I heard about this drama before it had even aired, this is because my brother, Travis Booth-Millard, was acting as an extra, and it was originally going to be titled The Ark, and me and my Mum were looking forward to watching it, both to spot my brother and because it sounded interesting. As part of the BBC World War I centenary season, a series of radio and television programmes, documentaries and dramas commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of the great war, there was this one. The series shows the lives or medical staff, doctors and nurses, and patients and visitors, including war commanders and officers, of a fictional field hospital in France during the Second World War, all going through their own personal happy times, traumas, dilemmas, heartbreaks and duties, many of which are caused and affected by the war. Starring Hermione Norris as Matron Grace Carter, Oona Chaplin (Charlie's granddaughter) as Kitty Trevelyan, Richard Rankin as Capt Thomas Gillan, Marianne Oldham as Rosalie Berwick, Alice St. Clair as Flora Marshall, Kevin Doyle as Lt Col Roland Brett, Suranne Jones as Sister Joan Livesey, Alex Wyndham as Capt Miles Hesketh-Thorne, Jack Gordon as Cpl Peter Foley, Jeremy Swift as QMS Reggie Soper, Kerry Fox as Sister Margaret Quayle, Simon Wilson as Padre, Daniel Betts as Jaco Tillens, Abigail Eames as Mathilde Tillens, Stephan Luca as Anton Erhlich, Adam James as Col Charles Purbright and Karl Davies as Cpl Lawrence Prentiss. The series did have some interesting moments, the cast all do very, and it looks and feels very authentic, and of course spotting my brother Travis in particular scenes was good fun (wearing a head bandage being fed soup, sitting on a deck chair in a blue dressing gown, being escorted by nurses on crutches wearing a blue dressing gown). It sort of does not surprise me that there will not be a second series, it was good, but it probably makes more sense not to continue, plus I got a little lost at times with what was going on in each individual character's story, overall however it was a pretty watchable period wartime drama. Good!
Review of The Crimson Field
