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Airdate: The War That Changed Us

ABC screens a docu-drama that brings to life six distinctly-different Australian experiences of WWI.

2014-08-09_1731Next Tuesday night ABC begins a 4 part docu-drama The War That Changed Us that brings to life six distinctly-different Australian experiences of WWI.

This draws upon personal testimonies, letters, diaries, speeches and newspaper articles and focuses on key characters:

Foot soldier Archie Barwick (Myles Pollard) from Tasmania; army nurse Kit McNaughton (Jane Watt) from southwest Victoria; Boer war veteran Harold ‘Pompey’ Elliott (Luke Hewitt) from Melbourne; English born, farm labourer’s son Tom Barker (Tom Milton); peace campaigner, Vida Goldstein (Virginia Gay) and pro-war crusader Eva Hughes (Alexandra Jones).

Driven by human stories, rather than the detail of military history, the series offers an opportunity to get close to the actual experience of war, and to learn how it changed the lives of those involved. As a result the political becomes personal and the epic everyday. We watch the series protagonists struggle with the opposing influences of imperialism and independence, militarism and pacifism, Old World enmities and New World utopian ideals.

The War That Changed Us uses dramatic reconstruction, location filming, expert analysis and colourised black and white archive to tell a gripping tale spanning three continents over four brutal years. The events of 1914-18 not only changed the course of human history, but would also test the mettle of one of the world’s newest nations – Australia.

8:30pm Tuesday August 19 ABC.

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