#Stewart Bradley

[streamondemand]

'The Burglar' – Dan Duryea sweats it out on Prime Video

In a genre filled with the lurid and the vicious, The Burglar (1957) is as sweaty and tawdry as they come, a pulp crime thriller set in the seedy lower depths of low-rent crooks and raw passions. Dan Duryea centers the film with an easy, almost world-weary confidence as Nat Harbin, a career criminal and veteran safecracker with so much confidence that he chats up a couple of uniform cops who…

[doctorkinktraveller]

Doctor Who : Power of the Doctor

[evviejo]

the thirteenth doctor and her (extended) fam throughout the era

[nkp1981]

The Doctor and companions

[spider-doctor2]

Warhammer fancast using biopic actors (Part 1: The Imperium)

This is your daily reminder to get out there and vote on Election Day if you live in America so WE don’t have to deal with Warhammer-type shit ourselves

[teatimewithgiles]

Mondays with Anthony Head 61/?

Tony with his Merlin costars

[24601orwhatever]

JAVERTS UNDERCLOTHES

(restaged ver)

very simple look… but one of my absolute favorite things to see :3

[avianii]

sometimes you just gotta draw a *friendly* arm wrestle between two of your favorite fighter pilots

[kimmiessimmies]

Bestseller (1/26)

[horror-aesthete]

Some very messy ciswap lesbian The Passenger doodles

[keenenthusiastinfluencer]

The president is currently up a tree going feral about Bradley Jaden. She won’t come down and until she does I’m in charge.

[princessmo]

ok. i wanna hear everyone's beavis and butthead/king of the hill crossover ideas. go

[theaddictedwatcher]

Hello everyone!

Today I am delighted to present you the series you were able to choose thanks to the survey done on my Instagram (@theaddictedwatcherreviews) last Saturday and that is ... Oh no, I'm not going to tell you just like that! It's a series created by Julian Jones, Jake Michie, Johnny Capps and Julian Murphy (yes, that's a lot of people!) in 2008 for the BBC. Need more clues? It's a medieval fantasy series that revisits a great myth. Do you have it yet? Yes, of course, I'm going to tell you about the Merlin series!

To begin with, I'll give you a short synopsis: In medieval times, in the Kingdom of Albion, King Uther Pendragon has banned the practice of magic. Merlin, a young magician sent to the castle to be educated by Gaius, must hide his extraordinary powers in this age of terror against magicians and sorcerers. Propelled as Arthur's valet -the son of the monarch Uther Pendragon and future sovereign- following a fortuitous combination of circumstances, Merlin has sworn to protect his lord Arthur at the request of Kilgharrah -the dragon secretly imprisoned beneath the castle of the monarch Uther Pendragon. And a short technical presentation : Created by : Julian Jones, Jake Michie, Johnny Capps and Julian Murphy. Music by : Rob Lane, Rohan Stevenson, James Gosling and Michal Pavlicek. Main cast: Colin Morgan, Bradley James, Angel Coulby, Katie McGrath, Richard Wilson, Anthony Stewart Head, John Hurt.

Merlin is a freely-adaptated story of the Arthurian legend that largely rewrites its roots. Over the course of 5 seasons and its 65 episodes, the creators and screenwriters have attempted to modernise the themes of the original legend, including the following examples from the first episode:

Uther Pendragon -played by Anthony Stewart Head- governs the kingdom of Camelot which, in the legend, does not exist under his reign.

Merlin -played by Colin Morgan- and Arthur -played by Bradley James- are approximately the same age, which is not the case in the Arthurian legend.

Morgana -played by Katie McGrath- is the ward of King Uther and Arthur's adopted sister.

Guinevere -played by Angel Coulby- is the mixed-race daughter of a black smith and works in the castle as Morgana's lady-in-waiting instead of being the daughter of the King of Carmelides -a clan federated by Arthur- in the legend.

And there are other alterations that I'll leave you to discover as the series progresses (although I'll talk about some of them below but I'll warn you when I will)!

I realise that, for people familiar with the legend, this can be very confusing and even unpleasant. But, if you manage to put aside your pre-watching knowledge of the subject and give the series a chance, I think you might just enjoy it all the same.

The main cast of the series - although different from what you might expect - has been meticulously chosen. The characters may differ in character from those in the legend, but there's no denying the acting ability of the cast. Some of them were well known before the series, such as Anthony Stewart Head -notably known for his roles in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, in the film The Iron Lady alongside Meryl Streep and more recently in the TV show Bridgerton -, John Hurt -notably known for his role in the Harry Potter saga, in the film V for Vendetta and more recently in the Doctor Who series- and Katie McGrath -notably known for the King Arthur: The Legend of Excalibur movie, the Tudors series and, more recently, the Supergirl series which I'll talk about in a later article. However, the revelations that turned out to be Bradley James and Colin Morgan are not to be outdone either. As for the guest actors and actresses, many of them are well known to the British public, and some even to international audiences. Indeed, actors such as Asa Butterfield (Sex Education), Tom Hopper (Umbrella Academy), Tom Ellis (Lucifer) and Warwick Davis (Harry Potter, Willow, Leprechaun, Star Wars) have enjoyed successful careers since Merlin went on air (and some even before that) and are recognized as major talents internationally. Whether they are recurring, main or guest actors, the unity formed by their complicity both on and off stage helps to make this cast a family with its affections, tensions, passions and losses. The relationship between Merlin and Arthur, despite their complicated beginnings and the fact that their social positions put them on different levels of equality, is a brotherly one. Merlin, on his mission to protect the future King Arthur, will do everything in his power to learn how to live at court and make himself useful to Arthur, who, for his part, will come to recognise Merlin's usefulness at his side and will develop a great affection for him, albeit tinged with teasing. Even during their quarrels, the bond that unites them always leads them back to each other, and to me, this is a fine illustration of a brotherly friendship. The bond between Merlin and Gaius is also important and touching, because, in the series, Merlin was raised by a single mother and Gaius acts as a father figure to him. Indeed, Gaius protects and educates him as best he can. In the end, a real bond and understanding develops between the old man and his apprentice, and I think it's important to show that a parental figure is not necessarily linked to a blood relative.

