Unknown Warriors

In a programme of readings from poems, plays, letters and blogs, National Theatre actors reflect the new reality of warfare.

"The warring nations are engaged, not only soldiers, but men, women and children. The fronts are everywhere. The trenches are dug in the towns and streets. The front lines run through the factories."

When Churchill said this, in 1940, he was anticipating the unfamiliar horrors to come. Seventy years on, the community is often at the heart of a war zone, and the hallmarks of earlier conflicts – battlegrounds, massed lines of soldiers, even uniforms – are almost a thing of the past.

Compiled and directed by Jonathan Humphreys