User reviews

Parade's End is Tom Stoppard's new adaption of Ford Madox Ford's First World War novel. One knew it was going to be good as soon as one noticed that the novelist's first and last name were the same – a sure sign of a serious and thoughtful writer.

The series stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Christopher Tietjens – a tightly wound, deeply honourable English gentlemen with an annoying penchant for not having sex with beautiful women who want to have sex with him. They pursue him, they flirt with him, they sometimes get down on their knees and beg him, but old Christopher doesn't want to know. He is far too busy being tightly wound and deeply honourable.

Directly by Susannah White, Parade's End is BBC costume drama at its most costumy, with plenty of expensive tweed, pinched in waistlines, and heaving powdered cleavage.

For daily TV reviews visit Mouthbox.co.uk

Cumberbatch must have watched many thousands of hours of Edward Fox movies, as he seems to have perfectly mastered Fox's uniquely contorted lower facial expression – that of pressing one's lips together and using one's cheek muscles to somehow force one's down-turned mouth painfully southwards towards the chin.

Rebecca Hall, (daughter of Sir Peter) plays Tietjens' beautiful but sex-starved socialite wife, who on one occasion strips naked in front of her husband, only to be told that he can't bear to turn away from the wall and look at her. On another occasion the poor woman is so desperate for intercourse that she jumps into a taxi in London, drives hundreds of miles to where he is fighting in France, and practically throws herself on top of him in the trenches. Meanwhile, Christopher's sagging mouth slides further and further down his face as he daydreams about his beautiful suffragette admirer Valentine (Adelaide Clemens), and what it might be like to not have sex with her again when he returns home to Blighty.

Clearly Parade's End is intelligent, beautifully crafted drama, without the TV soap-like qualities of the more mainstream Downton Abbey, and Benedict Cumberbatch is destined to become one of our finest serious actors. That is, of course, if he manages to avoid being cast as Doctor Who.

The first thing about this series is that the photography and production design is sumptuous and stunning. Even if the story and characters were of no interest, the visual appeal of this is memorable.

The only strange thing in this aspect of the production is that the music in scenes for the parties is jazz - 1920s sounding jazz. It is very odd and historically inaccurate for the social status of the story as jazz entered England in 1919, apparently.

As to the core of it, well, it is an abbreviated working of a complex set of novels written in a certain way and Stoppard has done well with the time limits etc of the medium. It works but one is always aware of what is being abridged to make it fit.

Cumberbatch is the most intense, internal English leading man in a long while and seems to have borrowed Jeremy Irons's mandible crunching pensiveness. But he is absolutely right here.

Hall as Sylvia Tietjens is ravishing and confused in right order. Her performance is entitled' and arrogant, though it might be a bit too modern in its overtness.

Highly recommended.

"Parade's End" is a five-part miniseries from England starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Rebecca Hall, Rupert Everett, Miranda Richardson, and Janet McTeer. Based on the novel by Ford Maddox Ford, the script was written by Tom Stoppard.

The story is about the British upper class pre- and during World War I, focusing on Christopher Tietjens (Cumberbatch) and his wife Sylvia (Rebecca Hall). Christopher is an honorable man and extremely repressed, it seems - he won't sleep with the woman he loves (Adelaide Clemens) because he's married, but then he's not sleeping with his wife, who has been unfaithful to him and may or may not have given birth to their son.

Tietjens eventually joins the war office rather than staying in safety because he considers it more honest than what he's being asked to do at his job as a government statistician.

I didn't read the book -- according to the reviews, the role of Sylvia is not supposed to be sympathetic, and Rebecca Hall has been criticized for this. I would submit it's not her fault, it's the director's - I'm sure she could have acted the role any way she was requested to do it.

The director cast young Adelaide Clemens as Tietjens' would-be mistress, though their relationship isn't consummated before or during the war. I have to agree with reviews, for a suffragette, she's pretty vapid.

Benedict Cumberbatch is one of the greatest actors today, and again, as reviews have pointed out, he has now achieved matinée idol status. Originally HBO did not want him in this series because they didn't know who he was; by the time the series was ready to be filmed, they said it had to be with Benedict or they wouldn't do it! Christopher isn't supposed to be a matinée idol - he's described as bulky and unattractive. Cumberbatch gained weight for the role to make himself look a little bigger, though by no means bulky, and he wore inserts in his face to kill those incredibly high cheekbones. He also does something with the jaw area - he had jowls and an unusual way of using his mouth, which has been compared to Edward Fox's and Jeremy Irons' jaw movements. It's part of his characterization, so he actually doesn't look like the dashing Sherlock, between that, his weight, and his lighter hair. He's also lowered his voice, which was pretty low to begin with.

