The Making of Modern Britain

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[edit] General Information

History Documentary hosted by Andrew Marr and published by BBC in 2009 - English narration

[edit] Cover

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[edit] A New Dawn

In the first of a six-part series, Andrew Marr revisits Britain at the dawn of the 20th century. He finds the country mourning the death of Queen Victoria; fighting an intractable war against the Boers in South Africa; enjoying the bawdy pleasures of music hall; and worrying about the physical and moral strength of the working class.

[edit] Road to War

Andrew Marr continues his rollicking account of the early 20th century, placing the era as a time of seeming innocence captured in children's classics such as The Wind in the Willows. But we shouldn't be fooled: "Edwardian Britain has been covered by a golden, dappled glow," Marr tells us, reclining in a punt on a golden, dappled river. Yet "Dark, angry storm clouds were brewing." The big storm was the First World War, but before that there were other rumblings - dockers' strikes and battles over women's suffrage. The jittery archive clip of Emily Wilding Davison running in front of the king's horse at Epsom is shocking to watch.

[edit] The Great War

Propped up by familiar but endlessly haunting footage from the trenches, Andrew Marr tackles the Great War and its repercussions in the third part of his captivating history series. His authoritative, newshound tone and an unfussy script help make this accessible but never simplistic. Marr balances a behind-closed doors examination of Asquith's cabinet (and later, Lloyd George's parliamentary "dictatorship") with a look at life on the Western Front and how working in munitions factories changed women's lives forever. We're also reminded that the German zeppelin-bombing raids on London, though they killed far fewer than the Blitz, were arguably more horrifying. People had only just become used to planes, when they were confronted with 500-foot balloons, nicknamed "Baby Killers", "lobbing death".

[edit] Having a Ball

The fourth film in Andrew Marr's epic six-part series charting the events that shaped Britain. In the 1920s, Imperial Britannia slid from view and a more modern Britain tried everything new, as a great age of experiment arrived in politics, writing, art, sex and drugs. The decade saw a post-war housing boom, the birth of radio broadcasting and the creation of the BBC, but the General Strike and the Wall Street Crash brought Britain's roaring twenties to a dramatic close.

[edit] Little Britain

The fifth film in Andrew Marr's epic six-part series charting the events that shaped Britain. A climate of betrayal, political extremism and unemployment pervaded 1930s Britain, with the country descending into chaos following the financial crash on Wall Street. Modern Britain had one eye on the future and one nostalgic eye on the past, but with Fascists on the march in Europe, our reticent nature was put to to the test, and the country finally chose confrontation over appeasement.

[edit] Britannia at Bay

The final film in Andrew Marr's epic six-part series charting the events that shaped Britain. Marr concludes his series with a vivid account of Britain in the Second World War, beginning with an examination of the events at Dunkirk. Marr finds some surprising twists to legendary stories, including the fact that the Battle of Britain was not simply a story of reckless bravery, but also a one of lethally efficient command and control.