World War One
DVD: The Battles of Coronel and Falkland IslandsSaturday, 10 January 2015
Walter Summers (1892-1973), formerly Lt. Summers of the East Surreys and a highly decorated veteran of the Western Front, had already directed the Great War reconstruction films Ypres (1925) and Mons (1926) for Harry Bruce Woolf’s British... Read more... |
Conflict, Time, Photography, Tate ModernSunday, 30 November 2014
This huge exhibition is an awesome and terrifying compilation of photographs of the sites of conflict, and the remnants of wars and conflicts of all kinds – local, civil, short, long, global, technological, industrial and hand-to-hand. Taken from... Read more... |
Not About Heroes, Trafalgar StudiosWednesday, 12 November 2014
This time of remembrance has inspired a fascinating theatrical skirmish. In one corner, Nicholas Wright’s 2014 Regeneration, an adaptation of Pat Barker’s trilogy; in the other, Stephen MacDonald’s 1982 two-hander Not About Heroes. Both plays,... Read more... |
The Passing Bells, BBC OneTuesday, 04 November 2014
We seem to have spent most of 2014 examining the social, political, historical, geographical and military ramifications of the First World War. You would have thought, therefore, that the upcoming Remembrance Sunday commemorations could have been... Read more... |
Blenheim Palace: Great War House, ITVFriday, 03 October 2014
Julian Fellowes, now the Conservative peer Lord Fellowes, left behind the fictional world of Gosford Park and Downton Abbey to give us this sumptuous tour of Blenheim Palace. Nor were its surroundings neglected as vista after vista showed us... Read more... |
Flowers of the Forest, Jermyn Street TheatreSaturday, 27 September 2014
As we arrive at the last few months of 2014, the temptation to say “Enough! No more!” to representations of the First World War creeps in. The centenary of 1914 has been so comprehensively commemorated on our stages and screens that you could be... Read more... |
British Art at War: Bomberg, Sickert and Nash, BBC FourSunday, 14 September 2014
At the end of this absorbing documentary about the art – and life – of Paul Nash we visited his tombstone in a Buckinghamshire churchyard, accompanying writer and presenter Andrew Graham-Dixon as he laid sunflowers on the grave. He reminded us that... Read more... |
10 Questions for Playwright Nicholas WrightTuesday, 09 September 2014
This year the nation has been spirited back to 1914. Every aspect of the First World War has been explored - its causes debated, the horrific conditions on the front revisited. And yet there has been less talk of the psychological impact of trench... Read more... |
Our Zoo, BBC OneThursday, 04 September 2014
Well, it’s one way to cure shellshock. The centenary of World War One has produced quite a bombardment of dramas, none quite as curious as Our Zoo. The war is long since over in this new BBC One confection, and men have either come back from the... Read more... |
Prom 47: Britten War Requiem, CBSO, BBC Proms Youth Choir, NelsonsFriday, 22 August 2014
Nothing has resonated through the unfolding First World War commemorations more than the poetry of Wilfred Owen; and in terms of its grim immediacy and enduring heartbreak nothing ever could. Benjamin Britten knew that when he set down his War... Read more... |
The Great War: The People's Story, ITVMonday, 18 August 2014
The best thing about The Great War: The People’s Story is the variety of intonations and accents that reveal the characters of the individuals whose letters, memoirs and diaries are collected in the programme. Last week’s opening episode caught all... Read more... |
Kate Adie's Women of World War One, BBC TwoMonday, 11 August 2014
The role of women during the First World War has been heavily mythologised in a way that has cast them as both the angels of the home front and a force for positive political change. What made this documentary, written and presented by revered war... Read more... |
