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Commissions

Greenlit: Railway Nation: Across Britain In A Day, BBC2

Railway Nation: Across Britain In A Day w/t – This is Britain – in verse. Train carriages are one of the few spaces left in Britain where all walks of life meet. With British people now taking double the amount of train journeys they did in 1997, this programme celebrates Britain’s love of trains by asking six poets – Sabrina Mahfouz, Michael Symmons Roberts, Liz Berry, Andrew McMillan, Imtiaz Dharker and Sean O’Brien – to capture, in verse, the human stories of those on board one railway journey across the country.

Beginning in London and ending in Glasgow, this journey follows a similar route to that which W.H Auden and Benjamin Britten took when they created Night Mail almost 80 years ago – a work which told the story of Britain as it slept one night. Railway Nation: Across Britain In A Day reinvents this journey for the 21st century by following travellers during the day.

The voices of travellers of all ages and backgrounds, and from across the different regions of Britain will be weaved with those of the six poets observing them, to capture a day in contemporary Britain. They’ll capture the meaning of these journeys, what the travellers are hoping for and even what becomes of them when they arrive. It’s a train journey which will reveal us to ourselves as we travel urgently, hopefully, despairingly towards our destinations.

Platform: BBC2

Producer: Blast! Films

TX: Autumn 2016

Source: BBC press release

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