The Legend of King Arthur

This article is about a British fantasy series. For the French comedy musical, see La Légende du roi Arthur.

The Legend of King Arthur
Written by	Andrew Davies
Directed by	Rodney Bennett
Starring	Andrew Burt Felicity Dean Maureen O'Brien David Robb
Theme music composer	Dudley Simpson
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	8
Production
Producer	Ken Riddington
Running time	30 minutes
Original release
Network	BBC1
Release	7 October (1979-10-07) – 25 November 1979 (1979-11-25)

The Legend of King Arthur is a British television fantasy serial, produced by the BBC in association with Time-Life Television and the Australian Broadcasting Commission, and broadcast on BBC 1 in 1979.[1]

Plot

The story opens at King Uther's court, where he lusts after Igraine, wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall..

Cast

• Andrew Burt as King Arthur
• Felicity Dean as Guinevere
• Maureen O'Brien as Morgan le Fay
• David Robb as Lancelot
• Geoffrey Bateman as Gawain
• James Simmons as Galahad
• Robert Eddison as Merlin
• Patsy Kensit as the young Morgan
• Steve Hodson as Mordred

Production

Earnestly historicist, the production design of the show was of the heroic age, ca. A.D. 500,[2] like the HTV production Arthur of the Britons (1972–3). However, the tragic storyline of this BBC version kept closer faith with the chivalric romance of Le Morte d'Arthur.

Reception

The Arthurian scholar Norris J. Lacy opines: "The Legend of King Arthur has the leisure to depict the legend in detail, but the resulting periodic presentation, if not the medium itself, dilutes the force and drama of the Arthurian story in a way that rarely happens in literature, and certainly not either in the French Vulgate or in Malory."[3]

Novelisation

A tie-in novel, The Legend of King Arthur, authored by the screenwriter Andrew Davies, was published in London by Fontana/Armada in 1979.[1]

Home video and DVD releases

The serial was released on VHS by BBC Video in 1985, and on DVD by Simply Media in 2016.

See also

• List of films based on Arthurian legend

References

1. Kevin J. Harty, "Cinema Arthuriana: A Bibliography of Selected Secondary Materials", Arthurian Interpretations, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Spring 1989), p. 133.
2. Helmut Nickel, "Arms and Armor in Arthurian Films", in Kevin J. Harty (ed.), Cinema Arthuriana: Twenty Essays (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2002), pp. 240–41.
3. Norris J. Lacy, "Arthurian Film and the Tyranny of Tradition", Arthurian Interpretations, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Fall 1989), pp. 78–79.

External links

• The Legend of King Arthur at IMDb