BBC Two has announced a new documentary celebrating the ‘golden age of snooker’.
Titled Gods of Snooker, the three-part series will be exec produced by Louis Theroux.
The BBC shares: “For a remarkable period through the 1980s, sporting superstardom was embodied by a handful of men in tight-fitting suits – utterly poised, chasing after multi-coloured balls on a green table, before a television audience of millions. Snooker had landed on our screens and captivated the nation.
“At its mid-80s peak, a World Championship final would draw an audience of 20 million people: a national obsession that became even greater than football. It was a spectacle loved by women and men, young and old. Even Margaret Thatcher was a fan – possibly seeing something of her own philosophy in the well-trained, professional and ambitious young men of the green cloth.
“In this new three-part series, snooker’s golden age will be brought back to life by those at the very heart of the story – sporting heroes from working-class backgrounds who quickly became household names.
“Mixing sporting prowess with unapologetic excess, this new generation of snooker players managed to take the game out from the dark corners of working men’s clubs into the bright lights of a money-spinning, sporting soap-opera.
“This is a story of a lost era; when a nation could be united by a fascination with snooker and where its leading players became unlikely superstars.”
The series will start on Sunday, 9 May 2021 at 9PM on BBC Two and continue Sunday nights for three weeks. You can watch online via BBC iPlayer here.
Executive Producer Louis Theroux saod: “I couldn’t be more excited to be involved in this documentary series. The story of the heyday of snooker is a remarkable one filled with drama and angst and enormous talent.
“For the documentaries I’m involved in, I get most excited about those that are the most human: conflict, triumph, disaster, all the big emotions, played out before your eyes, and you have that here on a scale that is both epic – the national stage – but also intimate – the hush of the snooker hall.
“I’m old enough to remember the 1985 black ball final between Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis. I was 15 and everyone was talking about it at school.
“But that was just one of many high-points in an era when god-like talent came to earth in the form of the professional snooker player. Just to add: we’ve been privileged to work on this with almost all those stars of that time.
“To say I’ve been involved in a documentary series with Steve Davis, Jimmy White, Ray Reardon, Cliff Thorburn, to name just a few, is an amazing feeling and quite honestly not something I ever imagined.”
The three-part series will air on BBC Two with a start date to be confirmed.
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