Ian Hislop's Age of the Do-Gooders - Sinful Sex and Demon Drink

The pleasures and perils of booze and sex are the focus for the final episode of Ian Hislop's series about Victorian reformers, campaigners and philanthropists. In attempting to wean Britons off alcohol and away from vice, Ian wonders whether the 'do-gooders', despite their extraordinary energy and success in transforming every other aspect of 19th-century society, had finally bitten off more than they could chew. Ian recovers the hidden histories and remarkable lives of five individuals who gave their all to cure the nation's moral incontinence. But in doing so, Ian also encounters the occasional skeleton in the closet. Three-times prime minister William Gladstone spent a lifetime touring the streets of London's West End trying to rescue prostitutes. He brought many home to his wife, giving them a meal and a bed for the night. So was this pure philanthropy or something of a darker obsession? Meanwhile, pioneering sex educator Ellice Hopkins took her efforts to save fallen women one step further, by devoting her life to the thankless task of promoting male chastity. Joseph Livesey made his home-town Preston the epicentre of the global temperance movement. Thanks to his charisma, many took 'the pledge' of total abstinence. Yet many more continued to take what was known as 'St Monday' to sleep off their hangovers. The artist George Cruikshank had grown up an enthusiastic drinker but became one of the nation's most zealous temperance campaigners. His masterpiece, The Worship of Bacchus, reveals British society to be corrupted by alcohol from top to bottom. So why did Cruikshank leave a substantial wine cellar to his housemaid turned mistress?