The first scenes in the opening episode of World on Fire was set in an Oswald Mosley rally. Who would have thought Mosley would be dominating sunday night television on the BBC. He also featured on the latest series of Peaky Blinders.
Writer Peter Bowker has written an interweaving story in a broad canvas that spans several countries in the run up to the second world war.
Factory worker Lois Bennett (Julie Brown) and her posh boyfriend Harry Chase (Jonah Hauer-King) cause trouble with the Blackshirts at a rally in Manchester. The police arrest them instead of the fascists. Her father Douglas (Sean Bean) a bus conductor and world war one veteran who is now a pacifist gets Lois released.
Harry is a translator at the British Embassy in Poland where he also has a second girlfriend, Kasia. His mother Robina (Lesley Manville) is a self confessed elitist and sympathises with Mosely.
American journalist Nancy Campbell (Helen Hunt) observes the arrival of German soldiers on the Polish border. She wants to be the first with her story of the Nazi invasion of Poland.
The first episode really served as an introduction with the vast array of characters that somehow link with one or another. Nancy's nephew is a doctor in Paris who might be falling for a jazz musician.
It is well filmed, there is immediate action as we see two Polish soldiers trying to escape with their lives. Some of the writing comes across as clunky. Everything is in broad strokes at the expense of characterisation.