In this unique documentary, actor John Shrapnel transports us to wartime France. He skilfully weaves past events and present perspectives as he outlines the subterranean struggle waged beneath the country’s terrain between 1916 and 1917.

We follow the search for a mine located deep within the bowels of a tactically important, and bitterly contested, area of the country. Rare archive photographs, recently unearthed celluloid material and sophisticated 3D animation, together with unique privately sourced material, provide us with a unique insight into these deadly subterranean skirmishes.

We consider a number of historical perspectives on the controversial actions of the miners and tunnellers on both sides of ‘The Underground War.’ British and German soldiers used stealth and guile, not to mention high explosives, to achieve their objectives.

We also look at the awful psychological and physical toll which these events took on men who suffered entombment, crushing, decapitation and gas poisoning.

Finally, we look to the future, revealing that many of the remaining charges under the old battlefields of the First World War are becoming increasingly unstable. We speculate over the calamitous consequences which the collapse of these forgotten underground tunnels could produce.