Tag: sharpe

This book presents a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the making of “Sharpe’s Challenge”, a major film for television starring Sean Bean. The Sharpe television series is a high point of British television drama. Led by the charismatic Sean Bean playing the redoubtable hero Richard Sharpe, the films brilliantly echo and enhance the remarkable strengths of the bestselling novels by Bernard Cornwell…

Fourteen films have already aired and now two new films are being released. The series has achieved 14 million viewing figures, with additional and ongoing sales in video and DVD. “Sharpe Cut” is a unique book. It is the book of the creation of a television drama from start to finish; the first of its kind. Linda Blandford spent the entire six months of the filming of “Sharpe’s Challenge” with the cast, crew and producers. She has created a brilliant, vivid account, full of scene and story, high drama, near disaster and comedy.

“Sharpe Cut” gives the reader all the inside touches of what life on a film set is really like. From the producers to the stuntmen, from the chefs to the martial organisers, from the production designers to the costume designers and the make-up artists; they are all here. And so of course are the actors, famous and unknown, bringing all the work to life. Living together for months on end, they become a family of a sort and yet are torn apart at the completion of each film.

“Sharpe Cut” is a brilliant evocation of the life and work of creating a major television drama, with a narrative as compelling as a thriller. It is an intimate and compelling peak behind the director’s chair, into a world the audience can normally only guess at.

Get Sharpe’s Cut at Amazon.

Though not related to a specific book (it took elements from Tiger and Fortress) I did find Sharpe’s Challenge an enjoyable romp and very much in the tradition of Sharpe on TV.

Sean Bean gave his usual portrayal of gutter rat raised from the ranks and was a classic Sharpe.

It was nice to see a little homage to the books showing Sharpe in India in 1803.

If you didn’t see it, you can now order the DVD which was released today (1st May 2006).

The new Sharpe is on tonight on ITV1 at 9pm.

Sean Bean is back as the swashbuckling hero in SHARPE’S CHALLENGE. A year after Wellington crushes Napoleon at Waterloo, dispatches tell of a local Maharaja who is threatening British interests in India. Wellington sends Sharpe to investigate what turns out to be his most dangerous mission to date. The fate of an Empire and the life of a General’s daughter lie in one man’s hands….

It has been pointed out to me that the new Sharpe series is in fact set two years after Waterloo (ie 1817) and not in the 1790s like the books. So some of my comments were slightly out of kilter.

Sean Bean is back as the swashbuckling hero in Sharpe’s Challenge, an action packed mini-series to be shot on location in Rajasthan, India. Two years after the Duke of Wellington crushes Napoleon at Waterloo, dispatches from India tell of a local Maharaja, Khande Rao, who is threatening British interests there.

Therefore Harper can be with Sharpe no problem as can Simmerson. They are I guess part of the main story and won’t be used as flashbacks.

Also it avoids the issue of how to make Sean Bean look twenty years younger…