The Somme: The First 24 Hours with Tony Robinson

Jul 3, 2016

0h 45m

★ 0.0

Overview

Hosted by actor and historian Sir Tony Robinson, this one-off special tells the powerful and moving story of five men, all members of a unique volunteer army – the Sheffield City battalion – as it recounts the soldiers’ last days, leaving their homes and loved ones to go and serve alongside their friends and neighbours, completely unaware of what lay ahead of them. Central to the programme is the story of Private Frank Meakin, who recorded his unique personal testimony of the war. Frank and his friends could never have anticipated what they would experience, but 100 years on we know in detail, thanks to his diary – an account that shouldn’t have existed, because keeping one was forbidden for servicemen on active duty on the Western Front. Frank’s diary, which was smuggled back from the Front, reveals the intimate details and dramatic stories of one battalion – and one British city – in the words of one man.

Genres

Documentary

The Somme: The First 24 Hours with Tony Robinson Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Presenter

Tony Robinson

Private Frank Meakin

Simon Ashland

Captain William Folley

Carl Wharton

Private Alf Casey

Richard Thirlwall

Private Reg Glenn

Josef Dawes

Sergeant Will Streets

Jon M Coleman

Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.

6.2

The 1882 Transit of Venus

Dec 6, 1882

Telescopic chronophotography of the 1882 transit of Venus as observed from Lick Observatory.

0.0

Grandpa's Still in the Tuff Shed

May 24, 2003

Award winning documentary filmmakers, Robin, Kathy and Shelly Beeck, with the help of filmmaker Michael Moore, have spent the last five years filming a 60-minute feature-length documentary on Bredo Morstoel, a Norweigan who was frozen by his grandson in 1983. Since then, the world famous...well...stiff has been lying under 800 pounds of dry ice in a TUFF SHED behind his grandsons' castle-like house in the 9000-ft Colorado ski town of Nederland. The grandson, Trygve Bauge, has long since been deported back to Norway, but Grandpa Bredo has remained, unwittingly becoming a worldwide symbol of the legal rights of the temporarily dead....

0.0

Septembre Chilien

Jan 1, 1973

Bruno Muel's documentary on the coup in Chile in 1973. Muel, who was part of the famed Medvedkine group, along with Chris Marker and Jean-Luc Godard, among others, captured one of the most powerful portraits of the early days of Dictatorship. Profound solidarity with the socialist cause, Muel and his team showed great courage to mix the official registration of images with those triumphant, clandestine, of the nascent opposition.

8.0

Congrès de Tours 1920: The Birth of the French Communist Party

Dec 12, 2020

No overview available.

0.0

Rosslyn Chapel: A Treasure in Stone

Oct 4, 2010

The exquisite Rosslyn Chapel is a masterpiece in stone. It used to be one of Scotland's best-kept secrets, but it became world-famous when it was featured in Dan Brown's the Da Vinci Code.

9.0

Tasmanian Devil: The Fast and Furious Life of Errol Flynn

Oct 17, 2007

The story of Tasmanian-born actor Errol Flynn whose short & flamboyant life, full of scandals, adventures, loves and excess was largely played out in front of the camera - either making movies or filling the newsreels and gossip magazines. Tragically he was dead from the effects of drugs and alcohol by the time he was only 50 & the myths live on. But there is another side of Flynn that is less well known - his ambitions to be a serious writer and newspaper correspondent, his documentary films and his interest in the Spanish Civil War and Castro's Cuba

7.9

The True Story of Pirates

Dec 31, 2022

Thanks to new excavations in Mauritius and Madagascar, as well as archival and museum research in France, Spain, England and Canada, a group of international scholars paint a new portrait of the world of piracy in the Indian Ocean.

10.0

The Battle of Vimy Ridge

Mar 21, 1999

A two-hour documentary which recreates for the viewer one of the greatest battles in Canadian military history. The film was made to show that Canadian character at its best, forging an identity for a country that before the First World War had been seen only as a British colony - an identity and a character that became recognized and respected throughout Europe.

