World on Fire is back on our screens for season two, and while fans have been loving the show’s return, eagle-eyed history fans have noticed some glaring errors with the new drama - but did you spot them? Find out more here…
Posting on Twitter, one person wrote: " Really trying to give the second series of #WorldOnFire a chance. But in the two episodes so far we’ve seen a Willy’s Jeep in the desert and a Dodge WC54 in Paris in what is supposed to be the tail-end of 1940 - both not manufactured for another two years." Another person added: "#WorldOnFire or 'Oh what a cosy War!' … Things that DIDN'T happen: keeping Dogs, everyone having electricity and worse still, leaving endless lights on during the day! (We had no electricity 'till early 60s),having slap up roast dinners, eating sweets, not carrying gas masks!"
Another person joked: "Watching the new series of #WorldOnFire and whilst it’s proving a great bit of drama, I can’t help but wonder who thought RAF pilots wore chopped-up General Service respirators as oxygen masks."
© Steffan HillDespite the historical inaccuracies, viewers have been very complimentary of the show’s second instalment, which finally landed on iPlayer after a three-year break from season one, partly due to the global pandemic.
The show’s creator, Peter Bowker, opened up about season two, telling the BBC: "As always, we tell stories which have an unforced and not always comfortable contemporary resonance, stories that demonstrate both human resilience and human folly and stories of ordinary lives in extraordinary times. Historical drama should not be about nostalgia and I hope this isn’t how this series is regarded.
© Barney Cokeliss"It is about asking questions of the present by interrogating stories from our past. And at the heart of these stories, amongst multiple perspectives, the single question remains – “If you had been there, what would you have done?"
© Jack McGuirePlenty of the original cast returned for part two, with the likes of Helen Hunt, Sean Bean and Arthur Darvill being noticeably absent. However, The Little Mermaid star Jonah Hauer-King was among those returning in his role as Harry.
MORE: Where was World on Fire season 2 filmed?
"Film and television dramas are an incredible platform for telling human stories and honouring the people who sacrificed so much," he explained while discussing the show. "Those brave people won't be around forever, but the trauma lives on. Series like World on Fire is a wonderful way for younger audiences to engage with this period of history and it pulls together stories from across the world, from India, France, Germany, Poland. I'm proud to be part of it."
© Steffan HillThis isn’t the only World War II drama Jonah has been a part of recently, as he is also set to star in the adaptation of The Tattooist of Auschwitz as Lale Sokolov. The true story follows Lale, a Jewish prisoner, who is given the job of tattooing identification numbers on fellow prisoners’ arms in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp during World War Two.
