Whicker in search of ex-pats

Press, 10 August 1985, Page 16

Whicker in search of ex-pats

From

Gillian Wainwright

in London Television globetrotter Alan Whicker is off on his travels again. He is making a 8.8. C. documentary series about British people who live and work in the United States. The 10 part series, called “Living with Uncle Sam,” looks at a broad cross section of people who have found success — and sometimes failure — in United States society. The rich and famous include Joan Collins, interviewed at the Warner Brothers film studios, and film actor Jim Dale, but most of the people in the programme are more mundane. “We carved up the United States geographically and each programme concen-

trates on the British people living in one area,” said the producer, Jonathan Steddall. “We deliberately went for a wide range of jobs, backgrounds and situations and the result is some fascinating and most unusual careers and life-styles." Whicker meets a former London policeman whose beat is now a particularly unpleasant area of Los Angeles, a British butler working in Texas and a kicker in a football team. Others he talks to include a British cowboj' in Colorado, jazz musicians in New Orleans, a former lead guitarist of the sixties pop group, “The Animals,” who is now a practising Sikh in San Diego and a cockney cab driver who now makes his living importing London taxis.