Stephen Wakelam

By Stephen Wakelam.

The Legacy. Leo Tolstoy is old and ill. Sofya fights for control diary and papers. Will the marriage survive?

In his fifties the great writer Leo Tolstoy has a spiritual crisis and converts to Christianity. He stops sleeping with his wife. They have ten children. Taking the vows of poverty and chastity literally Tolstoy wants to give everything away but Sofya has a large family to feed. This is the woman who transcribed 'War and Peace' six times and who fights off rivals on daily basis for a place at his side. For forty eight years, the Tolstoys tormented each other with love and hate. Ian McDiarmid and Haydn Gwynne star in this portrait of a tempestuous marriage.

Sofya Tolstoy ... Haydn Gwynne
Leo Tolstoy ... Ian McDiarmid
Chertkov ... Paul Ritter
Tanya Tolstoy ... Vineeta Rishi

Directed by Claire Grove.… (mais)

In 1588, the essayist and landowner Michel de Montaigne, set out on a journey round the troubled kingdom of France. He was on a mission - to reconcile the Valois King Henri the Third, a Catholic, with his likely successor, the Bourbon King of Navarre, a Protestant. It's high stakes: intensified Civil War the consequence of failure.
Michel de Montaigne ..... Roger Allam
Peslier ..... James Norton
Catherine de Medici ..... Jane Lapotaire
Henri Navarre ..... Elliot Levey
Henri Valois ..... Sam Dale
Francoise de Montaigne ..... Sally Orrock
Marie de Gournay ..... Leah Brotherhead
Sergeant Soumillon ..... Adeel Akhtar
Captain Guyon ..... Lloyd Thomas
Courtier ..... Henry Devas
Directed by Jeremy Mortimer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00xn9y1#synopsis… (mais)