Patrick Freyne: Turning Tolstoy into an action-packed teen drama

The story so far in War and Peace (Sunday, BBC1): Last week, Count Pyotr Kirillovich Pierre Bezukhov (Paul Dano), who looks like olden days Harry Potter, was all like "I challenge you!" because Fyodor Ivanovich Dolokhov (Tom Burke), who looks like a member of Brotherhood of Man and is a total badass, had slept with his wife, Hélène Bezukhova (Tuppence Middleton).

“No way!” I hear you say.

Way.

This week’s episode starts in the snow, so everyone is presumably off school and has come out to see Dolokhov try to shoot Pierre in face. Pierre is totally jealous of Dolokhov even though Dolokhov is dressed like an old rich lady out shopping.

Denisov (Thomas Arnold), who has a kind face and looks a bit like the other one out of Brotherhood of Man, gives Pierre a gun and Pierre is scared because he doesn’t even know how to hold a gun. Then Pierre shoots Dolokhov like a boss and everyone is all surprised, especially Dolokhov. “OMG!” says Dolokhov. “This Harry-Potter-looking nerd has totally shot me!”... or something similar but in olden days Russian.

Nikolai Ilyich Rostov (Jack Lowden), who has a moustache that looks like an eyebrow, takes Dolokhov off to the doctor in a fun-looking horse-drawn sleigh. “Wheeee!” says Dolokhov as they ride away (he doesn’t actually say “Wheeee!”, he is in great pain, but that’s what I’d do if I got to go in a horse-drawn sleigh) and Pierre runs off through the snow wailing.

Pierre is all distraught after the duel because he hates violence even though there’s a war on, so he goes home to shout at his wife, who he finds having a pervy writhe on her brother, Anatole Vasilyevich Kuragin (Callum Turner). Having a pervy writhe on Anatole is Hélène’s hobby. Hélène is a total bitch.

Pierre says he's leaving her to "oversee his estate", which I initially take to be a euphemism for wanking. But then Pierre storms off on a horse and carriage and joins the Freemasons. The Freemasons blindfold Pierre and chant incantations over him and give him a purpose and a progressive agenda. It's very like induction day here at The Irish Times.

While Pierre is away being weird, Dolokhov and Rostov become great pals. But then Dolokhov proposes to Rostov’s cousin Sonya (Aisling Loftus) , who rejects him because she fancies Rostov (this is the 19th century so no one is freaked out by cousin-love) and Dolokhov is all like “Well I don’t want her anyway.” He and Rostov sit down to play poker. “If you play with me you lose,” says Dolokhov, who enjoys talking smack almost as much as he enjoys seducing other men’s girlfriends while eating their food.

Rostov loses 43,000 in old Russian money. His father (Adrian Edmondson) can’t afford it and the family have to move to the countryside away from good transport links and the better Tesco.

At the Rostov house, Rostov’s pal Denisov is totally into Rostov’s sister Natalya (Lily James), who is also called Natasha (everyone in Russia has two names like Biggie Smalls or Myles na gCopaleen). Denisov shows her his moves. He does some hussar-type dancing followed by “the robot”. She is well impressed.

But Natalya/Natasha is sort of betrothed to Boris Drubetskoy (Aneurin Barnard) who’s secretly sleeping with Princess Hélène (what is she like?!), who has unexpectedly reunited with Pierre after he improved the lot of his serfs with progressive ideas on education and broadband infrastructure.

And anyway, Natalya/Natasha much prefers Pierre’s BFF, Andrei Bolkonsky (James Norton), who’s played by the hot vicar from Grantchester and is dreamy and totally sexily sad because he’s been to war and his wife has died and his baby has grown huge in a week (editor’s note: years have actually passed since last week’s episode).

Everyone goes to a big party in the tsar’s palace (his parents are away) where they cycle through their best moves – the waltz, the rhumba, the YMCA, the robo-boogie (apologies if this is inaccurate; I’m not a dance historian). Andrei realises that he loves Natasha/Natalya and Pierre realises (again) that his wife is a total wagon and is probably riding everyone. Then Andrei tells Pierre that he wants to marry Natasha/Natalya. Pierre says he’s pleased but really he looks sad. He is totally in love with Natasha/Natalya too. OMG!

Emotion across years
Three episodes in and I'm really enjoying Andrew Davies's brilliantly shot, perfectly acted six-part adaptation of War and Peace. He has wisely stripped out the Tolstoyian reflections on military history and agrarian reform to reveal the action-packed teen melodrama hidden beneath. The main difference between it and a soap opera is one of scale. While soaps drift from day to day, War and Peace takes its heightened emotion across years.

The heightened emotions of another costume drama, Call the Midwife (Sunday, BBC1), also resonate across years. Only in a patriarchal society would a drama about childbirth and birthing complications be regularly written off as escapist fluff. This week's episode is, rather movingly, about the birth of a baby disabled by the anti-nausea drug Thalidomide (although they don't yet know the cause of the child's problems). Call the Midwife is a love letter to the National Health Service and the social democratic consensus of post-war Britain. So if people find it sweet and quaint, then that's the sweetness and quaintness of hardship buffered by what was an increasingly humane society.

Yes, the music tugs at the heart-strings and all the main characters are well meaning and good – but do you know what was also well-meaning and good? The notion that the government shouldn't leave us to the mercy of profiteers. Over on My Homeless Family (Monday, RTÉ1), a powerful, sad documentary about three of the 700 homeless families living in hotels, we see what happens when these ideals are forgotten.