Seriously...

Every 17 years in the eastern United States, a roaring mass of millions of black-bodied, red-eyed, thumb-length insects erupt from the ground. For a few glorious weeks the periodical cicadas cover the trees and the air vibrates with their chorus of come-hither calls. Then they leave a billion eggs to hatch and burrow into the dirt, beginning the seventeen year cycle all over again. Sing. Fly. Mate. Die. This is Brood X or the Great Eastern Brood. It’s an event which, for the residents of a dozen or so US states, is the abiding memory of four, maybe five, summers of their lives. In a programme that’s both a natural and a cultural history of the Great Eastern Brood we re-visit four Brood X years....1970, 1987, 2004 and 2021…. to capture the stories of the summers when the cicadas came to town. Princeton University's Class of 1970 remember the cicadas’ appearance at their graduation ceremony, during a time of student unrest and protest against the Vietnam War; a bride looks back to the uninvited - but welcome -