Filming has begun in Bradford on a major film adoptation of Vera Brittain’s classic set around the First World War, Testament of Youth.

Dominic West, who found fame in The Wire, and Emily Watson, star of War Horse and The Book Thief, head the cast.

Principal photography began this week on the Heyday Films and BBC Films production, part financed by Screen Yorkshire's Yorkshire Content Fund.

The cast also includes Anna Chancellor, whose credits include Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Alexandra Roach, who appeared in the movies One Chance and The Iron Lady. Alicia Vikander plays Vera Brittain, and Kit Harington plays Roland Leighton, her fiancé.

Filming is taking place at an as yet undisclosed location in Bradford, as well as other areas of Yorkshire, Oxford and London.

The screenplay is adapted from Brittain's story of love and war, first published in 1933. She overcame the prejudices of her family to win a scholarship to Oxford but her literary dreams are thwarted by the First World War - as the boys leave for the front Vera realises she can’t sit by so she volunteers as a nurse and sets off for France. Vera was the mother of former Labour MP and founder of the Social Democrat Party, Shirley Williams.