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Airdate: War and Peace

Sprawling UK miniseries begins January 31st on BBC First.

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Picture shows: Andrei (JAMES NORTON) **Strictly embargoed for publication**

Sprawling UK miniseries War and Peace will premiere in Australia on Sunday January 31st on BBC First.

The 6 part series by writer Andrew Davies has received rave reviews in the UK, where it began on the weekend.

Starring Paul Dano (Love and Mercy), Lily James (Cinderella, Downton Abbey) and James Norton (Happy Valley), the series is a bold, refreshing and modern take on a thrilling, funny and heartbreaking story of love, war and family life. The ambitious six-part adaptation by Andrew Davies brings the book to life on a truly epic scale and has been filmed on location in Russia, Latvia and Lithuania with a cast which also includes Jim Broadbent, Gillian Anderson, Greta Scacchi, Stephen Rea, Ken Stott and Ade Edmondson.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest novels ever written, War & Peace is a timeless story of three young people set against the epic backdrop of Russia’s wars with Napoleon. At the centre of it all stands Pierre Bezukhov (Dano), a hot-headed newcomer in Russian society, brimming with ideas but hopelessly lost as he seeks meaning in his life. His sincere good nature is a comfort to his friend Andrei Bolkonsky (Norton): a cynical prince who is sick of his stifling marriage and longs for glory on the field of battle. Both their fates are bound to the beautiful, captivating and kind-hearted Natasha Rostova (James) – only a teenager when the series begins, but desperate to grow up and experience the world. Over eight years of peace and war that will change Russia and its people forever, we meet a vast cast of unforgettable characters, from peasants and soldiers to society hostesses and even Napoleon himself. But again and again, through marriages and affairs, battlefields and ballrooms, births and deaths, we will keep returning to Pierre, Andrei and Natasha as they confront life’s great questions of love and destiny.

8.30pm Sunday, January 31st.

10 Responses

  1. The BBC has started broadcasting War and Peace on January 3rd, technology is making worldwide simultaneous releases of shows possible at appropriate viewing times so the message is still not clearly understood by broadcasters about supply and demand as episode 5 will have been seen overseas by the time the show starts on BBC First (Foxtel). If pirating is to be discouraged broadcasters must get with the times.

  5. Of course, again no fast tracking.

    For drama to have any value as a commercial product it must be screened within hours of its initial broadcast, not days, not weeks, hours. Anything beyond a 12-24 hour horizon is not just old news but a savagely archaic artefact.

    1. Rest assured, CyrusPK, nothing in W&P is ‘news’.

      Are you fearful of spoilers? To get the lowdown on an artefact that is archaic in the sense it was first published (in its entirety) in 1869 (albeit in Russian), visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_and_Peace.

      Hope that calms you and Craig down.

      1. I think thats a bit unfair. We all know that when something is adapted from a book/play etch that there is some poetic license and interpretation that can put a different perspective and take on something. Also there would be viewers out there who haven’t read the book or seen any other movies and such about this and would be looking at this with fresh eyes from the start and would prefer not to have that spoiled.

  6. Two things put me off watching this. The first is having to watch it through fetch which is a pain in the arse. Viewing is restricted to one shared device and they don’t even have a catch up service or a website to watch content. Everyone else has a website. Secondly I’m not really into this british or this genre. Its only 6 eps and its had good reviews cause its already begun airing but its an I don’t know.

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