An epic account of the events that shaped Britain, from the death of Queen Victoria to the end of World War II.
In part one of a six-part series, Andrew Marr revisits early 20th century Britain. He found a whole country mourning the death of Queen Victoria; waging a dogged war against the Boers in South Africa; enjoying the rough pleasures of the music hall; caring for the physical and spiritual strength of the working class.
Britain basks in the long, hot Edwardian summers, but the tension and violence are never far from the surface. Women are being attacked while campaigning to vote, Ireland is divided over its liberation from the British Empire, and longshoremen and miners are striking for better conditions and wages.
Britain got its first taste of total war. Marr argues that the islands were never hit by the so-called Great War. It changed the lives of British people – most notably the lives of millions of frontline combatants, but also those who mourned, bombed, displaced and bankrupt at home.
In the 1920s, the British Empire disappeared from view, and a more modern Britain tried everything new and asked endless questions about how we should live. A great new era of experimentation has emerged in politics, literature, art, sex and drugs.
For Andrew Marr, the history of Britain in the 1930s is one of treachery, political extremism, unemployment and… grazing. With the Wall Street financial crisis sweeping the UK and throwing the country into chaos, bowler hats, cocked hats, top hats and flat hats are everywhere. Britain’s most unlikely paramilitary group, the Celtics, offers a solution to a national crisis.
The final film in Andrew Marr’s epic six-part series brings to life Britain during World War II. Marr’s “people’s war” story begins with a failure to shape the modern British ethos: Dunkirk. In 1940, Britain faced the might of the German war machine alone. Churchill’s words shook Blitz Geist, but the Nazi invasion seemed inevitable.