However, there was one aspect of the actors' performance that I didn't like, but I think that has more to do with the artistic direction than the acting ability of the actors: I'm talking about the fight choreography. I'm aware that sword fighting or even hand-to-hand combat isn't easy, but that's precisely where I think they should have been better choreographed to make the various battles that take place throughout the series more believable. Indeed, when we talk about the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, these epic stories are often punctuated by numerous battles. It was only natural, then, that when I watched the series I expected big, strong, rhythmic and carefully choreographed battles. Unfortunately, in my opinion, most of the fights, especially the sword fights, failed to live up to these expectations…

I'd also like to say a few words about the different filming locations. Pierrefonds Castle in the Oise region in France, near Compiègne, was one of the locations used for the Camelot Castle set. This 14th-century fortress is open to visitors and many of the sets for the series can be seen there.

The series was also filmed at Goodrich Castle in Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire, on Penshurst Place in Kent in England and in Wales. The fact that the majority of the sets are real means that the use of special effects - especially green screens - has limited, as the series ages, the diminution the quality of the images.

Speaking of the quality of the images, I'd like to talk very briefly about the special effects used on the series. As a fantasy series, Merlin necessarily uses special effects to symbolise the magic and mythical creatures that inhabit the kingdom of Albion. The computer-generated images were produced by the British team The Mill, whose credits include the special effects for Gladiator and Doctor Who. However, the quality of the effects varies depending on what is being represented. As long as the effects remain minimalist, such as smoke or a change in the colour of a character's eyes, they have aged well and remain effective in their own right. But as soon as they are more important, such as a fall caused by magic, a physical transformation or the animation of a dragon (this is not a spoiler, the word dragon appears literally in the name Pendragon), the effects have generally aged rather badly, look a little crude and, let's be honest, quite ugly…

On the other hand, one of the aspects of the series that I liked the most was the work that went into the characters' costumes. From what I've been able to see and learn in the course of my research, the costumes chosen for the characters by the series' costume designer, Charlotte Morris, are fairly faithful to the armour and court dress worn in the period that the series aims to reflect. One detail, however, bothers me personally in this temporal cohesion, and that's the cut of Merlin's brown jacket. I find that this jacket, which appears to be made of nubuck, seems too modern, too recent to blend in with the atmosphere that was intended to be created.

Let's take a look at the changes that have been made to the Arthurian legend! BEWARE OF SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH! In the series, Merlin -who in the legend is a druid and in the series a magician- is Arthur's valet, to whom he hides his magical powers while using them to save his master without his knowledge. He is the son of a single-mother and farmer called Hunith and his father is unknown. It was Hunith who sent Merlin to her friend Gaius, a physician in Camelot's court and a former magician. In the legend, Merlin's parentage differs radically from one version to another. Speaking of the origins of the legend, an anecdotal but noteworthy fact is that even Geoffrey of Monmouth appears in the series as a court genealogist. The real Geoffrey of Monmouth (1095-1155) did exist, and he is known to have been the first to write a very extensive version of the Arthurian legend that served as a model for all later Arthurian stories. Finally, in the most remarkable changes, Morgana, who is Arthur's adulterous sister and Morgause's consanguineous sister in the legend, is in the series Morgause's adulterous younger sister and Arthur's consanguineous older sister. END OF SPOIL. All these changes have enabled Merlin's authors to modernise the various themes and make the series more accessible to a wider audience. They also took this opportunity to slip in a few nods to the British literature to which the Arthurian legend belongs.

Finally, as usual, I'd like to end with the series' soundtrack. It was created by Rob Lane, Rohan Stevenson, James Gosling and Michal Pavlicek and for me it's one of the series soundtracks that best fits the genre of this one. Unfortunately, the link I've provided is missing a lot of tracks, but there are enough for you to get a good idea.

That's it for this article on the BBC series Merlin (2008). I hope that if you were reluctant to watch it, I've been able to help you in your choice. And for those of you who have seen it, let me know what you think and whether you agree with me.

Don’t forget to keep an eye every Saturday on my Instagram account (@theaddictedwatcherreviews) if you want to be able to choose the subject of the next article!

Until our next adventures, I wish you a great weekend and a wonderful week ahead,

Eli.

[evviejo]

the timeless children // the power of the doctor

[nkp1981]

Cramped TARDIS selfie

[jigsawjo]

2023-12-30, 550, “Discover America”

The Great American Quilt Festival 3, “Discover America One Patch at a Time”, Joyce Winterton Stewart, 1992