Ford Madox Ford

Tom Goodman-Hill

Mark Bonnar

Ruth Gemmell

Crawford Logan

Gareth Thomas

Kyle Soller

Patrick Baladi

Fiona O’Shaughnessy

Ashna Rabheru

Ronan Summers

Full Cast

Two Full-Cast BBC Radio Dramatisations

Major BBC adaptations of Ford Madox Ford’s two most famous works, with stellar casts including Tom Goodman-Hill, Ruth Gemmell, Kyle Soller and Mark Bonnar 
 
A forgotten great of British fiction, Ford Madox Ford wrote over 80 books, founded two trailblazing literary journals and was a friend and collaborator to some of the 20th century’s most significant authors, among them Joseph Conrad, DH Lawrence, Ezra Pound and James Joyce. His two masterpieces – the ‘Parade’s End’ quartet of novels and The Good Soldier – are dramatised here, alongside a fascinating profile of the author himself. 
 
Parade’s End – The scion of an old aristocratic family, Christopher Tietjens is ‘the last English gentleman’. Unhappily married to the beautiful, faithless Sylvia, he falls in love with young suffragette Valentine – but their burgeoning relationship is interrupted by the onset of the Great War. Plunged into the chaos of the trenches, Christopher must cope with both the terrors of battle and the radically changed world of post-war England... Tom Goodman-Hill and Ruth Gemmell star in this epic drama set in the years leading up to, and following, World War I. 
 
The Good Soldier – John Dowell is the original unreliable narrator as he recounts ‘the saddest story ever told’ – a twisted tale of sex, money and betrayal involving two married couples who meet at a German spa in 1904. Over the course of the next nine years, they become close friends, but when Edward Ashburnham embarks on an affair with Florence Dowell, tragedy ensues, and the lives of all four are ripped apart. Starring Kyle Soller, Tonya Cornelisse, Patrick Baladi, Fiona O’Shaughnessy and Mark Bonnar, and adapted by Pilgrim creator Sebastian Baczkiewicz, this searing psychosexual drama is sharp, menacing and mesmerizing. 
 
Ford Madox Ford and France – Julian Barnes and Hermione Lee tell the story of Ford Madox Ford, exploring his time in Paris and Aix-en-Provence, his tangled love affairs (including one with his protégé, Jean Rhys), his embroidered accounts of his own life, and his death in Deauville in 1939, three months before the outbreak of World War II. 
 
First published 1915 (The Good Soldier), 1924-1928 (Parade’s End) 
 
Cast and credits 
Written by Ford Madox Ford 
 
Parade’s End 
Christopher – Tom Goodman-Hill 
Sylvia – Ruth Gemmell 
Valentine – Katherine Igoe 
Mark/ Father Consett/Sergeant Major Cowley – Crawford Logan 
General Campion – Gareth Thomas 
Captain McKechnie – Michael Perceval-Maxwell 
Macmaster/Ducket – Steven McNicoll 
Mrs Satterthwaite – Monica Gibb 
Edith Duchemin – Noreen Leighton 
Mrs Wannop – Vivienne Dixon 
Lieutenant Aranjuez – Nick Underwood 
Perowne/Morgan – Matthew Zajak 
 
Adapted by Robert Forrest 
Produced and diirected by Patrick Rayner 
First broadcast BBC Radio 3, 18 May 2003 
 
The Good Soldier 
John Dowell – Kyle Soller 
Florence Dowell – Tonya Cornelisse 
Edward Ashburnham – Patrick Baladi 
Leonora Ashburnham – Fiona O’Shaughnessy 
Major Hazleton – Mark Bonnar 
Nancy Rufford – Ashna Rabheru 
Jimmy Doyle – Ronan Summers 
Maisie Maidan – Cecilia Appiah 
 
Adapted by Sebastian Baczkiewicz 
Directed by James Robinson 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 22 November 2020 
 
Ford Madox Ford and France 
Presented by Julian Barnes and Hermione Lee 
Produced by Robyn Read 
Reader: Kerry Shale 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 24-31 August 2010 
 
© 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Ford Madox Ford

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