This sprawling epic of the aristocracy, set during the First World War, was playwright Tom Stoppard’s return to television after a 30-year absence. An adaptation of Ford Madox Ford’s dense and complex tetralogy, it is the story of government statistician Christopher Tietjens (‘the last Tory’), his estranged and promiscuous wife Sylvia Tietjens, and a young suffragette, Valentine Wannop, with whom Christopher is in love.

Wartime obligations take Christopher to France and Belgium, the years of senseless bloodletting forever deferring the resolution of his affair with Valentine. Shot on location in London, Kent and Belgium, this hugely ambitious and critically lauded production was made in association with HBO