Finally, I found a good photo of BBC's 1977 series of Eagle of the Ninth, showing Aqulia leading his troops. Details of the production can be found here. Marcus Aquila was played by Anthony Higgins. This scene, was, I think also briefly shown in Togas on TV recently, along with a couple of other scenes. Any chance of a DVD release please of the whole series, Auntie Beeb?From a pedant's point of view, the armour looks dodgy. As it's AD 117 they'd be OK with lorica segmentata, but it looks like scale armour. And the helmets are odd too. Perhaps they are auxiliaries? Nethertheless, I'd rather have a well acted drama with naff costumes than nothing at all ...
27/7/2017 Edit: See this blog post for links to the whole series on YouTube!
8 comments:
I remember really enjoying the 1977 BBC series. It would be nice to see it again.
I found your blog by link and am searching for a historical timeline of her books. I am using many of them along with our study of history as they add such a rich layer to it. Do you have a list like this or know where I could obtain one?
Thank you!
Warmly,
Kate
Sorry, I'm not aware of a time-line. Charles Evans-Gunther, in his 3 part article on this blog gives a short one for some of the Roman Novels.
There may yet be a film by Bill Kenworthy ..... also Anthony Lawton has started up again at rosemarysutcliff.wordpress.com
Just saw that they are remaking this movie, it is due out early 2011 - can't wait to see it!
Believe it or not, I have a much cherished video of all 6 episodes, which I taped in the early 80s and which I've shared with my two kids. I'm so scared it will break and I'll lose it - I too would really love the BBC to re-release it, maybe ahead of the film release! I love Marcus - my daughter loves Esca!
Phoenix, I will pay you for a copy of those tapes!
It shouldn't be too hard to transfer this on to DVD, just until a professional one comes along. I quite understand your fear of it becoming wrecked! Damn, I was hoping it was already out on DVD. No harm checking the BBC web site.
It was a wonderful series and a great set of novels.
Timeline? You should be able to get at least a rough one by re-reading the books. The Lantern-Bearers, for example, comes at the time when the last Roman troops were leaving Britain and we do have a year for that. It finishes just before The Sword At Sunset - three days before, in fact! What I liked was that even her later stories, set in the Middle Ages, included the dolphin ring.
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