Parade’s End

In 2012 Benedict Cumberbatch portrayed the character of Christopher Tietjens in the five-part BBC period drama series Parade’s End, an adaptation for tv of the tetralogy of novels by Ford Madox Ford. The screenplay was written by Tom Stoppard, and the series was directed by Susanna White.

Set before and during World War I, the adaptation focuses on the love triangle of Anglican Christopher Tietjens, second son of the lord of the manor of Groby, Yorkshire, who is a disconsolate, Tory statistician in London, and his wife Sylvia Satterthwaite, a Catholic – which doesn’t stop her from being promiscuous, self-centered and downright evil at times. The socialite woman only married him – after a heated sex session during a train ride – to hide the fact that the child she was carrying at the time might be someone else’s – or Christopher’s. To complete it all, there’s Valentine Wannop, young and tolerant in thinking, she’s not only a suffragette, but also the daughter of a lady novelist. Valentine – in the course of the story – is very torn between her idealism and her attraction to “Chrissy”. Continue reading →