Tom Stoppard adapts Parade’s End for BBC Two

BBC Two will bring Ford Maddox Ford’s masterpiece Parade’s End to the screen next year, adapted by British playwright Sir Tom Stoppard. The five hour commission sees Stoppard return to British television after 20 years with what is considered by many as one of the great undiscovered works of the 20th Century.


What's it about?

Set between the twilight of the Edwardian era and the end of the First World War, Parade's End's biggest preoccupation is a love triangle between English aristocrat Christopher Tietjens, his beautiful but cruel wife Sylvia and Valentine Wannop, a young suffragette who he falls madly in love with.

What should we expect?

Sir Tom Stoppard says: “The BBC came to me with the idea of adapting Ford’s novel for TV two years ago. I had never read it and I fell in love with it. Parade’s End has been my main preoccupation since then. The title covers a quartet of books set among the upper class in Edwardian England, mostly from 1911 to the end of the Great War. I spent about 18 months on the dramatisation of the novel into five 60-minute episodes, working with the BBC producer Piers Wenger and with Damien Timmer of Mammoth, the independent production company. I confess I feel a bit proud of it, and now that Susanna White has come on board to direct Parade’s End I’m thoroughly excited about it.”