Historic drama is a hair-raising affair

iT didn’t really matter that the love interest in the first episode had a blonde bob. (Apparently, bobs didn’t appear on young lady’s heads until the Flappers of the Twenties, and this series is set in the build-up to the First World War.)

What did matter, however, was that the opener of this flagship five-part drama was characterised by unconvincing performances, a lack of narrative and an even greater lack of believability in the characters.

So why offer it up as a Tv highlight? Well, episode two has to be watched if only to see it if will improve, in the hope viewers, i.e., me, get some sense of the chronology of this tale of the emotionally repressed Christopher Tietjens (Benedict Cumberbatch).

We’d also like some understanding of how this straight-laced intellectual not only managed to get up to rumpy pumpy on a train moments after meeting the wild and weird Sylvia (Rebecca Hall) – but then went on to marry her.

We’d like to discover how this statistical genius can’t count the months from when they met to balance out with the news of her pregnancy.

We need to know if he was captivated by her capriciousness, beguiled by the spell of unavailability she created – or simply prepared to love her unconditionally?

That is, until 15 minutes in, which is when he met his new love, the bold, suffragette with the hair style yet to be invented.

None of it adds up. it seems Sir Tom Stoppard probably wasn’t up to the adaptation (to be fair, he’s had to cram four books into five hours) and it seems no one has been bold enough to tell him so.

Can Cumberbatch come good? Can we begin to care about any of the characters?

Let’s hope so, because you just know the drama cost an awful lot of licence payers’ money to produce.