Viv Groskop
@vivgroskop
Sun 10 Jan 2016 22.01 GMTLast modified on Fri 12 Oct 2018 22.11 BST
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War and grease … James Norton as Prince Andrei. Photograph: BBC/Laurie Sparham
Phew. That tricky second episode. So much to live up to after the first outing. And yet it delivered. With a side order of stuffed pig. I’m not sure whether to credit director Tom Harper or screenwriter Andrew Davies for the pacing (I suspect it’s a combination of the two) but it’s the balance of varying speeds in this adaptation that makes it so satisfying. Maybe I’ve had too much of a sniff of Dolokhov’s brandy-laced breath, but this felt like a dance that draws you in. Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow.
Is there anything this series can do wrong? Not much when Paul Dano is on screen. It’s hard to imagine a better casting for this role, and I must give particular mention to Pierre in his nightie which is just adorable. Dano is intensely sympathetic even though (or because?) Pierre is a bit of an idiot. We don’t really understand why he allows himself to be taken for such a fool by the decadent and exploitative friends who eat the food from under his nose (“because it always tastes better from another fellow’s plate”). And we wish he would see through Helene with her barely concealed venality (“One can get a bit tired of having one’s secret delights discovered over and over …’).
But this is a clever portrayal because Dano shows us what Tolstoy would have wanted: Pierre is a little like the worst human idiot in all of us and this is why we love him. There is also plenty of Tolstoy in the humble, confused Count. Plus, Pierre is a device: he reveals the worst excesses of Russian society of the time and provides a commentary on them.
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Peace pudding … Pierre (Paul Dano) dines with Helene (Tuppence Middleton). Photograph: BBC/Laurie Sparham
What else was genius? The soundtrack of portentous Russian Orthodox choral singing weighing in at every turn; you can almost smell the incense. The butter-wouldn’t-melt one-liners: “I am not really awfully good at coping with peasants and farms and I have rather a lot of engagements in the city.” “So you’ve tarted your hair up for our guests …” “There are three things I love to do: fight, drink and I can’t remember the other one.” Did I already mention Pierre’s nightie? (Let’s not talk about Liza’s nightie. It all went a bit Call the Midwife meets Carrie.)
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One slight chink in the armour? The Englishness of the piece. For example, Jim Broadbent as Count Bolkonsky, Prince Andrei’s father, is a fantastic character study of a repressed, controlling aristocrat. And his dismissive, depressed dialogue is fabulous: “Now your brother is dead. He’s dead. Leave me alone. And go and tell his wife. Go on.” But there were moments when it strayed into Austen territory. Did he almost say “No hard feelings … And jolly good to see you” when he dismissed the unctuous Kuragin pair? But maybe this stiff-upper-lip quality is exactly what makes War and Peace more enjoyable: it’s familiar (as are all the actors), so we can relax and concentrate on what is actually a very complicated and ambitious piece of narrative.
Those all-important Mr Darcy moments
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There was a strange lack of Napoleonic-era wet T-shirt equivalents in this outing. For a moment, I thought that Dolokhov, Pierre’s food-and-wife-stealing friend, would become the Mr Darcy of the piece and cast aside all his military regalia while ravishing Helene on the dinner table (obviously while he had eaten all the food off all the plates first). But there was not so much as a flash of flesh, male or female. For Andrew Davies, that scene was extraordinarily chaste.
Restraint all round this week, doubtless because our hero Prince Andrei was suspected dead for much of the episode and as such was not available to parade his torso. We had to make do with much quivering of quiff instead. This is making me wonder whether all the fuss about Colin Firth as Mr Darcy was really about his hair after all, which shares remarkable similarities with that of James Norton as Prince Andrei. Never mind the pecs, gentlemen: your audience just wants a flash of floppy fringe.
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Prince not-so charming … Anatole Kuragin (Callum Turner) and Helene (Tuppence Middleton). Photograph: Mitch Jenkins/BBC/PA
Villain of the week
Hard to choose between the ultimate greasemonger (and I mean that as the highest compliment) Prince Vassily (Stephen Rea) and his hilariously sickeningly carnal son Anatole (Callum Turner). The dynamic between these two in the “May we ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage?” scenes was electric. “Papa, is she really very ugly?” “She’s said to be a little on the plain side.” Horrific though Anatole is, fondling the French governess’ bodice while his intended fiancee serenaded him in Italian at the piano, it was Prince Vassily who yet again stole the show with his wheedling insincerities: “Will you not give me a little hope of touching so generous a heart?” “Anatole’s not the brightest button in the box…” “The hairstyle is most becoming to the princess!” Brilliant.
Audrey Hepburn award for Most Beautiful Lady Acting
Some commenters asked last week if Rebecca Front could have been a worthy contender for this award and indeed she could. For the beauty may lie in the acting or in the lady or both at the same time. However, this week it was all about Jessie Buckley as Marya Volkonskaya, Prince Andrei’s supposedly plain, icon-obsessed, religious little sister. I always think how miserable it must be for actresses to be cast as “the plain one” (especially when they are usually anything but; see America Ferrera when not on the set of Ugly Betty). But Buckley played this beautifully (while managing to look as “plain” as the role demanded) and you could virtually hear cheering across the land she uttered the lines: “I thank you for the honour. But I shall never be your son’s wife.”
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Holy Marya … Jessie Buckley as Prince Andrei’s supposedly plain, religious little sister. Photograph: BBC/Laurie Sparham
Russian pedant’s corner
Oh dear. There were a few moments to trouble the Russian pedant this week. Some are personaclass="underline" I mentioned on Twitter earlier this week that it’s a shame no one has brought out Tolstoy’s obsession with the moustache of the upper lip of Liza, Prince Andrei’s pregnant wife. Nor has Natasha Rostova’s fondess for pineapple ice-cream been referenced once. But these are omissions not errors.