Neil Brand

Neil Brand introduces and accompanies this fascinating programme of films, music, stories and readings from the pivotal year of 1916.

Joined onstage by readers, he invites us into a lost world of wartime activity on the Western and Home fronts – while the soldiers attempt to break the deadlock with the disastrous Battle of the Somme and the first appearance of 'The Wonder Weapon', The Tank, their wives and families at home are struggling to keep the home fires burning, ‘making do and mending’ and learning to create luxurious suet puddings from potatoes, as recommended by Henry Edwards and Chrissie White, the Brangelina of their day.

War art, wax records of night attacks that sold in their thousands and films of everything from pantomime shows and female impersonators to a railway ride through a bombed city – the extraordinary panorama of 1918 as it happened to a stunned populace at home and abroad springs to life in this involving and surprising show.