Brian Cox's Jute Journey (2009)

Hollywood actor Brian Cox is a son of Dundee. It's the big constant in his life. He grew up amid the clatter of the Jute mills, where both his parents began their working lives. The Jute trade, making hessian from India’s ‘golden’ fibre, dominated Dundee for over a century, linking it with Calcutta. Now it is fast becoming a memory. This documentary is a journey into Brian Cox’s own past, and on to Calcutta in the footsteps of the Dundee Jute workers who left to seek their fortunes in India.

Director: Brian Ross

Producer: John Archer

 

Review:

 

The Sunday Times
November 29, 2009

AA GIll

Scotland is the only region that is making a distinct identity for itself on television at the moment. There is a little age of reason on television across the Tweed, and this week it was led by the actor Brian Cox, who made a really interesting and unusual and rather beautiful documentary, Brian Cox’s Jute Journey, linking Dundee to Calcutta. The jute made the sack that the empire came in, but it was wrapped up and made obsolete by the ubiquitous plastic bag. Dundee was always known as the city of jute, jam and journalism. Today, it’s smack, crack and prostitution.