Parade's End

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

definitely not a period soap .... both writer Stoppard and director White are giving it wellie and interest and FMF is new to me so will have to read it too .... sat down to it with very little positive expectation and became addicted by the tenth minute .... not to be missed this is intelligently filmed and acted and with real bite ...

Tgraf

Graun

Indie

[Nick Armstrong]

definitely not a period soap .... both writer Stoppard and director White are giving it wellie and interest and FMF is new to me so will have to read it too .... sat down to it with very little positive expectation and became addicted by the tenth minute .... not to be missed this is intelligently filmed and acted and with real bite ...

Tgraf

Graun

Recorded last night on BBC HD (where it is repeated tonight, btw) plus the accompanying documentary: now doubly looking forward to watching when an hour or so's oasis presents itself for some quality viewing

[Belgrove]

The first ten minutes, with its coarse acting and hackneyed imagery (all those steam pistons and train tunnels) was rather more 'Parody's End', but it settled into a less deliberate attention grabbing and more considered style thereafter. Worth persevering with, but not yet the classic the BBC would have us believe they have produced.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

The first ten minutes

addressed the ticklish chronology and not at all straightforward to my thinking .. and announced its attitude to the casual viewer

and the point may be that it is not a classic but a modern piece ....

[vinteuil]

I am a big fan of Ford Madox Ford. I am rapidly re-reading Parades's End to keep in advance of the telly version.

There's an extremely good Julian Barnes article on Parade's End in today's Guardian - in the Culture - Books section. Well worth reading for those watching the telly version who haven't (yet) read the book.

I thought the first episode on the telly was excellent - tho' I'm not sure how confused people who had not read the book might be. Mme V, who has not read it, was mystified in parts. But confusion is part of Ford's method, as Julian Barnes points out... I was amazed and impressed by how well they had conveyed various of the trickier moments.

I cannot think of a better choice than Benedict Cumberbatch to personify Tietjens - he just is so right... Rebecca Hall is (as Ford wd say ) "glorious" - I think the actress playing the Wannop gel will grow on me - she does a good gamine...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Barnes in Graun

[vinteuil]

... Calum : many thanks for providing the link!!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

.... sat down to it with very little positive expectation and became addicted by the tenth minute .... not to be missed this is intelligently filmed and acted and with real bite ...

EXACTLY my attitude and response, too, Calum.

[Anna]

Don't know the book at all, know very little about FMF. I think sometimes this is good as not going into an adaptation with preconceived ideas (cf the awful Great Expectations) Cannot agree with msg 3 at all I'm afraid. Also watched the following programme about Parade's End so I know a little more about how the story develops.
Test of a good drama. Do you engage with the characters? Goodness, I now really care about Christopher Tietjens and am worried about what may happen to him ......... and I hope Sylvia comes to a sticky end! So, thumbs up from me and can't wait for the following episodes.

[Nick Armstrong]

Don't know the book at all, know very little about FMF. I think sometimes this is good as not going into an adaptation with preconceived ideas (cf the awful Great Expectations) Cannot agree with msg 3 at all I'm afraid. Also watched the following programme about Parade's End so I know a little more about how the story develops.
Test of a good drama. Do you engage with the characters? Goodness, I now really care about Christopher Tietjens and am worried about what may happen to him ......... and I hope Sylvia comes to a sticky end! So, thumbs up from me and can't wait for the following episodes.

Not for the first time, Anna, we are in the same engine-shed

Really looking forward to this now!

[Nick Armstrong]

Hmmmmm.....

I've watched this now.

I was intrigued rather than absorbed or entranced. I knew nothing of Ford's writing, had no idea what to expect.

It looked wonderful, and there were some priceless scenes (the Curate arriving by bicycle to the breakfast)...

...but a lot of the characters and dialogue I found rather artfully bizarre and difficult to believe in. It's interesting to see in the Barnes article the accent laid on everyone exhibiting various degrees of madness. The result was a sort of precious (in the sense of 'affected') weirdness that reminded me of Peake or Carroll somehow. Tietjens's omniscient intelligence (oddly Sherlockian in Cumberbatch's mouth, of course) and devices like the Groby Great Tree - also a bit artificial and precious.

But intense performances, by and large: Rebecca Hall particularly good as the fascinatingly vile Sylvia.

I also thought the sound engineering was often poor (not something I ever particularly notice in films or TV) - either making what was said unintelligible (I had to rewind a couple of Cumberbatch's utterances several times to try and understand what he'd said, without success) or a scene unbelievable - there was one scene where Cumberbatch and Allam were talking in a field: the sound was completely unlike people talking outside.

I shall persevere with it but....

[french frank]

Hmmmmm.....

I bet it isn't half as good as Radio 3's version a few years ago. The complete tetralogy in one evening. It was extremely good, I thought, but rather long.

I sort of get it mixed up in my mind with The Good Soldier (must read again), probably because I've read that one and I only know Parade's End from the R3 production. Can't find a link to it.


[On my computer (but R3 website only goes back to 2007 ) ]

18 May 2003: 6.30-9.15


Drama On 3
Parade's End

A major dramatisation by Robert Forrest of Ford Madox Ford's quartet of novels. WH Auden wrote: 'There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them'.

In Malcolm Bradbury's view it is 'quite simply, the greatest modern war novel from a British writer'. The four books, published between 1924 and 1928, follow Christopher Tietjens, scion of an old and wealthy family of Yorkshire gentry, from his privileged but troubled pre-war life as a young government statistician, through the mud and terrors of the Great War trenches, to the radically changed social landscape of the post-war years.

The play is in two acts, with a short interval just before 8.00pm.

[Northender]

Hmmmmm.....

I've watched this now.

I was intrigued rather than absorbed or entranced. I knew nothing of Ford's writing, had no idea what to expect.

It looked wonderful, and there were some priceless scenes (the Curate arriving by bicycle to the breakfast)...

...but a lot of the characters and dialogue I found rather artfully bizarre and difficult to believe in. It's interesting to see in the Barnes article the accent laid on everyone exhibiting various degrees of madness. The result was a sort of precious (in the sense of 'affected') weirdness that reminded me of Peake or Carroll somehow. Tietjens's omniscient intelligence (oddly Sherlockian in Cumberbatch's mouth, of course) and devices like the Groby Great Tree - also a bit artificial and precious.

But intense performances, by and large: Rebecca Hall particularly good as the fascinatingly vile Sylvia.

I also thought the sound engineering was often poor (not something I ever particularly notice in films or TV) - either making what was said unintelligible (I had to rewind a couple of Cumberbatch's utterances several times to try and understand what he'd said, without success) or a scene unbelievable - there was one scene where Cumberbatch and Allam were talking in a field: the sound was completely unlike people talking outside.

I shall persevere with it but....

My thoughts exactly...I would join you and Anna in the engine-shed were I not afraid of spoiling your fun...(being a bit of an old buffer )

[amateur51]

My thoughts exactly...I would join you and Anna in the engine-shed were I not afraid of spoiling your fun...(being a bit of an old buffer )

Oy! I take you point, but do try to keep on track, old boy

[Northender]

I was merely pointing out that, were I to inadvertently send out the wrong signal, I might disrupt a Late Junction.