educational series  1996-2008

Andrew began his career as an in-house producer at the BBC, writing and directing series on subjects from the Roman Empire to the Medieval World.  Broadcast as part of the BBC’s public service output, these series were designed to meet the curriculum needs of classroom students from 8th to 12th grade.

 

History File: Nazi Germany

In 1996, Andrew made 'History File: Nazi Germany', one of the most impactful and widely used educational series ever broadcast on UK television. 

The series told the story of the Nazi era through the contrasting perspectives of ordinary people.  Like all of Andrew’s best work, it encouraged an empathetic response, enabling students to place themselves back in time and to ask what choices we might have made in comparable circumstances. 

‘History File: Nazi Germany’ has played a valuable part in the civic education of a whole generation of British schoolchildren.  It was re-transmitted by the BBC every year from 1996 to 2015, and at one stage, according to BBC research, it was in regular use in over 75% of British secondary schools.

Nazi Germany: videos
Führer Worship

A brownshirt describes the messianic appeal of Adolf Hitler. (With Joe Caffrey as Fritz Meuhlebach; narrated by Daniel Craig).

Boy Soldiers

For Henry Metelmann, the Hitler Youth offered adventure. In reality, he was being trained for war.

Opposition

Fritz Reck-Malleczewen describes the Bomb Plot against Hitler - and its aftermath. (With Guy Henry as Reck).

Final Solution

Elspeth Rosenfeld recalls the clearing of the Lubitz Ghetto. (With Denise Black as Elspeth).

Lodestar Productions

In 1997, Andrew left the BBC to found a London-based independent TV company, Lodestar Productions, which he ran until 2008 with a core staff of four and a freelance team of 20+.

Through Lodestar, Andrew continued his collaboration with the BBC, securing commissions and delivering educational content for teenagers, and he consolidated his reputation as the UK’s leading provider of broadcast educational history resources.

Series delivered in this period included:

  • ‘Soviet Russia and the Cold War’ - the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, told through the dramatized accounts of ten eye witnesses (10 x 25', 1997-8)

  • ‘Britain 1906-1918: A History in Photographs’ - Edwardian Britain, as captured by the pioneers of photojournalism. Presented by photographer Simon Roberts. (1 x 60', 2000)

  • ‘Seven Journeys in the American West’ - how the West was won (and lost), as described by a frontiersman, an emigrant, a prospector, a cowboy, a homesteader - and Black Elk, a holy man of the Lakota Sioux. (1 x 60', 2003)

American Voices

Andrew delivered 'American Voices' in 2000.  Of all the series he made for the BBC, it remains his favourite.

Covering US history from 1900 to 1941, the series reconstructs the oral testimony of 20 ordinary Americans. Their words are preserved in the files of the Federal Writers’ Project, a New Deal program which in the late 1930s commissioned out-of-work writers to transcribe the American experience. The 20 interviews dramatized in the series capture immigrant tales, stories of boom and bust, of the New Deal, and of Black America in the era of Segregation.

AmVox vids
Good Neighbors

Nannie Carson, a schoolteacher, describes social work in the Appalachian backwoods. (With Lolly Susi as Nannie Carson).

Working Lives

Two Black Americans - one in New York and one in Chicago - describe their daily lives. (With Lachelle Carl as Evelyn Macon and Ray Shell as Elmer Thomas).

Immigrants

Three immigrants describe their first impressions of New York City. (With Peter Polycarpou, Andy Lucas and Teddy Kempner).

Down and Out

Life on the streets in the worst years of the Depression. (With Allan Cordunner as the anonymous down-and-out).

I Loved to Dance

Minnie Stonestreet, a clerk, remembers the good times before the Crash. (With Lorelei King as Minnie Stonestreet).

The Blood of this Land

Moses Austen, a sharecropper, recalls a decade of Depression on one Southern farm. (With Clive Rowe as Moses Austen).

TIMELINES: A HISTORY OF BRITAIN

Between 2006 and 2008, Andrew made his final educational series for the BBC, a five-part history of Britain called ‘Timelines’. The series was written, directed and presented by Andrew, and produced by Lodestar Productions and October Films.

For more on this series, and its online incarnation TIMELINES TV, see here.