All in all, it's a brilliant performance. He really is a true chameleon. Christopher, however, to Americans anyway, is difficult to understand with his uptightness and his honor, just like one lost patience with Ashley Wilkes and his mixed messages to Scarlett.

And since Cumberbatch is now a matinée idol and if you're a woman, what you're waiting for is some sex and boy, there wasn't much of that, though we did get to see his bare chest when his shirt was open. Wow. We who have seen him do love scenes, such as in The Last Enemy, were left pretty much like Sylvia -- frustrated.

There are some beautiful scenes and some very gritty war scenes, plus lots of symbolism to be had. This series has been compared to Downton Abbey but it is in no way a soap opera. It's much more subtle; it moves slowly, as that way of life did, with everything looking good on the surface but bubbling with scandal and problems underneath.

A great effort that succeeds in part, with some wonderful acting.

I personally doubt that keywords such as 'love triangle' or 'suffragette' do any justice to this excellent rendition of Ford's novel. Christopher Tietjens' so very noble, honorable and occasionally heroic behaviour in every aspect of his intentions and actions, as well as the overall background of WWI petty intrigues, the so vivid rendition of the atrocious human suffering & desperation on the front line are the true show stealer. Excellent performances by all cast, in particular Benedict Cumberbatch (huge in his role !!!), Rebecca Hall and Adelaide Clemens... Oops ! This is the very 'love triangle' I was arguing against just a few seconds ago... One more actor who's absolutely perfect in his role is Roger Allam, as General Campion. Drawing the line: viewers of all ages and every level of education should find this series to match every bit of their expectations... Irrespective whether these rather look towards the 'love triangle'... or they go much deeper into psychoanalysis of intimate family, friendship, love relations or the noblesse of human behaviour under deeply stressful conditions. Today's human society is in serious need of individuals such as Christopher Tietjens... (not really the 'last' parade... I hope...). Highly recommended, absolutely nothing is obsolete or worthless in this movie rendition of British society during the WWI years !

I'm sure that HBO marketing execs were relieved that, if they were going to get behind a 5-part series based on Ford Madox Ford's complex and not terribly well known 20th-century masterpiece, at least some of it would be set in a stately home in the north of England, like that other show about the downtown abbey.

Ford's a great one for interior monologue and multiple points of view and such, but Tom Stoppard's masterly adaptation channels the great muddy river of his prose into a lively, involving narrative—though there's still enough time-shifting and flashbacking, even some Eisenstein-style montage, to do honor to Ford's avant-garde intentions. Considering what difficult material he's dealing with, it's one of the best TV adaptations ever!

Benedict Cumberbatch has always done well in period films, and he seems like the only possible choice for Christopher Tietjens, a self-styled 18th-century gentleman (the time period of the series is roughly 1908-19) and omniscient civil servant, but obstinate, brusque and arrogant as well (maybe even a little like Sherlock?). Rebecca Hall is riveting and surprisingly sympathetic as Tietjens's deceitful wife, Sylvia, and Aussie actress Adelaide Clemens is a revelation as Valentine, the virginal suffragette he meets and falls in love with in two of the series's most powerful scenes. (Tietjens and Sylvia, though usually at cross-purposes, are determined not to divorce—it's complicated….)

Tietjens is described by one of his wife's admirers as a "bloody great bolster" of a man—BC didn't have time to bulk up for the part, obviously—but he emerges as a poignant, even romantic, figure, with only the memory of the night he falls in love with Valentine to sustain him through six years of frustration, disappointment and danger. Perhaps it's easy to see why some viewers didn't find this storyline or this character very "relatable."

Long story short, '"Parade's End" isn't as accessible as an original costume drama devised for a contemporary audience, like "Downton," but it's decidedly worth watching. We didn't have a problem with BC's enunciation, but some of the dialogue, especially in the scenes with excited Welsh soldiers in the trenches, is admittedly not so easy to follow. (Next time we'll try the subtitles.) Great cinematography; kudos to the first-rate British cast, with special mention to Stephen Graham as Tietjens's fair-weather friend Macmasters and Rufus Sewell in a Pythonesque turn as a sex-crazed clergyman. An interview with Stoppard on disc two sheds some light on his process.

Not since A Dance to the Music of Time has such a stellar cast been allied to such an artful and unusual script.

Ford Madox Ford is not a popular novelist. His work often approaches its subjects on an elliptical curve, his principal characters are seldom in the mainstream of society, forming odd relationships, requiring his audience to assimilate their understanding of them over the course of a whole work rather than categorise from their experience (or jump to conclusions based on genre). This explains why we don't see his work adapted very often. Or even at all.

