Well - meaning and worthy might be two terms to describe "The Crimson Field",which has gradually improved as the series has progressed. Episode 5 on Sunday night has been the best so far,less soapy in feel and giving the excellent Miss S.Jones a chance to stretch her acting chops which had previously been confined to a lot of desperate grinning and kissing her German fiancé's engagement ring which she keeps on a chain round her neck.Oh,and riding her motor - bike with a most un - nurse - like disregard for the patients stumbling round the Field Hospital. However,Miss H.Norris is the undoubted star of the show as Matron Carter,a woman with a lot of secrets. The cast of Other Ranks is as usual filled with chirpy cockneys,canny Geordies,dour Northerners etc that could have been drawn from any war film from the last 100 years. The junior officers are no more interesting,and only Mr K.Doyle as the Lt.Colonel I/c makes any impact. But mainly this is a study of women at war at a time when smoking a cigarette was considered by many a step too far for "The Ladies - bless 'em". Miss Jones is the only working - class representative amongst them,the rest being comfortably middle - class and above. The junior nurses are well - meaning but totally inexperienced,as reflects the actuality of the time. Necessarily the true bloody picture of the horrific experience it must have been for them all has been watered down,but "The Crimson Field" succeeds in its remit to present such of the appalling reality of life for both the soldiers and the medical staff dedicated to looking after them in 1915. Some of it struggles to escape from the tried and true formula seen on our screens since "Emergency - Ward 10" nearly fifty years ago and currently perpetuated by such as "Casualty"(suffered brainstem death about 15 years ago but kept going by audience - figure incubation). But on balance it should inform a wider audience that The Hippocratic Oath does not include a clause that demands that every doctor should have sex at least once every 60 minute episode and that nurses' uniforms are more than an aid to jaded lovers.
Review of The Crimson Field
