Even in an HD world, TV is rarely as beautiful as the second episode of Parade’s End. Any way you approach it, visually, dramatically, Cumberbatchly, it’s a drama that doesn’t have a hair out of place.
Yet as exquisite as it looks, this is a drama about beauty becoming sullied. In cracked mirrors, hatcheted paintings, the creaking splendour of the Edwardian era’s twilight, there’s the lesson that the best of things never stay that way; pure things never remain pure, and even the noblest of ideals, be they marriage or chastity or pacifism, can rot out from under you.
Tietjens’ marriage hasn’t simply hit the rocks, it’s beached itself there and is having it’s carcass picked over by those who otherwise flock to gossip and cricket matches. As the chaste Tietjens looks to the threat of war rather than looking at his naked wife, we experience the public and private spectacle of two lives falling apart in unison.
Already at the second of five episodes you can see what an accomplished job Tom Stoppard has made of pressing an enormous book into a small space. Encompassing two years worth of events, the plot gallops along like a frightened horse, but never once do we feel like we’re being rushed. Rather, we’re allowed to breathe-in the important moments before being whisked to the next one; given time to pore over the snapshots of high emotion that define these characters and their otherwise repressed Edwardian lives.
One of the many pleasant surprises of Parade’s End is that it’s genuinely amusing in a way that few period dramas manage to be. Whether it’s scene-stealing Rufus Sewell’s mad Rev. Duchemin talking of his organ and removing a bra faster than an experienced stripper, or the comedic awkwardness of Macmaster and Mrs. Duchemin’s farcical affair, the humour never feels forced or out of place, but rather an organic part of proceedings.
Yet as war is announced in a way that couldn’t be further from Downton‘s cliffhanger dramatics, a shadow is cast and humour is replaced with solemnity. Tietjens decides that he must fight. Not because it’s popular with people he loves, but because it’s his duty. And – most heartbreaking of all – he believes he has nothing else to live for. His explanation to Valentine Wannop, and the barely restrained adoration for one another, ranks as one of the most moving pieces of television in 2012. Amid a perfect cast of gratuitous talent, Cumberbatch and Clemens steal a moment that makes our hearts ache.
So as Tietjens’ life as a repressed statistician ends and he leaves behind perhaps the one last beautiful thing in his starched little life, he’s off to experience the horrors of war. It won’t be pretty for him, but there’s no doubt that for us it’ll be another hour of beautifully crafted television.
Aired at 9pm on Friday 31st August 2012 on BBC Two.
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