37 Days (TV series)

{{Infobox television

| image = 37 Days.png

| image_size =

| image_alt =

| caption =

| genre = Drama

| creator =

| based_on =

| writer = Mark Hayhurst

| screenplay =

| story =

| director = Justin Hardy

| starring =

| narrated =

| composer = Andrew Simon McAllister

| country = United Kingdom

| language = English

| num_series = 1

| num_episodes = 3

| producer = {{Plainlist |

Mark Hayhurst
Lucy Bassnett-McGuire
Susan Horth }}

| editor = Adam Green

| cinematography = Douglas Hartington

| runtime = 177 minutes

| company = Hardy Pictures

| budget =

| network = {{Plainlist |

BBC Two
BBC Two HD }}

| first_aired = {{Start date|2014|3|6|df=yes}}

| last_aired = {{End date|2014|3|8|df=yes}}

}}

37 Days is a British drama miniseries that was first broadcast on BBC Two from 6 to 8 March 2014. The three-part miniseries covers the 37 days before World War I, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914 to the United Kingdom declaring war on Germany on 4 August 1914.{{cite news | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/ww1/drama.html | title=Drama | work=BBC | date=16 October 2013 | access-date=22 October 2013}}

Cast

File:37 Days Cast.jpg.]]

Ian McDiarmid as Edward Grey
Nicholas Farrell as Eyre Crowe
Tim Pigott-Smith as Herbert Henry Asquith
Sinéad Cusack as Margot Asquith
Bill Paterson as Lord Morley
Kenneth Cranham as John Burns
Ludger Pistor as Bethmann-Hollweg
Rainer Sellien as Kaiser Wilhelm II
Bernhard Schütz as Helmuth Moltke
Mark Lewis Jones as David Lloyd George
Nicholas Asbury as Winston Churchill
Urs Remond as Prince Lichnowsky
James McArdle as Alec
André Kaczmarczyk as Jens
Holger Kunkel as Falkenhayn
Stephan Szasz as Jagow
Kate Ambler as Muriel
François-Éric Gendron as Paul Cambon
Niall Cusack as Benckendorff
George Lenz as Mensdorff
Chris Kelly as Gavrilo Princip
Oliver Ford Davies as Cunliffe
Patrick Fitzsymons as King George V
Ian Beattie as Tsar Nicholas II
Simon Coury as Franz Ferdinand
Rainer Reiners as Von Below
Gordon Fulton as Sukhomlinov
Mary Moulds as Sophie Chotek
Christopher Leveaux as Lieutenant Feldmann

Production

The series was shot entirely in Belfast, Northern Ireland.{{cite web | url=http://www.northernirelandscreen.co.uk/news/3543/37-days-on-bbc-two.aspx | title=37 Days on BBC Two | work=Northern Ireland Screen | date=3 March 2014 | access-date=10 March 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140310095855/http://www.northernirelandscreen.co.uk/news/3543/37-days-on-bbc-two.aspx | archive-date=10 March 2014 | url-status=dead | df=dmy-all }} It is part of the BBC World War I centenary season and was first announced by Janice Hadlow, the controller of BBC Two, on 22 August 2013.{{cite news | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/two-four-new-commissions.html | title=Janice Hadlow announces raft of new BBC Two and BBC Four commissions | work=BBC | date=22 August 2013 | access-date=22 October 2013}} The series seeks to quash assumptions about the war's inevitability, such as the Sarajevo shooting making the war inevitable.{{cite news | url=https://www.thetimes.com/comment/register/article/bbc-serial-37-days-to-overturn-assumptions-about-first-world-war-z02rj29j9kf | title=BBC serial 37 Days to overturn assumptions about First World War | work=The Times | date=22 August 2013 | access-date=22 October 2013 | author=Jackson, James}}{{cite news | url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/ww1-beyond-the-mud-and-trenches-bbcs-plans-for-the-centenary-of-world-war-one-8877564.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220506/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/ww1-beyond-the-mud-and-trenches-bbcs-plans-for-the-centenary-of-world-war-one-8877564.html |archive-date=6 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live | title=WW1 beyond the mud and trenches: BBC's plans for the centenary of World War One | work=The Independent | date=13 October 2013 | access-date=22 October 2013 | author=Burrell, Ian}}{{cbignore}}