Susanna White and Tom Stoppard have both grasped the nettle of demonstrating this sideways approach, though I'm not sure quite so many kaleidoscopic shots were necessary to drive the point home. Benedict Cumberbatch joins in, underlining his character's isolation with some rather off-putting facial gestures. Ronald Hines played Tietjens in the now lost 1960's adaptation and casting to type may have worked better than struggling with toning down the matinée idol status Cumberbatch has acquired since hitting Sherlock Holmes out of the park. Maybe if he and Stephen Graham had swapped roles the other characters might have found it easier to deal with Tietjens' self-enforced oddity but that may have impaired Ford's central point, beautifully delivered as the the climax to Episode 4.

But acting idiosyncrasies cannot mask the quality of the fabulous script or the overall adaptation which has a towering performance from Rebecca Hall and glittering additions from Rufus Sewell, Rupert Everett, Miranda Richardson, Roger Allam, Ann-Marie Duff and beautiful, note-perfect newcomer Adele Clemens.

With so much glossy soap about, it is extremely refreshing to have high quality, thought-provoking, challenging drama this good whatever the lead chooses to do with his jaw muscles.

A keeper.

The show was a very intelligent yet slow paced adaptation of very high quality source material. Sometimes I got impatient in certain episodes, but am glad that I stayed the course. Benedict cumberbatch was OUTSTANDING in the role. Just brilliant. His expressions, that quiver of emotion...it said much more than words. There were some deep moments, very poignant as well. Some witty ones also. I would have rated it 7.5 if option was there. Just stay with this show, it will be a rewarding experience.

Look, I'm usually a sucker for the stiff-upper-lip emotionally repressed English costume drama, but this one seems to be taking the mickey. Cumberbatch is faintly ridiculous, as is his trollop of a wife, while the young Suffragette with whom he is infatuated is scarcely adolescent and certainly not very characterful, which makes him seem more than a little creepy. Ann-Marie Duff is miscast as the neglected wife of a perverted vicar, while Miranda Richardson does her usual Queenie thing while Rupert Everett skulks around being homoerotically ambiguous. Hard to take it all seriously, and even Brits will struggle with some of the dialogue, especially Cumberbatch's aristocratic circumlocutions.

I don't like watching series or movies based on the wars but I watched this because of Benedict Cumberbatch and I have fallen in love with this series. I have not read the novels or have any idea about the writer but if the books are even half as good as the TV adaptation, they must be a must- read. Christopher Teijens is a brilliant, very committed and decent gentleman. He has a wife who cheats on him and he is love with a girl. At the backdrop is the world war 1. If you are looking for a story, there is not much of it but the true star of the show is the direction, cinematography, amazingly poetic dialogues and unblemished acting by the whole cast. The music compliments the settings and the backdrop very well. Benedict Cumberbatch has shown the world how talented he is. Flawless acting, deep emotions and superb voice modulations. Rebecca Hall and Adelaide Clemens have made the characters of Sylvia and valentine unforgettable.

Don't watch this if you are a fan of fast paced action. This is for patient, connoisseurs of literature and romantics. Watch it for intelligent viewership.

Set in the early twentieth century, PARADE'S END revolves round a love-triangle involving Christopher Tietjens (Benedict Cumberbatch), his wife Sylvia (Rebecca Hall) and Tietjens' mistress Valentine Wannop (Adelaide Clemens). With a screenplay ably written by Tom Stoppard, director Susanna White situates this story in the repressive world of bourgeois England, where appearances matter and emotions should be kept hidden at all costs. So long as people "seem" to be respectable, then everyone will be happy. Tietjens tries his best to maintain such (false) standards, but the experience proves too much for him, especially in the later episodes when he goes to fight in France and falls foul of just about everyone. In Hall's performance, Sylvia reminds me of the characters in Scott Fitzgerald's THE GREAT GATSBY in the sense that she seems hell-bent on destroying those around her. She refuses to play the social games required of her, and spends much of her time deceiving her husband. Valentine remains faithful throughout despite her mother's (Miranda Richardson's) entreaties, proving beyond doubt that love can conquer all. Martin Childs' production design is a wonder to behold, particularly in the scenes set in the First World War, where he manages to recreate the atmosphere of desperate squalor in the trenches, contrasted with the elaborate formality of life back in Groby Hall, Yorkshire. In the context of the First World War, British bourgeois life in the Hall seems symptomatic of a lost world. In the new world following the conclusion of the War, the characters can no longer rely on old certainties; they have to determine their own lives. Cumberbatch is particularly good at communicating this altered view: through a series of close-ups we watch his features harden as he finally rejects Sylvia and embraces a new life in his deserted London apartment. It might not have the opulence of his past life, but at least he can be himself. The narrative zips along at a brisk pace, offering viewers a lesson in changing values in British history as well as telling a thoroughly compelling tale. Definitely worth repeated viewings.

