The BBC\'s War & Peace

Twenty part drama of Leo Tolstoy's classic novel. The Rostov family prepares to celebrate the name-day of Countess Rostova and her younger daughter, Natalia, nicknamed Natasha.

First broadcast in 1972/3 this was one of the BBC's earliest historical drama series for colour television. Stretching into a mammoth 26 episodes if memory serves, it received only a Luke-warm reception and never really garnered much interest from the viewing public. The original series was heavily edited into 20 parts and re-broadcast a few years later, but it never really caught on. This upload is the 20 episodes version. Very much a novelty at the time, colour TV across our measly three television channels in the UK was all the rage. The broadcast of episode 1 coincided with the arrival of our first colour TV at home. War & Peace became something of an obsession with me at the time and I could never understand why it had such a dismal reception. The modern viewer might spot a few familiar faces and wonder what ever happened to them. There might be one or two faces that went on to find greater fame and fortune.