Writer and producers Mark Hayhurst and Sue Horth compiled a 175-page book tracing "every conference, every telephone call, private letter and telegram swirling around Europe" before writing the script.{{cite news | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/posts/37-Days | title=37 Days: Changing my perspective of WWI | work=BBC | date=7 March 2014 | access-date=14 March 2014}}

Episode list

{{Episode table |total_width=50 |background=#BFE0BF |overall= |title= |director= |writer= |airdate= |viewers= |country=UK |viewersR={{cite web | url=http://www.barb.co.uk/whats-new/weekly-top-30 | title=BARB Top 30s}} |episodes=

{{Episode list

|EpisodeNumber=1

|Title=One Month in Summer

|DirectedBy=Justin Hardy

|WrittenBy=Mark Hayhurst

|OriginalAirDate={{Start date|2014|3|6|df=yes}}

|Aux4=2.89

|ShortSummary=

|LineColor=bfe0bf

}}

{{Episode list

|EpisodeNumber=2

|Title=One Week in July

|DirectedBy=Justin Hardy

|WrittenBy=Mark Hayhurst

|OriginalAirDate={{Start date|2014|3|7|df=yes}}

|Aux4=2.14

|ShortSummary=

|LineColor=bfe0bf

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{{Episode list

|EpisodeNumber=3

|Title=One Long Weekend

|DirectedBy=Justin Hardy

|WrittenBy=Mark Hayhurst

|OriginalAirDate={{Start date|2014|3|8|df=yes}}

|Aux4=1.84

|ShortSummary=

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Reception

The series was positively reviewed by critics.

In a four-star review for The Times, Andrew Billen called the series "a clear and often brilliant dramatisation" and praised McDiarmid's portrayal of Grey as "surely one of the actor's greatest performances" though he found "the humour becomes slightly broader" in the scenes set in Berlin and Vienna and that the subplot of the two clerks "rather peters out".{{cite news|last1=Billen|first1=Andrew|title=TV Review: 37 Days|url=https://www.thetimes.com/comment/register/article/tv-review-37-days-g0g6n2st8gn|work=The Times|access-date=21 April 2017|language=en}}

In a four of five-star review for The Telegraph, Christopher Howse found the series "enthralling" but was distracted by the use of the Belfast City Hall as a location for Whitehall.{{cite web|last1=Howse|first1=Christopher|title=37 Days, BBC Two, review|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/10681832/37-Days-BBC-Two-review.html|website=Telegraph.co.uk|date=6 March 2014 |publisher=The Telegraph|access-date=21 April 2017|language=en}}

Andrew Anthony of The Guardian called the series a "meticulous rendering" and "impressively wordy and careful imagining" free of "romantic digressions or fictional appeals to sentiment", with a "strong performance" by McDiarmid; he also found the drama "rigid and simplistic" with "dubious stereotypes and an excess of rhetorical dialogue".{{cite web|last1=Anthony|first1=Andrew|title=37 Days; Line of Duty; Mind the Gap: London vs the Rest – review|url=https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/mar/08/37-days-line-of-duty-mind-the-gap-review|work=The Guardian|access-date=21 April 2017|date=8 March 2014}}

In The Independent, Ellen Jones wrote the series' "masterstroke" was "to reframe this history textbook timeline as a subtle character study", praising its "terrifically well written" dialogue.{{cite web|last1=Jones|first1=Ellen E.|title=37 Days, TV review: A political thriller that grippingly uncovers the countdown to war|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/37-days-tv-review-a-political-thriller-that-grippingly-uncovers-the-countdown-to-war-9174790.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140308034341/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/37-days-tv-review-a-political-thriller-that-grippingly-uncovers-the-countdown-to-war-9174790.html |archive-date=2014-03-08 |url-access=limited |url-status=live|work=The Independent|access-date=21 April 2017|date=6 March 2014}}