Scene for scene, there's some beautiful writing here, but the overall exposition is obscure, and becomes more so as the story progresses; the significance and relationships of some of the secondary characters remained murky to me throughout, as did the workings of the ruling class and the military command structure of the time.

The mood also seemed to fluctuate. The first episode was brilliant, funny, sometimes breathtaking; after that, the story just seemed to become cluttered with weak subplots, while the motivations of our hero and his wife seemed either implausible or simply uninteresting; as the story progressed, these characters became less fascinating to me, not more. Only the suffragette Valentine Wannop retained my interest and sympathy.

I think it's very hard for filmmakers to capture the "tone" of these poignant/satirical British novels of the first half of the 20th century. Charles Sturridge seemed to pull it off with "A Handful for Dust," but not with "Where Angels Fear to Tread." Merchant and Ivory managed it with "A Room With a View." This production succeeds in fits and starts, but by the closing credits I was left unsatisfied and glad to be done with it.

I read Ford Madox Ford's most celebrated novel "The Good Soldier" only last year and came to this dramatisation of his "Parade's End" with a good degree of expectation, tempered by some reservations about the anticipated over-writing by Tom Stoppard in bringing it to the small-screen. Reservations because I knew in advance that every character would be miraculously blessed with extreme loquaciousness, with almost no room for the plain everyday conversation that surely made even the Edwardian world go round, particularly in the trenches. Thus even ordinary soldiers in the heat of battle boast about their skill in translating sonnets into Latin pentameter, that most mundane of talents! At another point, Benedict Cumberbutch's Christopher Tiejens' character's young lover Valentine declares that their love is "like literature", which was probably the most opaque of a whole army (pun intended) of similarly opaque phrases proffered here.

As for the characters, I found them too many and too shallow and callow. I couldn't imagine cold-fish Tiejiens having an impulsive stays-busting romp in a train carriage with the venal but voluptuous Victoria, who, we learn later, uses her soon-afterwards child-birth as the means to trap him into marriage, for a child who isn't his. Other characters come and go, a mixture of the snobbish, the eccentric and the parasitic, individuals amongst them often re-emerging at the least expected moment, which for my money didn't help the narrative.

Acting wise, I found Cumberbutch underwhelming as the central character in the drama. He can do stiff upper lip crossed with pained guilt but little in-between. Rebecca Hall as his harlot of a wife does better as the promiscuous go-getter while Adelaide Clemens as his too obviously boyish-looking suffragette mistress never once appears natural and likewise fails to project her grand passion which supposedly outlasts the war.

The war scenes themselves are magnificently rendered in their realism and horror. I just wish that some of that realism had extended deeper into this drama of upper-class nabobs the likes of which I couldn't give a damn about.

Before "Parade's End," Rebecca Hall and Benedict Cumberbatch were last paired professionally in an unassuming romantic comedy called "Starter for 10," a film anchored by their friend James McAvoy. All three played university students. Although each turned in a good performance, the roles were not ones that required much acting range. In Parade's End, however, the roles of Sylvia and Christopher Tietjens allow both Hall and Cumberbatch to flex their considerable acting muscles. When both are in a scene, the scene is so riveting that it is hard to know which actor to watch.

Over the years, the 36-year-old Cumberbatch has built an impressive portfolio of work. He has been accurately described as a chameleon. He so completely invests himself in a role that it is sometimes hard to recognize the actor behind the character.

As Sylvia Tietjens, wife of wealthy landowner Christopher Tietjens, Hall holds her own against Cumberbatch. Her Sylvia is smart, narcissistic, beautiful, lusty, manipulative, and utterly fascinating. Her rival, suffragette Valentine Wannop, pales in comparison. While the younger Valentine is sweet, loyal, and plucky, she doesn't have Sylvia's fire.

Which woman will Christopher choose? You'll have to watch the series to find out. Along the way, you'll enjoy not only the performances of the three principal actors, but also the performances of a wonderful ensemble of able actors, including Rupert Everett, Anne-Marie Duff (coincidentally, the wife of James McAvoy, who joined Hall and Cumberbatch in "Starter for 10"), and others.

