Edward The King (1973 British TV Mini-Series/Acorn Media DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C Extras: C- Episodes: B+
In 1973,
British TV was enjoying its last golden age extended as the great crews,
directors and other creative forces got their hands on the possibilities of
full-color videotape. Like the U.S.,
they were in the midst of innovating the medium with new show types like the TV
movie and mini-series. Early on, one of
the best, most impressive, most ambitious and most groundbreaking for its time
was Edward The King (1973. aka Edward The Seventh) from ATV, taking
advantage of the long hours one could fill and delivering a lucky 13
episodes. They include:
1)
The Boy
2)
An Experiment In Education
3)
The New World
4)
Alix
5)
A Hundred Thousand Welcomes
6)
The Invincible Queen
7)
Dearest Princess
8)
The Royal Quadrille
9)
Scandal
10) The Years of Waiting
11) King At Last
12) The Peacemaker
13) Good Old Teddy!
At the
time, one of the big deals was the idea that you could show any individuals
life at length, on TV and in such detail. This was a fresh concept that had some
controversy to it when privacy was considered and the idea of any extensive
recording here was long before the idea of any Internet was floating around
except in the corners of some of the better science fiction of the time. As compared to the failed pretensions of such
junk as the recent Dogme ’95 movement that thought it was doing what is done
here, but in a shallow manner, this far richer approach embarrasses most such
disastrous pretension of the digital video age (high or low def) and has aged
very well on a pure text level.
In
addition, for what was then and now a period piece, this was two years before
Stanley Kubrick’s groundbreaking feature Barry
Lyndon and while so many such productions have not aged well thanks to that
masterwork, Edward The King manages
to play very strongly in its own right with not only the money in the
production, but a remarkable teleplay (by David Butler and Director John
Gorrie) and exceptional cast (possibly one of the best in U.K. TV history)
including Timothy West, Annette Crosbie, Sir John Gielgud, Charles Dance, Felicity
Kendal, Robert Hardy, Nigel Havers, Rhoda Lewis, Charles Sturridge, Carolyn
Seymour, Robert Flemyng, Michael Billington, André Morell, Harry
Andrews, Michael Byrne, Paul Greenhalgh, Deborah Grant, Edward de Souza,
Christopher Neame, Geoffrey Palmer, Moira Redmond, Richard Vernon and Frederick
Treves. What a cast!
Now
finally on DVD, this is a must-see TV at its classic best!
The 1.33
X 1 aspect ratio is sadly softer than I remembered it looking at the time, but
it sure looked new then. One of the
attractions may have been it being an early color videotaped epic as color PAL
videotape arrived in England later than in the U.S., but it is still quite
watchable with all the money in the costumes and production design. I wish most similar HD productions looked
this good. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
also shows its age with audio a little lower than I would have liked. Extras are audio commentary tracks by West,
Crosbie and Gorrie on some of the shows, intros to some of the shows by Robert
McNeal, trailers, photo gallery with star/director commentary and two
featurettes. This show deserves all of
that.
- Nicholas Sheffo