Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern BritainEpisodes Guide

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.There are stories of political intrigue between David Lloyd George and his arch-enemy Joseph Chamberlain, as well as the beginning of the struggle for women's suffrage. Plus an account of the day Mr Rolls met Mr Royce and kicked off a revolution in motoring.With powerful archive and vivid anecdotes, Andrew Marr gets to the heart of Edwardian Britain. He brings to life Britain's struggle to maintain its imperial power in the world in the years before the First World War.

Britain basks in the heat of a long Edwardian summer, but tension and violence are never far below the surface. Women are attacked while campaigning for the vote, Ireland is divided over liberation from theBritish Empire, and dockers and miners strike for improved conditions and wages.With magical archive footage and vivid storytelling, Andrew Marr explains why fears of a German invasion were stoked by the popular press. He also shows how the radical new Liberal chancellor, David Lloyd George, faced a very modern dilemma: pensions or battleships, welfare or warfare? With the birth of flight and the movies, this is also a story of magnificent men in their flying machines, and future Hollywood stars Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel touring together across Britain.The assassination of an archduke in Sarajevo sets in motion the wheels of world war. In the corridors of Westminster old allies Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George fight over strategy. Out on the streets, the people are eager for battle, determined to 'teach the Hun a lesson'. Britain is on the road to war.

Britain gets its first taste of total war. Marr argues that no shock has ever hit these islands with quite the force of what became known as the Great War. It transformed the lives of the British people - mostdramatically the millions who fought on the frontline, but also those at home who were bereaved, bombed, uprooted and bankrupted.With vivid archive and extraordinary anecdotes, Andrew Marr tells the story of Lord Kitchener's volunteer army - the biggest in history. He also describes German gunboat assaults on the north east coast of England; the strange disappearance of Britain's first sea lord at the height of the war; the first bomb ever to fall on Britain; and the sex scandal that threatened to destroy the British establishment.Visiting the trenches of Flanders, Marr imagines the horrors of industrialised warfare and reveals the gallows humour that thrived there. Three quarters of a million men never returned from the battlefields. At home, civilians pulled together and worked for the war effort as never before. Under the premiership of David Lloyd George, they also witnessed the birth of 'big government' in Britain.

Andrew Marr's epic series charting the events that shaped Britain.In the 1920s, Imperial Britannia was sliding from view and a more modern Britain tried everything new and asked endless questions about how we should live our lives. A great new age of experiment arrived in politics, writing, art, sex and drugs. Survivors of the Great War threw themselves into the new urban scene of nightclubs, cocktails and jazz, where royalty, gangsters and Hollywood stars rubbed shoulders with new money.With rare archive material and vivid anecdotes, Andrew Marr tells the story of the post-war housing boom; the birth of radio broadcasting and the creation of the BBC; and revolutionary union activities on 'Red' Clydeside. Michael Collins risked his life by negotiating with Lloyd George over Ireland, and his assassination kicked off a bloody civil war that was feared by some to be the beginning of the end of the British Empire. The modern scourge of political sleaze engulfed Lloyd George in a cash-for-honours scandal involving blackmail, spies and the strange disappearance of a radical MP. The General Strike and the Wall Street Crash brought Britain's roaring twenties to a dramatic close. As the cocktail party of the decade came to an end, there were uncertain times ahead for modern Britain.

Andrew Marr's epic series charting the events that shaped Britain.For Andrew Marr, the story of Britain in the 1930s was one of betrayal, political extremism, unemployment and... hats. Bowlers, trilbies, tophats and flat caps were everywhere, as the country descended into chaos when the financial crash on Wall Street engulfed Britain. Solutions to the national crisis were offered by Britain's most unlikely paramilitaries, the Greenshirts.Another way forward came from the Blackshirts, led by Britain's very own pantomime villain Oswald Mosley. With fascists on the march in Europe, Britain perfected the ability to look the other way and hope for the best. Dazzled by Gracie Fields and delighted by Butlins, Britain also had one nostalgic eye on the past, building mock Tudor homes for the new commuter class.With vivid anecdotes and fascinating archive, Andrew Marr argues that appeasement, not confrontation, was the British way. Only the lone voice of Winston Churchill warned of the horrors ahead. In an age of big, bad ideas, Britain in the 1930s could appear small-minded and reticent, but Andrew Marr invites us to look a little harder and see how 'Little Britain' was tested, and faltered, before finally coming of age as modern Britain was born.

The final film in Andrew Marr's epic six-part series is a vivid account of Britain in the Second World War.Marr's story of 'the people's war' begins with the defeat that came to define modern Britain's national spirit: Dunkirk. In 1940, Britain stood alone against the might of the German war machine. Churchill produced the words that stirred the Blitz spirit, but a Nazi invasion seemed inevitable. How could Britain fight on? The 'Dad's Army' of the Home Guard was hastily assembled and Britain was forced to pull together in ways it never had before.Andrew Marr finds some surprising twists to legendary stories; the Battle of Britain was not simply a story of reckless bravery, but also a one of lethally efficient command and control. The Blitz was a devastating attack from the air that everyone had dreaded, yet it didn't break the spirit of the people or dim their humour.This was also the boffins' war, and Churchill understood the importance of science. He was prepared to give away Britain's most highly classified scientific and military secrets to help bring the Americans into the conflict. This wooing would help bring victory. But it came at a price: a bankrupt nation, a crumbling empire and a US cultural invasion that defines modern Britain to this day.