The Pillars of the Earth

By "we" I presume you mean the UK, but the UK didn't make Pillars Of The Earth. The series is an import. It was a German-Canadian co-production. And of course The Tudors is an Irish-Canadian co-production. The UK doesn't seem interested, nowadays, in producing period drama that precedes the 19th century, so it is being left to foreign companies to turn earlier parts of English history into drama.
 
Oh I know that, I meant the UK should make more historical dramas like Pillars not that we actually made it in the first place.
 
Salt was also used, although I don't think anyone from that time was up to todays level of dental standarRAB. Because of that, their teeth may well have been blackened or generally discoloured, if not actually missing or decayed.
They would definitely have had more disfigurements, pock marks and sores due to poor diet, earlier illnesses, improperly healed fractures and scar tissue - plus they all appear to have perfect vision, which doesn't ring true, either - but it's just part of the storytelling process. We couldn't identify with them (and couldn't tell the goodies from the baddies) if they were all realistically ugly.
 
I am really or was in this period of history.

Yes I knew all about the civil war that lasted 20 if I remember.
Watched and enjoyed but. Why did they keep calling Matilda Maud? Maud is a pet name, she was queen Matilda the first queen of England. England dreaded another queen and five hundreRAB years later they got Bloody Mary. :rolleyes:
 
Ridley Scott and his brother Tony's company Scott Free Productions were co-producers of the Pillars of the Earth.

British company Working Title were co-producers of The Tudors.
 
This is simply dramatic licence..a bit of a mouthful to say "Queen of England (disputed), Lady of the English, Empress (Holy Roman Empire, Germany), imperatrix, Queen of the Romans, Romanorum Regina, Countess of Anjou, Matilda Augusta, Matilda the Good, Regina Anglorum, Domina Anglorum, Anglorum Domina, Angliae Normanniaeque domina, every few seconRAB, dont you think?
 
great tv! so refreshing to get a historical drama accurate, unlike that awful fairytail 'merlin'.. (wtf are 5th centuary celts doing running around a 17th cent french chateau?....lol)
 
Err...
Merlin is targetted at the same audience who watch Doctor Who.


This was a great programme.

But with what did the monk feed the abandoned baby?

SMA has been around a while, but not that long!
 
Although it's true that sugar wasn't readily available at the time, honey would have been available to anyone who wanted it, simply by raiding wild bee hives. However, sweet things would probably have been considered a luxury simply because of the time needed to prepare them - peasants would have had access to a fire, on which they could roast or stew things, and possibly an oven for bread, but I don't think they'd have regularly eaten dessert! So paradoxically, the peasants would probably have had quite good teeth and the rich people would be the ones with tooth decay and abscesses.
 
I definitely agree with you that it's great to watch a historically accurate drama. As much as I enjoy the Tudors, that programme is almost as historically inaccurate as the film "Braveheart" - no mean achievement!

I'm a big fan of Merlin, so have to defend it. Merlin and Arthur are mythological rather than historical figures, so historical accuracy doesn't really apply here.
 
i'm looking for a good fantasy series after legend of the seeker was binned, so will certainly give this a go, even though my program planner will be full to bursting ..
 
I really liked this, although I did keep getting Aliena and Maud mixed up :o Those who have read the book, is it an accurate telling, or is it one of those 'look at it as a different story' deals?
 
Thought that was fantastic. Can't wait for next week!

Rufus Sewell looking darn good was a bonus so I'm willing to overlook a slight loss of authenticity in the hair department:D
 
I have just been looking all of this up. You are right that those companies were involved in those projects, yet everywhere The Tudors and The Pillars Of The Earth are described as I described them, as if the British companies' investment was so small as to be negligible. For The Pillars Of The Earth, the two primary producers were Tandem Communications (Germany) and Muse Entertainment (Canada). Scott Free Productions gets listed third everywhere, and like I said, no website lists the show as a German-Canadian-British co-production, just German-Canadian.

The Tudors production details are even more of a mystery. The show is produced by Canada's Peach Arch Entertainment "in association with" Reveille Productions (American), Working Title Films (British), and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (obviously Canadian). Yet The Tudors still gets called an "Irish-Canadian" co-production everywhere I look on the net. Where's the Irish company? And the American producers and British producers are of course excluded from credit when the term Irish-Canadian co-production gets thrown around.
 
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