![]() His quest is to get back his ancestral seat of Bebbanburg, and he will do just about anything to do it, including kill, cheat, and marry a pious Christian wife in order to get her wealth, even though he is a pagan. In many ways a stranger in a strange land, no matter where he goes. Our hero, Uhtred, played by Alexander Dreymon (photo from BBCAmerica). And this makes for some interesting conflicts and dilemmas for Uhtred, and keeps us watching! So his story is an compelling one – among the Danes he is seen as a Saxon, among the Saxons, a Dane. He finds favour with his master and is basically adopted as a son. Uhtred is a boy when his father is killed fighting the Danes, and Uhtred is taken as a slave. Speaking of protagonists, our hero of the story is Uhtred son of Uhtred, the heir to an earldoman of Northumbria. ![]() I think there is a sense in which this contrast is played a bit too far, but I understand that for dramatic purposes you need to have clear demarcations between your characters or else it all becomes a muddle. In the series we see the fighting, drinking, barbarian, party-animal Danes, and the more pious, educated Christian Saxons. Just as an aside, the Danes themselves were not called Vikings until centuries later, in the 8th century they were called denes by the Anglo-Saxons, from which we get the word “Danes”. In fact the producers did a great job all in all of showing the contrast between the Danes and the Saxons. That’s not blood on his teeth, they are showing how the Danes would file horizontal grooves in their teeth and stain them with red berry juice (probably to look like blood, however!) Looks like a character quite capable of going beserker, no? Photo: BBCAmerica This is the bloodthirsty Dane, Skorpa, ably played by the Swedish actor Jonas Malmsjö. I loved the costumes, and the way the Danes were portrayed in terms of their dress and hairstyles as opposed to the Saxons. The makers of the series went to a great deal of trouble to get the details right, for the most part, although I did have a couple of small quibbles with it, which I will cover later.įirst of all, high marks to the producers for their excellent production values. ![]() I mean, if it’s good to read another novel about the era you are interested in, imagine the delight of seeing it come to life?Īnd I will say the The Last Kingdom did not disappoint. So, caveat aside, it was with great anticipation that I settled down with my husband to watch this series. And besides, Cornwell’s books take place after the Viking invasion, and mine, before, so I didn’t want to mix myself up in the history that I was learning.īecause I have only a little familiarity with the books, therefore, this review will strictly be on the series itself, without any reference to the books and how well the series did or did not capture the essence of the books. Of course I enjoyed the book, but I didn’t want to read any more than one, because I didn’t want my books to take on any “Cornwell” flavour. ![]() I read the first book to get a flavour of how another novelist tackled some of the practicalities of writing about this era, like, what do you call the various places? How do you explain the social structure of the times? What do these people eat? etc. To be clear, I only read the first of the Cornwall novels, also called The Last Kingdom, as I discovered them in the midst of writing my own Dark Ages novel. It is an 8-episode adaptation of the Saxon novels by Bernard Cornwell. I finally finished watching this 2015 BBC series, which has been available on Netflix for some time now.
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