Tommies | |
Format: | Drama |
Runtime: | 45 minutes |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Language: | English |
Home Station: | BBC Radio 4 |
Syndicates: | BBC Radio 4 Extra |
Starring: | Lee Ross Pippa Nixon |
Creator: | Jonathan Ruffle |
Director: | David Hunter Jonquil Panting |
Producer: | David Hunter Jonquil Panting Jonathan Ruffle |
Narrated: | Indira Varma |
Opentheme: | composed by Nina Perry [1] |
Num Series: | 5 |
Num Episodes: | 47 |
Audio Format: | Stereo |
Tommies is a British radio drama series, broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was part of the BBC's World War I centenary season and was broadcast over four years,[2] the same length of time as the war itself. Based on actual unit war diaries, it tells the story of a one day in the conflict exactly 100 years ago to the day of an episode's release.
Most of the episodes are set in either Flanders (the trench lines of the Western Front) or the Balkans (Salonika front), while a few narrate events in Africa or the Near East. The two principal characters are Mickey Bliss, a professional signals (wireless and telephone) NCO of the Indian army, whose initiative leads to his becoming an intelligence officer, and Celestine de Tullio, an English doctor who volunteers as a medical officer with the Serbian army in the Balkans, partly to avoid both her estranged family and Mickey Bliss.
The three of the radio plays are series creator and writer Jonathan Ruffle and directors David Hunter and Jonquil Panting. Other writers include Ruffle, Michael Chaplin, Nick Warburton, Avin Shah and Nandita Ghose.
"Mickey Bliss" is Cockney rhyming slang.