''Churchill's People'' is a series of 26 historical dramas produced by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, based on

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

's '' A History of the English-Speaking Peoples''. They were first broadcast on

BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and Flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includ ...

in 1974 and 1975. It was produced to mark the centenary of Churchill's birth. The series was considered misconceived for multiple reasons, such as the studio-bound production which offered little in the way of realism and the lack of available funding. Each episode dealt with a particular period in British history, and the quality was consequently variable. Much of the acting was criticised, despite the involvement of Richard Johnson,

Robert Hardy Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy (29 October 1925 – 3 August 2017) was an English actor who had a long career in theatre, film and television. He began his career as a classical actor and later earned widespread recognition for roles such as Siegf ...

, Alan Howard, Colin Blakely,

Anna Massey Anna Raymond Massey (11 August 19373 July 2011) was an English actress. She won a British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA Best Actress Award for the role of Edith Hope in the Hotel du Lac (film), 1986 TV adaptation of Anita Brookner's novel ''Hotel ...

Gemma Jones Jennifer "Gemma" Jones (born 4 December 1942) is an English actress. Appearing on both stage and screen, her film appearances include ''Sense and Sensibility (film), Sense and Sensibility'' (1995), the Bridget Jones (film series), ''Bridget Jo ...

, and Edward Fox, amongst others. The series was reviewed at some length in the programme '' TV Hell'', which revealed that viewing figures had plummeted from 2 million at the series' launch to less than half a million by the fifth episode. The programme was swiftly buried in a later time-slot for the remainder of its run.

Nancy Banks-Smith Nancy Banks-Smith (born 1929) is a British TV critic, television and radio critic, who spent most of her career writing for ''The Guardian''. Life and career Born in Manchester and raised in a pub, she was educated at Roedean School. Banks-Smith ...

in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' described it as having "little to offer us but blood, horsehair and history. Though a hell of a lot of each."

Episodes

References

External links

*
TV Cream on ''Churchill's People''
Winston Churchill BBC television dramas 1970s British drama television series 1974 British television series debuts 1975 British television series endings British English-language television shows {{BBC-drama-tv-prog-stub