The BBC has announced that the British public broadcaster will mark the centenary of the First World War with a massive 2 500 hours of dedicated programming spanning four years starting next year in 2014 to 2018, echoing the time frame of WWI.
The ambitious 2 500 hours of television marks the BBC's biggest single subject undertaking ever and will start in 2014 with Britain's Great War, a new four part documentary series presented by Jeremy Paxman. The documentary series will explore how Britain and the lives of British people were changed by the First World War.
Aming the 130 programmes the BBC will roll out are two TV dramas - The Ark, taking viewers into the lives of the medics and their patients at a fictional field hospital behind the trences - as well as The Passing Bells which follows the story of two ordinary young men who are confronted with the devastation of WWI.
The Ark with six hour long episodes will star Oona Chaplin, Hermione Norris and Kerry Fox as a dedicated team of doctors, nurses and women volunteers working together to help the casualties of war.
"This season is going to have a profound impact on the way we think about World War One," says Tony Hall, the BBC's director general. "We'll be exploring how this conflict, above all others, shaped our families, our communities, our world - and continue to influence us today."
Other WWI related programming the BBC will roll out include The Necessary War, The Pity of War, Gallipoli, Long Shadow, The World’s War with historian David Olusoga, My Great War, War Poems, Great War Diary, 37 Days, Our World War, Teenage Tommies, The Story of Women in World War One, Royal Cousins at War, Pipers of the Trenches, Tommy and Jerry's Camera, To War, The Machine Gun and Skye's Band of Brothers, The Poet Who Loved the War, Writers of the Somme, Artists of War, Horrible Histories special, Emily's Army and My Story.
