War & Peace

War& Peace finished on TV last night and in my opinion it was one of the finest programmes I have ever seen on TV!! The producers may of had the American market in mind as the six part series was all but a precis of Tolstoys monumental work. And to be honest I found the ending superior to the morbid epilogue of Tolstoy. Many intellectuals will say that you must not change the structure of the original for an adaptation. But as an analogy I believe Verdi and Boito's adaptation of Othello is better than the Shakespeare original. For me the finest scene was the pathos we saw was Pierre met the peasant Platon Karataev and his dog Sashenka. Here Pierre finally finds out what life is all about ,as he expects to be shot by the French or frozen to death. Paul Dano as Count Pierre Bezukhov underplays his part brilliantly. The whole ensemble cast including Stephen Rea as Prince Vassily Kuragin are terrific.