Paul Honey scores new David Olusoga feature doc

David Olusoga steps back in time to explore the tumultuous 400 year history of one of the nation’s best-known public spaces, the Covent Garden Piazza.

Over four centuries the Covent Garden Piazza has been a market, a meeting place, and a site of protest, performance and renewal.

In this 90-minute feature documentary scored by Paul Honey (A House Through Time), David Olusoga walks back in time to explore its tumultuous history, and with the help of a host of experts and eye-witnesses, conjures up the ghosts of the past – market traders, orphans, sex workers and activists.

Produced in conjunction with Storyfutures Academy and the BFI, the film uses rich visual and written archive and state-of-the-art virtual production techniques. Telling the story of the Piazza from its early years as a playground for the aristocracy, through decline and dereliction to eventual rebirth, the film is a love letter to one of the nation’s most iconic public spaces.

The People's Piazza: A History of Covent Garden is an Uplands TV production. The executive producers are Mary Crisp and Mike Smith and the director is Chris Durlacher.

It screens at the forthcoming London Film Festival prior to broadcasting on the BBC in November.