YOU can spend the night at home with Larry Grayson (as long as you don’t forget to “shut that door”) or see high jinks in the street at the 1928 Durham Miners’ Gala.

Then again, you might like to learn how to cut back and lay a hedge with the aid of a trusty land girl in a 1942 information film called Hedging.

Or even ogle “gratuitous nudity masquerading as a South West travelogue” in Naked – As Nature Intended, dating from the early 1960s.

All these and much, much more are on offer at the BFI (British Film Institute) Mediatheque at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle.

The collection enables the viewer to revisit over a century of history and culture, industry and politics from the Victorian era into the 21st Century.

The films and documentaries are drawn from the BFI National Archive and the Northern Region Film and Television Archive. And this “great British film and television show” is all free.

So what exactly is the Mediatheque? It’s described as a digital jukebox of film and TV featuring many of the best, the rarest and the most extraordinary titles from the national archive, with added local interest titles.

All you do is choose from over 1,800 films and TV programmes – including more than 100 showing life in Newcastle and the North-East – then settle down to watch them at one of the museum’s viewing stations.

It comes recommended by London leisure and listings magazine Time Out as “one of our greatest national cultural resources” and by Distant Voices, Still Lives director Terence Davies, who calls it “wonderful” and adds, “I could have watched all day”.

Being the BFI, there are plenty of British feature films dating from the silent era to the present day – everything from Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail (1929) to Shane Meadows’ Dead Man’s Shoes (2004).

TV comedy includes such oft-repeated favourites as Fawlty Towers, as well as rarely-seen archive treasures featuring the likes of the Crazy Gang and Joyce Grenfell. Going back even further are offerings from the very first years of film in Britain.

Holyhead Mail Boat from 1898 and a 1903 version of Alice In Wonderland are among them.

The Book Group offers a guide to British literary adaptations for cinema and TV. You know the sort of thing – Dracula, 1984, and Rebecca.

The Joy Of Sex Education collection finds the British Social Hygiene Council coming to the rescue of a young man who’s caught something nasty in Any Evening After Work from 1930.

In New Styles of Architecture, made in 1993, Alan Bennett surveys the architectural landscape of post-World War One Britain. And for sports lovers there’s an Edwardian football match as Newcastle United tackle Liverpool at St James’ Park in 1901.

The Official Film of the Railway Centenary, dating from 1925, finds the future George VI and Queen Elizabeth celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington Line.

One Man’s Story, made in 1947, is a part-dramatised tribute to Dr George M’Gonigle, the Stockton local hero. The town itself smiles for the camera in a 1910 film commissioned by a local cinema.

Racing swimmers take the plunge in top hats and tails at a Tynemouth Swimming Gala in the Haven, North Shields (1901). Keeping the watery theme, Tyneside (1941) shows the building on the River Tyne of the Dominion Monarch, the most powerful motor liner in the world.

Open Pandora’s Box and enter a world of “the odd, the esoteric, the delightful and the downright dangerous”. Who can resist such an invitation to see early appearances by the now-famous and fragments of films about which the experts know next to nothing.

The Mediatheque certainly offers a different viewing experience than sitting with a tub of popcorn at your local mulitplex or chilling out in front of the TV.

• For a complete list of titles available in the BFI Mediatheque and for more information visit twmuseums.org.uk/discovery You can just drop in and browse or, if you prefer, plan your viewing in advance. The museum is open 10am-5pm Mon, Thurs-Sat; 10am-8.30pm Tues; 10.30am-5pm Wed; and 2- 5pm, Sun.