CHANNEL 4 LOOK BACK AT THE LAST FOUR DECADES - FIRST LOOK AT NEW SERIES

In this series, four iconic faces and some special celebrity contributors take us on a guided tour of all things Channel 4, from live autopsies and award-winning documentaries to Russian roulette with real guns, anarchic live shows and some of the most ground-breaking comedy ever seen.

In the first episode, Sir Lenny Henry steers through the 80s. Within a week of Channel 4 launching in November 1982, conservative activist Mary Whitehouse was decrying blasphemy in Brookside, and a certain game show involving word and number tasks made its debut at teatime.

In episode two, Vic Reeves goes back to the 90s and the heady days of legendary late-night fixture The Word, early morning sensation The Big Breakfast and the whirlwind that was Chris Evans. Father Ted, Brass Eye and Drop the Dead Donkey anchored a golden age of scripted comedy, and viewers were introduced to future megastars Ricky Gervais, Sacha Baron Cohen, Simon Pegg and intern-cum-weekend-daytime-presenter Dermot O'Leary.

In episode three, Davina McCall guides viewers through the birth of the Big Brother behemoth as the channel cemented its reputation as the home of insightful and outrageous social experiments. From Wife Swap and Supernanny to You Are What You Eat and How to Look Good Naked, each series reflected the digital-age desire to know every last detail about the lives of others.

In the final episode, Jimmy Carr takes viewers through the tens - a period where the fixed rig became responsible for capturing the very realest of reality TV with the likes of One Born Every Minute, 24 Hours in Police Custody and Educating... becoming must-watch TV. The channel also became the go-to destination for envelope-pushing drama, entertainment and comedy with the likes of Catastrophe, Chewing Gum, The Last Leg and This Is England. Gogglebox took the country by storm.

The four part series will air later this month on Channel 4.