"The devils whore on the telly last night...hmmm" Topic

Looked forward to this, but it turned out to be rather strange.

I switched off half way through (about the time the 'Battle' of Edgehill came up)…………

I agree that Edgehill was pretty ropey. I was especially disappointed after having read in the Times that the relocation of shooting to South Africa had enabled them to get the battles to look more than "five extras and a smokebomb". I did not take this to mean ten extras and a smoke bomb. Some other special effects were a bit off; the devil never looked "right". Also I thought I saw a black soldier; is this just laziness, or were they intentionally inserting him to give a more accurate picture of the war? Did black soldiers participate in the Civl War?

Other than that, I was quite impressed with the script, the period feel, and I liked their Charles I. Events did move quite fast, but overall I enjoyed it. I'll be tuning in again.

Excellent script and nice acting but forget the battle scenes. Shame about the latter but I will continue watching.

I liked it, not as a wargamer though- no battle stuff worth watching.

Three things struck me very fast; 1) the producers didn't want us to decide whether we were Cavaliers or Roundheads too fast ; 2) They had put serious work into casting – the girl in particular looks very, very 16th century ripe young thing and 3) they at least knew their history.

For us lot there was not much eye candy. The Kineton fight was a matter of some horsemen at the canter hacking at infantry in open order. Nonetheless that they called it the Kineton Fight was nice of them.

I liked the lack of gratuitous sex. There WAS sex, but it was mostly of the ‘gurning but you don't need to see their bodies' type. I particularly liked the fact that her limp daffodil of a husband found the fact she was making noises in the sack disgraceful. I like sex, but lots of it in a Historical Drama is a sure sign the writers are unhappy with their material and need another way to get people to watch it – ‘Cleopatra' ‘'The Borgias' and ‘Henry VIII' this was not.

As usual John Simm was wonderful, I found Peter Capaldi as Charles very good… but off puttingly Peter Capaldi. Anyone who has watched and loved ‘The Thick of It' will know what I mean when I say I kept expecting him to get very aggressive indeed.

There was only one bit I thought was ‘untrue' to history. Col Rainham summons the couple to surrender their House. The hubby refuses, and orders his wife to leave. She will not, so he has to surrender to save her.
In reality of course Women played a real part in the defence of houses, and in many cases LED them. I can understand that there must have been cases where this did NOT apply, and that her husband was weak, but it gives the impression that this was a rule.

They HAVE made what I suspect are deliberate character changes to make it more acceptable to modern watchers. Cromwell is presented as a hard-headed pragmatist. That he occasionally went ‘screw THINKING – let GOD decide' has not been shown yet, perhaps because to Secular Modern People this level of religious belief is almost seen as insanity. On the other hand I was puzzled why they had given John Lilburn a Geordie accent, and only when I checked did I discover he actually was a Mackem!

Overall I give it a good 8/10 – well acted, interesting and plausible, with no historical inaccuracy to make my hackles rise.

Pat

It had a nice feel to it amd I'll continue watching.
The battles scenes were indeed woeful and show up a pereniall weakness to this type of TV drama, that of trying to portray a large organisation of thousands with a handful of extras.
This could have been solved by using these extras carefully in the forground and using special effects, multiple filming of smaller groups then added together post production, or even cgi work to suggest a much bigger event in the background. Though the focus may not be on the war itself it might have been worth the effort for at least one big showpiece event,the imagination can then easily fill in the rest of the war.
What I thought it seemed to lack was a military advisor somewhere,someone with a vision for large spectacular groups and also an eye for details,small yet important, thats why we still see people pointing guns that are not primed or capable of being fired.

When 4 blokes can do this on a weekend I wonder what is the problem doing Edgehill with at least a modest sense of scale?

link

Exactly the point I was trying to make elcid1099 , someone with a bit of vision needed, the technology to do it is there already,and its relatively cheap now too.

I think this is a better example of how they could have done the battles

link

That is hilarious. Thanks I needed cheering up.

On the other hand I was puzzled why they had given John Lilburn a Geordie accent, and only when I checked did I discover he actually was a Mackem!

Yes I presumed from the name he must of been from the North East but a Mackem! They get every where you know. If we're not careful they will be running the place and we will all have to say mak and tak. Still no time to linger off to complete episode 2 of my Geordie Sci-Fi epic 'Revenge of the Sandancers'.

Yep.

Rupert --a .

Lilburne --a typical Geordie in pursuit of another lost cause.

History? --Ha!

i happen to agree with both those 'Brief Lives' Mr Aubrey!

Pat

Yep Lilburne John was from Bishop Auckland.

Really liked the series so far the charactorisation was very well done. Not too worried about the battle scens though the open order pike, infact in skirmish order was a little sad.

Favourite time traveller was the master playing the Mercenary avery well done

Sain Max
Col Rainham,I think you will find its Col Rainsborough as in
Thomas,He went on to command a Regt with his own name as part of the New Model Army………

sorry, i knew that of course…. somewhere in the vault is lots of ECW history i once knew!

Pat