World War I · Series · 2012
Parade's End
A brilliant, rigidly honourable Tory statistician is trapped between his cruel, dazzling wife and a young suffragette, as the war sweeps away the Edwardian world he was built to serve.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 3 places.
Stop 1: Edwardian London
Christopher marries the pregnant Sylvia, endures her infidelities for the sake of honour and meets Valentine Wannop at a disrupted golf match.
Stop 2: Base depot, Rouen
Key location
Running a camp that sends drafts up the line, Tietjens is pursued there by Sylvia, and a scandal with a general pushes him toward the trenches.
Stop 3: Armistice night, London
As the city celebrates the end of the war, Christopher must decide what kind of life is left for him.
What really happened
Tom Stoppard adapted Ford Madox Ford's four novels published between 1924 and 1928. Ford enlisted at 41, served as an officer with the Welch Regiment and was concussed by a shell during the Battle of the Somme in 1916, experiences he gave to Christopher Tietjens, whose war moves from a Whitehall statistics office to a base depot in Rouen and the front line.
The series also follows the home front: the suffragette campaign that the war interrupted, the social scandal around a crumbling marriage and the gradual collapse of the old governing class. Women over 30 who met a property qualification gained the vote in February 1918, months before the Armistice on 11 November brought the story to its close.
Where to watch
Checking streaming services…
Full details
- Original title
- Parade's End
- Created by
- Susanna White
- Countries
- United Kingdom
- Languages
- English
- Seasons
- 1 season
- Released
- 2012
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- Western Europe
- Themes
- Romance
- Home front
- Politics
