British Television dramas and 1914-18

British television programmes about 1914–18 are generally produced, broadcast and received as memorials: small screen alternatives to stone and bronze. Across the drama and documentary genres, from the landmark epic series, The Great War (BBC, 1964), through to the avalanche of commemorative programming for the centenary, British television output has worked to parallel significant anniversaries of the war. The act of making and watching a programme about the First World War is an act of remembrance in its own right. This commemorative impulse, the visceral need to remember the war at significant points in time, means that small screen representations of the conflict are expressions of grief and consolation which continue to utilise established tropes of remembrance in their visual, aural and historiographical design. British television dramas, driven by emotive narratives which are heightened by the wartime context, continue to be a powerful and influential platform for representations of 1914–18. This chapter will provide a survey of representations of the First World War in contemporary British television dramas. As the essence of cultural history is to examine the signifying practices which indicate how societies make sense of the world in which they live, it will place the programmes in their cultural, social and political context.