Award for series exploring impact of 4-years-olds on wellbeing of care home residents
By Education & Training, , ,

CPL Production’s ‘Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds’, the charming Channel 4 TV series pairing old and young which involves Bath Professor Malcolm Johnson, has won Best Constructed Documentary Series at the 2018 Grierson Awards.

Organised by The Grierson Trust, the awards recognise and celebrate documentaries from Britain and abroad that have made a significant contribution to the genre and that demonstrate quality, integrity, creativity, originality and overall excellence.

Best performing C4 show

The Grierson Awards were held on the evening of Monday, November 5 at The Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank, London. The show recently returned to Channel 4 in the UK for its second season, becoming the best performing show of the day and doubling Channel 4’s average daytime share.

‘Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds’ has won a number of international awards including Best Original Programme at the Broadcast Awards, Best Popular Factual Series at the Edinburgh TV Awards, and Best Factual Entertainment and Best Brand Driven Format at the International Format Awards. It was also nominated for a 2018 BAFTA award, and is nominated for a Grierson Award.

The programme is a revolutionary social experiment that attempts to dramatically improve the health and well-being of elderly people in retirement communities, by bringing them together with a group of four-year-old pre-school children.

TV-inspired academic impact

Professor Malcolm Johnson from the University of Bath Centre for Death & Society said: “The warmth of the reception of our ‘Old Peoples Home for 4 Year Olds’ programmes has been remarkable and heart-warming.

“Our production team, who have cared so well for the older people and the children, have enabled viewers to see the authentic ways in which old and young have lit up each other’s lives. Excellent television has demonstrated the benefits of intergenerational engagement with an effectiveness far beyond a hundred academic reports.”