Reflection on BBC drama Parade's End

Benedict Cumberbatch & Rebecca Hall

'Nothing, unless it is difficult, is worthwhile' - Ovid.

There is no doubt that Ford Madox Ford is a challenging read. But in the end when one gets his measure it does produce fruit. The question was could it transfer to television. When I first heard that the BBC were going to attempt this feat, I had mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was thrilled that it was being tried and looked forward to the result. On the other hand I had a dread that this masterpiece would be turned into a Downton Abbey and I, in anguish, would tear the last few hairs from my head and be bald for ever. The series ended on Friday last and I still have my hair on.

Parade's End is all about pain. It deals with pain at its deepest level, that is pain of the heart. Although Ford Madox Ford was not an exemplary Catholic, he himself would have been the first to admit that, he was a very well instructed one. Parade's End is immersed in Catholic doctrine.

One of the first truths that every Catholic is taught, is that of Original Sin. Or another way of putting it, is that the human race is intrinsically flawed to the extent that the heart is wounded and we have a problem with loving and being loved. You could place alongside Parade's End, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and Graham Green's The Third Man, as well as James Joyce's The Dead. They all treat the same pain. They all try to deal with unfulfilled love. All very Catholic.

Ford Madox Ford built Parade's End on two pillars, so to speak. Sylvia and Christopher Tietjens, a husband and wife locked in a relationship that is full of pain and desire. Some have branded Sylvia as a totally evil person. Not quite. You see in Catholic teaching there is no such thing as a totally evil person and even if there were such a person, only God could determine that. The problem with Sylvia is that she cannot love the man she really wants to love, unless there is some kind of change in him. Christopher is the perfect gentleman. He takes a ferocious personality battering from her in the effort to please her. But there is a corner of his heart that he cannot, or is not able to give her. That is the problem. A classic Original Sin effect, as we Catholics would call it.

Could one put all this on the screen? This was the task facing Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall. If they failed the series failed. At first I had a few wobbles. I wanted more venom and more pain from Sylvia and I was slightly worried that Christopher was going to be a lifeless lump. In the end they both performed superbly and evolved to what, I think, Ford Madox Ford intended. Rebecca Hall's role, was to my mind more demanding and at the finish her 'Sylvia' was awesome. They not only saved the series, they made it.

But a play or film or a televised drama, is as good as it's smallest part and in this case Christopher and Sylvia got a superb backup. Parade's End is also about mood and the fear was that we would get sentimental and shallow emotions and feelings. But no. We were presented with mood management at its best. The visual and the audio-visual and dialogue all combined to capture Ford Madox Ford's moods to perfection. This was especially visible in the destruction of the Great Tree; so important to the Catholic in Ford Madox Ford. Is the tree the Tree of Eden or is it the Tree of Calvary.

And when the log from the felled tree thrown into the blazing fire, is that the Fire of Hell or the Redeeming Fire of Love? Much fruit for us Catholics to meditate on. For sure Ford Madox Ford, Joseph Conrad, Graham Green, James Joyce and our friend above Ovid, would, over a few tipples, have relished it all with endless discussion.

A lady from my parish here said how sorry she was that the series had finished. Well we must remember, as I reminded her, that the happy ever after does not fully arrive in this world. Only bits and pieces for now. Ford Madox Ford, like Augustine before him, knew from Catholic teaching, that it is only when the parade of this world is over, that we will be restored to full health. Then we will love as we should and be open to love as we should. That is what the mystics call Bliss. No More Pain. In the meantime for us it's Pilgrim's Progress.

Well Done BBC. You pulled it off this time. Magnificent.

Father John Buckley.

Fr Buckley is parish priest of Our Lady Queen of Apostles, Bishop's Waltham, Portsmouth Doicese.