDR - driving a Russian made T55 tank that was the deployed at the frontline of the Cold War.

In the capital Berlin a theatre show in a stretched Trabant illustrates the difference in attitudes that persist between the two halves of the now united city. [AD,S]