'The Great War': War in TV and film with Dr Peter Busch

‘We are telling a story as great as that of the Bible’, wrote Tony Essex to Gordon Watkins in 1964. These television producers had been given the opportunity of a lifetime - to bring to life the first major multi-episode television documentary on the Great War for the 50th anniversary. In this episode, we talk to Dr Peter Busch, historian and expert in propaganda and strategic communication, about how the ‘Great War’ made TV history and transformed historical documentaries going forwards. He discusses how the BBC used innovative techniques, including eye-witness testimonies to represent the voices of ‘ordinary’ people, but also the extent to which televised or cinematic representations of war can blur fact and fiction, in ways that aren’t always clear to us.