HERITAGE: Revisit 'Feltham Sings', A Musical Documentary Filmed In Feltham Young Offenders Prison (2002)

HERITAGE: Revisit 'Feltham Sings', A Musical Documentary Filmed In Feltham Young Offenders Prison (2002)


August 27, 2021

Back in 2002, Channel 4 and production company Century Films visited Feltham Young Offenders to speak to a group of young prisoners about their experiences, why they're there and, uniquely, offer them the chance to make music based on their stories.

There's quite a bit to unpack and no two stories are the same, but the prison's drugs counsellor's theory about it being a question of nurture and their environments does seem to ring true in a few cases. Even the music offers a few surprises. We open with rap, but from there we get everything from garage to spoken word poetry. Even the drugs counsellor steps in with some soulful reggae.

It would've been easy to make this a tabloid, pearl-clutching affair, but the results are sensitively handled and it does well to offer both nuance and even some suggested solutions.



Image via Century Films


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