Liam Trim reviews Episodes 3 and 4 of BBC drama Parade’s End…
Warning: Spoilers!
In my review of Episode 1 of Parade’s End I said that Benedict Cumberbatch (Atonement, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) could give the performance of his career as archaic conservative Christopher Tietjens. And in that first episode his character really was the epicentre of events. However, in subsequent episodes Cumberbatch’s own brilliance has been surpassed by the complexity, depth and devilish charm of Rebecca Hall (The Prestige, Iron Man 3) as Sylvia, the long suffering and always scheming Mrs Tietjens.
There certainly seems to be a broad critical consensus in the reviews of Episodes 3 and 4 that Hall is simply wonderful in Parade’s End. In the past she has played a neglected love interest in Starter for Ten, a neglected wife in The Prestige and a supernatural sceptic in The Awakening. But never before has she been let loose on a character like Sylvia, with a deliciously nasty side. She has taken her career to new heights with this performance and we will surely see her in more prominent and attractive parts from now on.
Hall delivers lines of cruelty with obvious relish, and imbues seemingly ordinary chunks of dialogue with hidden malice, born of a never-ending restlessness. It’s this restlessness that Tom Stoppard’s (Anna Karenina) writing and Hall’s acting captures so well. Without her boredom, and her love for Tietjens as the only interesting man in England that springs from it, Sylvia would be a mere pantomime villain. But Sylvia’s playful side is nonetheless crucial to both the critical and popular success of Parade’s End. Her unpredictability and concealed emotions engross critics in the drama’s deft characterisation. Perhaps more importantly though, her sense of fun makes Parade’s End an enjoyable watch, despite the inner turmoil of Tietjens, his frustrated love and the terrible war.
In Episode 3, Tietjens wakes up in a hospital for the wounded near the front. He groans, writhes around his bed and discovers painful bruising and cuts around his eye. A man with his legs blown off is carried by, screams fill the room. Tietjens is overwhelmed by panic and asks the nurse, in a broken voice, if she can tell him his name.
It’s incredibly moving to see a man of Tietjens’ standing and intellect reduced to such a state. But the impact of such moments is all the greater because they are offset with Sylvia’s trouble seeking and disregard for the rules. Not long after the hospital scene Sylvia swans into an expensive London shop and orders large quantities of expensive treats, not for British troops, but the German prisoners of war. On the surface Sylvia is not taking the war seriously and merely looking for an outraged reaction from the establishment. Arguably though, she could also be pointing out their own callousness and blind patriotism.
Regardless of her motives, the theme of Episode 3 is how Sylvia’s acts weave a web of poisonous gossip around her husband. She does not care what people say, and neither does Tietjens really, but he has the good sense to know that appearances do matter, as they will eventually lead to consequences. Sylvia continues to play games and encourages rumours about her marriage by not addressing them, and hanging around with one of her admirers, without actually letting him do anything. Tietjens returns to England in a shell shocked state and briefly confides in his wife. Her tenderness is genuine, but once again her pride is inflamed when their closeness does not last. The gossip swirls on, and eventually Christopher’s father, the head of the Tietjens family, commits suicide in disgrace.
The night before the suicide Tietjens saw his father in the hallway of his club, but he blanked him. His own father looked through him like he didn’t exist (Cumberbatch conveys Tietjens’ reaction superbly). At no point in their investigations into the gossip did his father, or brother (played convincingly by Rupert Everett), ask Tietjens directly about the rumours. They simply assumed he had a love child with Valentine Wannop, even though in reality they had barely even kissed. The episode ends with Tietjens, hardened by grief and betrayal, resolving to have one night with Valentine, his real love, before he heads back to France. This is a momentous decision for him to reach, given the moral code that he lives by.
Meanwhile Sylvia hopes that he does sleep with his would-be mistress. She presumably reasons that if he too, surrendered to passion, and committed adultery, there would be hope for their marriage. And despite it all she desperately wants the marriage to work. But a mix up with travel across town means that all Tietjens can do is say goodbye to Valentine. Valentine and Tietjens’ brother then join forces, to secure him a safe place at the front, and ensure that they are one day together, in a more healthy relationship than the one Tietjens endures with his current wife.
Episode 4 provides Sylvia with even more opportunities to shine. Strangely, although this episode takes place mostly in France near the front line, it is more fun and less dramatic and serious than Episode 3. This is because Sylvia visits the camp where Tietjens is working as an officer in charge of supplies. The reaction from the officers and Generals, played by the likes of Roger Allam, is priceless.
Tietjens is struggling desperately to cut through the inadequacies of army bureaucracy to equip the troops correctly. He is also standing up for colonial troops, and other minorities, who are repeatedly picked on by the military police and other figures of authority. Sylvia is longing to move into the family estate, vacant since the death of Tietjens’ father, so she sets about arranging a socially outrageous visit to France.
Despite General Campion’s (Allam) best efforts to stop her, Sylvia obviously makes it to the camp where Tietjens is working. It is within artillery range of the German lines, and Tietjens blames himself when a man he denied leave, for logical reasons, is blown to bits. There are also repeated ‘air raids’, which occasionally seem not quite historically accurate, but this is a minor quibble. Overall, Episode 4 was an original, touching and amusing insight into the reality of the First World War.
In terms of personal drama, Episode 4 also delivered in spades. With Valentine out of the equation, teaching sport at a girls school back home, the stage was set for a showdown between Sylvia and Tietjens, Hall and Cumberbatch. The ensuing battle of wits, once the two were finally in the same room (and not asleep from fatigue), was worth waiting for. Tietjens, exhausted from the stress and horror of war, was finally on the verge of craving affection. Sylvia, no longer acting the part of socialite and rebel, was willing to be honest to her husband. Dialogue erupted like fireworks.
Sylvia bared her soul, truthfully revealing that she had not touched another man in five whole years, and this seemed to do the trick for Tietjens, worn down by life as much as her efforts to win him back. He threw himself at her, abandoning all decorum. The audience, despite sweet little Valentine, wants Tietjens and Sylvia to heal the rift between them. They are both utterly brilliant and the best at what they do, they both secretly care deeply for one another. But things are never simple between them. Their rendezvous and reconciliation ends abruptly when the officer Sylvia has been leading on tries to come in. Tietjens, finally consumed by passion, knocks him sprawling from the room, and then proceeds to do the same to the head of the military police.
As a result, the only way for Tietjens to avoid disgrace and social ruin is to head to the front, and a far more dangerous theatre of the war. Even if he makes it out alive in the final episode, his future with Sylvia and Valentine is far from certain, and no doubt destructive…
…and, judging by this clip, once again amusing…
Liam Trim
Check back next week for Liam’s review of the final episode.
You can read his reviews of Episodes 1 and 2, here and here.
Parade’s End is available on BBC iPlayer.
