Jessica Dromgoole is Editor of Home Front, Radio 4's historical drama which spans the Great War. Here she explains how the programme is being used to launch the , an experimental online project on 成人论坛 Taster.
is a daily Radio 4 drama with a difference. It is a pithy and – I hope – delightful moment in a listener’s day. Each episode is set exactly one hundred years prior to broadcast, telling one fictional character’s story from that day with some genuine history thrown in too. Five characters’ stories are shared from Monday to Friday each week, with the collective played out each Friday evening as an .
Following the programme’s , Paul Donovan of the Sunday Times wrote “Home Front is a poignant, quietly compulsive portrait of ordinary life a century ago, at once completely different and wholly recognisable”. We’re very proud of that, and what we’ve achieved with this programme so far, and hope to continue entertaining and educating our audience as the seasons pass.
Currently in Season 4, the project is planned to last 15 Seasons, a total of 600 episodes spanning the entire war, beginning on 4 August 1914 and ending on 9 November in 1918. We hope the sum of this work will be a partial account of ordinary people’s fortunes during the Great War.
Whilst the ambition is for the drama to feel organic; there are also strict timings to adhere to.
Each season is set in one place, and explores a different theme of the Great War. So far we have had the outbreak of war, the devastating slump in recruitment and the swathing industrial changes which followed. The current season touches upon profiteering and we’re currently working on Season 5, which charts the rise in spiritualism, and planning Season 6, looking at casualties and nursing.
I’ll forgive you if you haven’t quite kept up, but you can begin to get a sense of how big this project is.
Now consider staying on top of the family trees of EastEnders, or the last time there was a farming scandal in The Archers… Step forward .
Tracking information for programme makers has been an ongoing mission for the 成人论坛 Research and Development team. We were more than happy to be used as a guinea pig when they invited us to participate in an experimental online project which could not only go on to aid programme makers across the 成人论坛, but also create something beautiful for Home Front listeners to delve in to.
Part of the Home Front Story Explorer homepage on 成人论坛 Taster
Via the Home Front Story Explorer our regular listeners, and we hope new listeners, can navigate their own way through the fortunes of characters, locations, storylines, and national, international and local history in multiple dimensions.
Whether you’re most interested in one character’s progress through the war, a location that you may know, or a particular narrative, now you can trace their stories like threads pulled from the fabric of the whole.
With illustrations by Ivan Allen, and text by journalist Nick Curtis, it’s easy to click through the progress of the Home Front narrative and listen only to the scenes that appeal. Links to small 成人论坛 features and blogs mean that the relevant historical research is also there at your fingertips.
The Home Front Story Explorer is an example of the work 成人论坛 R&D are doing to explore new experiences that become possible as programmes are increasingly delivered over the internet.
For us it’s an incredible resource for our writers. It’s more than just an easy reference to the story that’s gone before, with every detail easy to locate. It’s the mulch from which new stories can grow, and an inspiration to keep Home Front pithy and delightful. We hope our listeners enjoy using it as much as we do.
Jessica Dromgoole is Editor of Home Front
- Home Front Story Explorer can be found on .
- Home Front is broadcast on 成人论坛 Radio 4, 12.04pm Monday to Friday, and episodes are available to listen again on .