Whicker's World

Run Run Shaw is a film mogul who makes more than 60 feature films a year. His magic formula is not sin and sex, but blood and guts; sagas whose heroes and heroines perform implausible swordfights and back-somersaults to the tops of buildings. Whicker meets this Chinese wizard at his Hong Kong studios.

Gamesmanship in Thailand is one step beyond; picture Derby Day with elephants. And when it comes to a wicker ball game... it's simply too much, as Alan Whicker discovers.

A look at the dominant role played by women in the Thai business world. Demure Oriental ladies control hotels, fleets of buses, navies of river boats; Whicker finds it's not the executive suite in Thailand, but the sweet executive.

It’s the Chinese New Year’s Day and Alan Whicker focuses on a picturesque Chinese race and their strange ‘centuries-old’ pattern of life - the Boat People, whose homes, shops, restaurants and brothels (or ‘flower-boats’) all float.

Whicker reports on the many Chinese risking death in their attempts to escape from China to Hong Kong. Many succeed each year, and are received with rueful resignation by the Hong Kong authorities, already struggling to house a population of four million people.

Following in the footsteps of Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour, Whicker takes the Road to Bali - a remote, enchanting island just beyond reality. As he explores the undiscovered paradise that has been called "the morning of the world", Whicker asks whether Bali can escape the fate of other tropical islands and resist the onrush of tourism.