After a 30-year absence, the prolific playwright Sir Tom Stoppard is set to return to the BBC with Parade’s End, a five-part drama adapted from a quartet of novels by Ford Madox Ford. Part funded by HBO and with a reported budget of £12 million, the miniseries is rumoured to be the most expensive production ever broadcast on BBC Two, but like many other recent British dramas, the story takes place around the First World War.
Sherlock’s Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Christopher Tietjens, a conservative English gentleman trying to contend with his unruly, adulterous wife at the centre of the piece and despite his fame on these shores, when the Beeb suggested him to American producers, they took some convincing.
“There was really on a tiny handful of people that we felt could play him,” Susanna White, the director of the upcoming series explains. “And Benedict just seemed so right to us.”
“This was a couple of years ago though and HBO weren’t sure who he was. They took some persuading’. We said, ‘Trust us, he’s a truly great actor, and by the time Parade’s End has come out everyone will have heard of him”.
Sherlock has since gained much attention in the States and his roles in the new Star Trek film and The Hobbit haven’t done his profile in America much harm either. “Of course, now everyone over there has heard of him,” she adds with a wry smile.
READ MORE:http://channelhopping.onthebox.com/2012/08/01/cumberbatch-in-costume-drama-otb-meets-the-people-behind-bbc-drama-parades-end/
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