In the run up to the Queen's Diamond Jubilee weekend The House The 50s Built takes the opportunity to celebrate the science behind the inventions and innovations that changed the way we lived and made modern Britain, celebrating the genius of the decade that transformed black and white Britain into a technicolor wonderland.

Engineer and showman Brendan Walker sets out to discover the ingenuity, innovation and life-changing science behind the inventions that took drab post-war Britain and launched it, under its new young queen, into a colour-drenched world of tomorrow.

Brendan will learn from practical, hands-on experience exactly what it took to bring about the 50s revolution, experimenting with everything from how to make a formica kitchen to how to turn a vat of chemicals into a pair of super-sharp 1950s nylon trousers