The Village
To celebrate the DVD release of The Village out on 8 July, we herald the top five TV dramas set during the Great War.
The 100-year anniversary of the beginning of World War One will be commemorated next year also, so here is a toast to the highbrow television shows that give an insight to the tragic war years.
1. The Village
The Village is set in a Derbyshire village and tells the story of love, relationships and friendship through the eyes of the character, Bert Middleton, who is portrayed both as a boy, a teen and old man by three actors.
The season starts in 1914 and takes the audience through the turmoil of the Great War up until 1920. Starring Maxine Peake and John Simm, this is an intelligent drama focusing on turbulent times in rural England.
Exploring intricate family relationships and a period of hardship, The Village perfectly illustrates life’s difficulties in the early 20th century and depicts the realities of war that ripped communities apart, both rural and urban.
2. Parade’s End
Boasting critical acclaim, a total of seven BAFTA nominations and a cast that includes the talented Benedict Cumberbatch, Parade’s End focuses on the clash between progressivism and traditionalism in the early years of the 20th century.
A love triangle augments between the conservative Christopher Tietjens (Cumberbatch), his wife and a young suffragette - all in the midst of World War One.
Parade’s End explores the delicate, human issue of men going off to fight bloody wars on the Western Front, while leaving their loved ones behind to face a lonely existence.
3. Downton Abbey
At the end of the first season, the show depicts the grim reality that British men will be going abroad to fight a gruesome war.
Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) makes the announcement at a garden party and this TV moment was particularly poignant for older audiences, who were able to recollect the moment the declaration of war was relayed to them.
The second season saw Downton’s men burrowed deep in a network of muddy trenches, desperately fighting amidst the guns and explosions in a bid to stay alive.
4. Birdsong
The television adaptation tells a love story during World War One via a series of flashbacks. Stephen Wraysford (Eddie Redmayne) falls in love with a married man’s wife, but goes off to war before he can successfully convince his temptress to leave her husband.
Redmayne is terrific in Birdsong and audiences attain a feel for the very real themes of fear, loneliness and death during the war years.
5. Upstairs, Downstairs
Set in a large Edwardian townhouse between 1903 - 1930, the show is about the lives of servants and their aristocratic masters.
The popular series pays homage to social and technological changes of the period, and spanning over a period of thirty years, Upstairs, Downstairs depicts the servitude of family members in the war.
As the men return from the front-line, the family deal with catastrophic injuries and gruesome recoveries. Death, mutilation and shell shock give an insight to the social issues of this tragic time.
The Village arrives on DVD on 8 July 2013 courtesy of Entertainment One
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