Basil Henson as Prince Vasili Kuragin Josie Kidd as Katishe James Appleby as German adjutant Gerard Hely as Prince Murat Michael Billington as Lt. Berg Will Leighton as Tikhon Patricia Shakesby as Vera Rostova, married to Berg Alison Frazer as Princess Lisa Bolkonskya Colin Fisher as Telyanin John Breslin as Marshal Berthier Pat Gorman as French Sergeant Philip Lowrie as French Captain Edmund Bailey as Prokofy Hugh Cross as Mitenka Richard Poore as French messenger Barbara Young as Anna Scherer Karin MacCarthy as Julie Karagin Maurice Quick as Pavel Roy Spencer as Timohin Hubert Cross as General Rapp Geoffrey Denton as Host Tenniel Evans as Prince Bagration Gordon Faith as Galitsyn John Lawrence as Anna's guest Judith Pollard as Olga Edith Sharpe as Madame Scherer Tony Caunter as French Corporal Erik Chitty as Gerasim Episodes Reception According to Dr. Lez Cooke in British Television Drama: A History (2003), War and Peace consolidated BBC2 as the channel responsible for 'quality' literary drama. In The New Yorker in 2016, Louis Menand wrote, "It drags in parts today, but in 1972 no one had seen television that grand or ambitious before. The length—almost fifteen hours—meant the series could include scenes, like the wolf hunt, or Denisov dancing the mazurka, that are dramatically superfluous but thematically vital. The acting is inspired, in part because the casting was inspired, from Anthony Hopkins, as Pierre, to David Swift, as a pint-sized, swaggering Napoleon. Everyone looks just the way he or she's supposed to look." Clive James criticised some performances: "I was cruel to Morag Hood when I said that her performance made me want to throw a tarpauline over her and peg down the corners. I should have blamed the director, who had obviously told her to bounce up and down at all times in order to convey exuberance. [...] In that same production, Alan Dobie as Andrei was grim enough to send you to sleep, but Anthony Hopkins was a perfect Pierre: a real tribute to his acting, because his default mode is to be in command." Paul Mavis (DVD Talk) awarded it 4 stars, saying, "It positively luxuriates in its expansive format, giving the viewer a remarkable chance to fully experience the various nuances of character and the myriad permutations of shifting relationships (as well as Tolstoy's numerous plot coincidences) that mark this mammoth work." He praised Alan Dobie as "uniformed in Byronic splendor