I had mixed feelings when I started watching the BBC drama. Having read some comments I had some fears. One of them was that I expected the series to be some kind of copy-paste of Downton Abbey. It wasn't. It is more subtle, evolves more slowly and has an almost inaudible air of pain and suffering. I couldn't help but compare it to Maughem's "The Painted Veil" that tells the story of a couple - a flippant wife of a doctor who is intellectually superior to her but too noble and and at the same time too proud to divorce her for betrayal. This story might seem similar however it has a greater depth. It's not only a man's parade trying to stand for what he truly believes in and finding himself abandoned by life and failing as a man. It's a vivid portrayal of virtues that are believed to be outdated but are in fact so modern and thoroughly relevant to today. And that's what salvages these series from being just another costume drama.

What surprised me most about the drama was Benedict Cumberbatch's performance. He has an incredible acting prowess to play roles that are so different from him. There is no Benedict neither in Sherlock nor in Mr Tiejens. He completely vanishes within the characters he plays altering his movements, speaking, laughing, joking etc. It's interesting to note what Benedict said speaking about the role "Christopher has many admirable qualities I'd like to siphon off into my life."

I believe Mr Tiejens is one of Benedict's best roles. He uses his voice like an instrument tuning it sometimes so deep and strong and sometimes subtle and gentle. It's an astonishing performance that definitely transcends TV dramas.

Wonderful performance by Benedict Cumberpatch for which he was nominated for an Emmy. Features a very good well known cast.

Adapted by the Tom Stoppard who has collected 4 Tony's and an Oscar for the script of Shakespeare in Love, this BBC/HBO miniseries is based on a highly regarded but relatively little known set of four novel by Ford Maddox Ford.

As always BBC proves they are the masters of the period piece/costume drama. The series is set largely during the First World War, though it begins a few a couple of years earlier. But it's not really about the war though a substantial part of the story takes place there, and the characters and the society in which they live are forever changed by it.

It's a wonderful story about love, and the challenges of the class structure, the still prevalent 19th century morals and in particular the anathema of scandal or embarrassment.

The series was nominated for five Emmy's and many other awards, it also got some great reviews. I'm quite surprised it isn't better known.

Parade's End is offputting at first, with Cumberbatch's bland, emotionally constipated Christopher hard to warm to and events somewhat unexplained.

But there were moments that caught my attention. Rebecca Hall is brilliant as Christopher's mercurial wife, and there's a fun bit with suffragettes invading a golf course.

This set the pattern for the whole series. There were good performances, like Stephen Graham's, and good moments, like the portrayal of war as a parade of idiots. But often it was unclear what was happening (perhaps because it was adapted from a "modernist" novel?), one character seemed to completely alter her personality mid series, and it was never believable that two women would be so passionate about the tediously ethical Christopher.

The period costumes and Hall's performance made this worth watching for me, but it was never entirely satisfying. I'm torn between rating it a 6 or a 7.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall are probably the two most outstanding thespians of their generation so it was probably fated that they should appear together in a filmed version of a classic novel, even if Ford is a less well known author. The subject matter is a love triangle brought to life by the opposing personalities of the two leads and the deceit that lies at the heart of their relationship. The introduction of a third party in the form of a young suffragette, completes the picture. Hall's slow realization that the man she married is an almost perfect husband despite her many faults and her inability to turn things around almost makes the viewer sympathetic and the caltalysing effect of World War I on all the leading characters is mesmerising. Whilst the story isn't as gripping as I hoped, the characterisation and interaction between the leads is perfect. If they wer'nt man and woman, I would have difficulty deciding who was the better of the two. So all in all, an interesting series beautifully crafted with superb locations, breathtaking cinematography and sure handed direction, but not quite a classic for me, even if it is an acting masterclass.

The costumes and sets are the only things going for this awful miniseries. One might compare it to a poorly written Downtown Abbey with better costumes. I was so disappointed by this series. It had so much potential, great acting and a lot of hype, but the script totally let me down. The plot and timeline were horribly ambiguous. significant events were either totally left out, or completely brushed over and you were expected to understand what had occurred without any explanation. There were too many unexplained loose ends which made the overall series painful to and frustrating to watch. Half the time I couldn't follow the dialogue at all because it jumped around, and you were expected to read between the lines of what was being said. But unlike a novel, you cannot hear the inner thoughts of characters and as such, are not privy to the themes running behind what is actually being said. The lines were brilliantly delivered by the cast, but even the most skilled of actors cannot overcome a sub par script. The only other thing that can be said of this mini series is that the sexual frustration of all characters was likely due to the fact that nobody had any idea of what was going on ever.

Oh, and they made Valentine incredibly annoying. She could have been awesome, but came across as a naive, whiny, self absorbed would-be suffragette chasing after a married man she was "in love with" after one night in the mist. Laughable.