The Flu That Killed 50 Million

It is 1918 and the end of WWI. Millions have died, and the world is exhausted by war. But soon a new horror is sweeping the world, a terrifying virus that will kill more than fifty million people - the Spanish flu. Using dramatic reconstruction and eyewitness testimony from doctors, soldiers, civilians and politicians, this one-off special brings to life the onslaught of the disease, the horrors of those who lived through it and the efforts of the pioneering scientists desperately looking for the cure. Narrated by Christopher Eccleston, the film also asks whether, a century later, the lessons learnt in 1918 might help us fight a future global flu pandemic.

5.917

48 min

Cast

Christopher Eccleston

as Narrator

Paul Birchard

as William Welch

Iain Davie

as Ernest Gibson

Jeremy Edwards

as Basil Hood

Kenny Fullwood

as Alexander Jamieson

Amy Kennedy

as Katherine Garvin

Hannah Macphail

as Ada Berry

Isabel McClelland

as Mary Dobson

Brian Pettifer

as Victor Vaughan

Allan Tall

as James Niven

Anita Vettesse

as Catherine MacFie

Finlay Welsh

as Arthur Newsholme

Director

Andrew Thompson