Swashbuckling heroes and great fun

During a recent conversation with Healer Sis and Sis-in-Law, I learned that the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) will be broadcasting episodes of one of my favorite fictional swashbuckling heroes.  Two episodes of the adventures of the dashing, if rough-edged, Richard Sharpe, will be shown on PBS's Masterpiece Theater in late March and early April 2010.  What fun!  PBS viewers are in for a treat.

It's apparently taken a while for the Sharpe series, tremendously popular elsewhere around the world, English-speaking or not -- it's been shown in some 120 countries -- to catch on in the United States.   The saga, taken for the most part from the historical novels of British author Bernard Cornwell, traces the career of the British soldier Sharpe.   He is raised from the ranks of enlisted men and named an officer when he saves the life of the future Lord Wellington.   He ultimately rises to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in Sharpe's Waterloo. 

The first 14 episodes are set during the Napoleonic Wars in Portugal, Spain and France, from 1809-1815.  They are told from the British point of view and contain lots of love, lust, bloodshed and even an occasional historical fact or two.  Those episodes were all filmed from 1993-1997.  So far as I am able to discover, none of those episodes has been broadcast on US networks.  The two episodes that are scheduled to be broadcast in the US this spring are the most recent: Sharpe's Challenge, filmed in 2006, and Sharpe's Peril, filmed in 2008.  Both occur during the post-Napoleonic period and are filmed in India.

The British actor, Sean Bean, who plays the title role, is the quintessence of Sharpe, IMO.  It's difficult to imagine another actor in the role, even though Bean was not the first choice way back when.  Sean Bean is probably best-known in the US for his role as Boromir in Lord of the Rings.  Many may also remember him for his bad-guy roles in Patriot Games and Don't Say a Word, among others.  I remember being struck by his presence at the time, finding his performance, even as the designated villain, more arresting than that of either Harrison Ford or Michael Douglas, the respective leads in those films.  In the Sharpe films, he finally gets his chance to play the role of hero.  And oh, what fun it is to watch!

Sharpe is assisted in being a hero in the first 14 episodes by his fiercely loyal band of riflemen, the "Chosen Men," and his second-in-command, Sergeant Major Patrick Harper.  He must first prove himself to all of them because they are reluctant, to say the least, to accept as an officer someone who has been promoted from the ranks.  He does so with both fisticuffs and panache in Sharpe's Rifles.  From then until Waterloo, where all but Sharpe and Harper die in the epic battle, they prove that they will follow him to the gates of Hell itself.

Harper, whose role is played by the brilliant Irish actor, Daragh O'Malley, will also be featured in the two episodes to be shown on Masterpiece Theater.  I, for one, hope that the experience will serve merely as an introduction and that the rest of the series will be brought to the US!