10.0

The Last 100 Days

Mar 28, 1999

Canadian military accomplishments in the last hundred days of World War I, when the German Army was destroyed, surpassed those of any other army. The Canadian success was, in no small measure, due to Arthur Currie, whom a recent British historian describes as "the most successful Allied General and one of the least well known."

10.0

Sam's Army

Mar 1, 1999

Canada was led to war by a bigoted, ignorant, self-obsessed Minister of Militia, who may well have been clinically insane, but the importance of Canada's contribution in that war owes a great deal to him. The man of course, was Colonel - later made Lieutenant General by his own hand - Sam Hughes. Sam's Army is a compelling portrait of a complex man and the formidable military he built. Sam Hughes was not your standard-issue military leader. Canada's World War I Minister of Militia and Defence concentrated power in his own hands, insisted that the Canadian military use the ill-conceived Ross rifle and liberally promoted his cronies. But there was no denying Hughes was a visionary. He assembled the world's largest-ever volunteer army and bucked superiors to keep his ferocious fighting force together in one Canadian Corps.

0.0

Echoes of the North: Four Chapters in Time

Nov 6, 2022

A new film made from more than a hundred fragments of archive film, Echoes of the North transports you back to Northern England a century ago, taking its audiences down the highways and byways of northern life in the early 20th century - its industries and rural life, its wartimes and festivals, its transport, holidays, family excursions and huge, city-wide occasions.

6.4

Hamilton: One Shot to Broadway

May 9, 2017

It’s the hit musical that changed Broadway forever and brought the genius of Lin Manuel Miranda to the attention of legions of fans across the world. A story of how a group of mavericks made an unlikely marriage of hip-hop and history to create the biggest show in America…and are getting ready to conquer the world. Featuring interviews with Miranda, as well as the cast and crew of Hamilton.

7.5

Le Siècle des couturières

Mar 7, 2022

No overview available.

No Image Available

0.0

Gallipoli: The Untold Stories

Apr 26, 2005

This program provides, through 1st hand accounts & contemporary films & photographs, a rare insight into what really happened. Together with meticulously researched stories, it provides a unique analysis of the Gallipoli campaign, including never-seen before interviews with the last 10 Gallipoli Anzacs, rare film footage showing the beach & trenches at Gallipoli.

7.1

Gallipoli

Mar 18, 2005

The Gallipoli campaign of World War I was so controversial & devastating, it changed the face of battle forever. Using diaries, letters, photographs and memoirs, acclaimed director, Tolga Ornek, traces the personal journeys of Australian, New Zealand, British and Turkish soldiers, from innocence and patriotism to hardship and heartbreak.

0.0

Cheshire Territorials at Abergaveny

Dec 1, 1913

A holiday of sorts for Stockport army reserves, fitting high-jinks between drills over two weeks of summer training in South Wales.

6.4

Roundhay Garden Scene

Oct 14, 1888

The earliest surviving motion-picture film, and believed to be one of the very first moving images ever created, was shot by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince using the LPCCP Type-1 MkII single-lens camera. It was taken on paper-based photographic film in the garden of Oakwood Grange, the Whitley family house in Roundhay, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire (UK), on 14 October 1888. The film shows Adolphe Le Prince (Le Prince’s son), Mrs. Sarah Whitley (Le Prince’s mother-in-law), Joseph Whitley, and Miss Harriet Hartley walking around in circles, laughing to themselves, and staying within the area framed by the camera. Roundhay Garden Scene is often associated with a recording speed of around 12 frames per second and runs for about 2 to 3 seconds.

0.0

Ballymanus

Sep 13, 2023

10 May 1943. Something is spotted drifting ashore off the coast of Northwest Donegal, Ireland. Something that would change the lives of the local people forever.

7.4

14-18: The Noise & the Fury

Nov 11, 2008

Not everything has been told about World War One. This documentary tries to explain how tens of millions of men could have suffered the unbelievable toughness of life in trenches during the 4 year ordeal. How could they have accepted the idea of a sure death or injury while not being able to tell why they were fighting.

The Somme: The First 24 Hours with Tony Robinson

Overview

Genres

The Somme: The First 24 Hours with Tony Robinson Trailers