{"id":4751,"date":"2026-02-11T00:01:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T00:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/1970-the-office-christmas-party-man-alive-classic-bbc-documentary-bbc-archive\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T00:01:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T00:01:16","slug":"1970-the-office-christmas-party-man-alive-classic-bbc-documentary-bbc-archive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/1970-the-office-christmas-party-man-alive-classic-bbc-documentary-bbc-archive\/","title":{"rendered":"1970: The Office Christmas Party | Man Alive | Classic BBC Documentary | BBC Archive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe  width=\"580\" height=\"385\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OxAzCyCY7Ms?autoplay=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<br \/>It can be the greatest pitfall of the social year. And it can be followed by a 12-month hangover. If your boss hasn&#8217;t spoken to you since, it&#8217;s a fair bet that you had a good time at your office Christmas party. Traditionally, it&#8217;s the one night of the year when the firm&#8217;s hierarchical structure, that normally so rigidly holds sway, totters towards anarchy.<\/p>\n<p>Reporter Gillian Strickland and the Man Alive team took a typical office and filmed the preparations for the annual party, the spree itself, and the aftermath. Here is the answer to every question a stay-at-home partner has ever asked; and here is the party from differing points of view: the young secretary in her first job; the executive who doesn&#8217;t want to drink with the people he works with; the lady in accounts who once knew a more elegant style of party giving &#8211; and the bosses who foot the bill.<\/p>\n<p>Clip taken from Man Alive, originally broadcast on BBC Two, 4 February, 1970.<\/p>\n<p>You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of TV to educate, entertain and enlighten you with classic clips from the BBC vaults.<\/p>\n<p>Make sure you subscribe so that you never miss a single stop on our amazing journey through the BBC Archive &#8211; https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/BBCArchive?sub_confirmation=1<\/p>\n<p>You can also dive into plenty more BBC Archive on our website &#8211; https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/archive<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OxAzCyCY7Ms\">source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It can be the greatest pitfall of the social year. And it can be followed by a 12-month hangover. If your boss hasn&#8217;t spoken to you since, it&#8217;s a fair bet that you had a good time at your office Christmas party. Traditionally, it&#8217;s the one night of the year when the firm&#8217;s hierarchical structure, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":4752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9548,9547,9556,9558,9555,9562,1023,1019,15,1022,1021,1020,9554,1026,9549,1308,9551,1025,9560,9561,9550,9552,1027,1024,9553,1028,9557,9559],"class_list":["post-4751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie","tag-1970s-documentary-uk","tag-1970s-nostalgia-uk","tag-60s-office","tag-70s-christmas-party","tag-70s-office","tag-70s-party-footage","tag-archive","tag-archive-bbc","tag-bbc","tag-bbc-archive","tag-british-tv-nostalgia","tag-classic-tv","tag-fly-on-the-wall-documentary","tag-legendary-television","tag-man-alive-bbc","tag-man-alive-documentary","tag-man-alive-the-office-party","tag-nostalgia","tag-office-1960s","tag-office-1970s","tag-office-documentary","tag-old-bbc-documentary","tag-retro-tv","tag-the-bbc-archive","tag-the-office-party-1970","tag-vintage","tag-work-christmas-party","tag-work-in-the-1970s","post_format-post-format-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4753,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4751\/revisions\/4753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}