Series 1-5 of the groundbreaking BBC Radio 4 play charting existence on the home front during Globe War One

First heard on radio between 4 August 2014 and 9 November 2018, each episode of House Front is defined exactly a hundred years prior to the broadcast date, and each follows a single character’s day. Together they make a mosaic of experience from a broad cross-section of culture, mixing historical reality with enthralling fiction to explore how regular people coped with daily life in wartime Britain..Read More about House Front: The Complete BBC Radio Collection Quantity 1

The storyplot begins in Folkestone, as the first troops march off to leading lines. Soon, households like the Grahams and the Wilsons starts to feel the impact of battle, as the wounded return and 1st Belgian refugees, then Canadian troops, get to the seaside resort. Furthermore, the White Feather and suffragette actions grow in popularity, and a tide of grief increasingly leads people to thoughts of the hereafter.

Industrial Tynemouth, meanwhile, is experiencing a quite different war. The factories and shipyards are in peak production, and more ladies are joining the workforce. In the munitions manufacturing plant, owner Geoffrey Marshall and his family must adjust to the changing moments – as must workers like Fraser and Edie Chadwick.

Tackling themes like the outbreak of battle, recruitment, industry, profiteering and spiritualism are some of radio’s foremost dramatists including Katie Hims, Sebastian Baczkiewicz and Shaun McKenna. Among the considerable solid are Michael Bertenshaw, Keely Beresford, Freddie Fox, Ami Metcalf, Edmund Wiseman, Barbara Flynn, Mark Stobbart and Toby Jones, with Dame Harriet Walter making a cameo appearance as Emmeline Pankhurst.