''The Legend of King Arthur'' is a

British television Television broadcasts in the United Kingdom began in 1932, however, regular broadcasts would only begin four years later. Television began as a public service which was free of advertising, which followed the first demonstration of a transm ...

fantasy serial, produced by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

in association with Time-Life Television and the

Australian Broadcasting Commission The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia’s principal public service broadcaster. It is funded primarily by grants from the federal government and is administered by a government-appointed board of directors. The ABC is a ...

, and broadcast on

BBC 1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and Flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includ ...

in 1979.Kevin J. Harty, "Cinema Arthuriana: A Bibliography of Selected Secondary Materials", '' Arthurian Interpretations'', Vol. 3, No. 2 (Spring 1989), p. 133.

Plot

The story opens at King Uther's court, where he lusts after

Igraine In the Matter of Britain, Igraine () is the mother of King Arthur. Igraine is also known in Latin as Igerna, in Welsh as Eigr (Middle Welsh Eigyr), in French as Ygraine (Old French Ygerne or Igerne), in ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' as Ygrayne—ofte ...

, wife of

Gorlois In Matter of Britain, Arthurian legend, Gorlois () of Tintagel was the List of legendary rulers of Cornwall, Duke of Cornwall. He was the first husband of King Arthur's mother Igraine and the father of her daughters, King Arthur's family, Arthu ...

, Duke of Cornwall..

Cast

Andrew Burt Andrew Thomas Hutchison Burt (23 May 1945 – 16 November 2018) was a British actor, voiceover artist, and counsellor. Early life and education Andrew Burt was born on 23 May 1945 in Wakefield, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, to Hutchison B ...

King Arthur According to legends, King Arthur (; ; ; ) was a king of Great Britain, Britain. He is a folk hero and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In Wales, Welsh sources, Arthur is portrayed as a le ...

Felicity Dean Felicity Jane Dean (born 24 January 1959) is a British actress, who is critically acclaimed for her extensive work in film and on stage, including works with, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Al Pacino, HBO, Sir Jonathan Miller and Joseph Losey. ...

Guinevere Guinevere ( ; ; , ), also often written in Modern English as Guenevere or Guenever, was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. First mentioned in literature in the early 12th cen ...

Maureen O'Brien Maureen O'Brien (born 29 June 1943) is an English actress and author best known for playing the role of Vicki (Doctor Who), Vicki Pallister in the BBC science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', although she has appeared in many other te ...

Morgan le Fay Morgan le Fay (; Welsh language, Welsh and Cornish language, Cornish: Morgen; with ''le Fay'' being garbled French language, French ''la Fée'', thus meaning 'Morgan the Fairy'), alternatively known as Morgan , Morgain /e Morgant Mor ...

David Robb David Robb (born 23 August 1947) is a Scottish actor. Early life Robb was born in Wandsworth, London, the son of David Robb and Elsie Tilley. He grew up in Edinburgh and was educated there at the Royal High School, where he played Henry II i ...

Lancelot Lancelot du Lac (French for Lancelot of the Lake), alternatively written as Launcelot and other variants, is a popular character in the Matter of Britain, Arthurian legend's chivalric romance tradition. He is typically depicted as King Arthu ...

*Geoffrey Bateman as

Gawain Gawain ( ), also known in many other forms and spellings, is a character in Matter of Britain, Arthurian legend, in which he is King Arthur's nephew and one of the premier Knights of the Round Table. The prototype of Gawain is mentioned und ...

*James Simmons as

Galahad Galahad (), sometimes referred to as Galeas () or Galath (), among other versions of his name (originally ''Galaad'', ''Galaaz'', or ''Galaaus''), is a knight of King Arthur's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Ar ...

* Robert Eddison as

Merlin The Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN) is an interferometer array of radio telescopes spread across England. The array is run from Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire by the University of Manchester on behalf of UK Re ...

Patsy Kensit Patricia Jude Francis Kensit (born 4 March 1968) is an English actress and singer. Beginning her career as a child actor, Kensit gained attention when she acted in a string of commercials for Birds Eye frozen peas. She went on to appear in films ...

as the young Morgan * Steve Hodson as Mordred

Production

Earnestly

historicist Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying the process or history by which they came about. The term is widely used in philosophy, ant ...

, the production design of the show was of the heroic age, ''ca. A.D.'' 500, 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 As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of high medieval and early modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalri ...

of ''

Le Morte d'Arthur ' (originally written as '; Anglo-Norman French for "The Death of Arthur") is a 15th-century Middle English prose reworking by Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the ...

''.

Reception

The

Arthurian According to legends, King Arthur (; ; ; ) was a king of Britain. He is a folk hero and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In Welsh sources, Arthur is portrayed as a leader of the post-Ro ...

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 Sir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author of ''Le Morte d'Arthur'', the classic English-language chronicle of the Arthurian legend, compiled and in most cases translated from French sources. The most popular version of ''Le Morte d'Ar ...

."Norris J. Lacy, "Arthurian Film and the Tyranny of Tradition", ''Arthurian Interpretations'', Vol. 4, No. 1 (Fall 1989), pp. 78–79.

Novelisation

A tie-in novel, ''The Legend of King Arthur'', authored by the screenwriter Andrew Davies, was published in London by

Fontana Fontana may refer to: Places Italy *Fontana Liri, comune in the Province of Frosinone *Fontanafredda, comune in the Province of Pordenone * Fontanarosa, comune in the Province of Avellino *Francavilla Fontana, comune in the Province of Brindisi ...

/ Armada in 1979.

Home video and DVD releases

The serial was released on

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

BBC Video 2 Entertain Video Limited, trading as BBC Studios Home Entertainment, is a British video and music publisher founded in 2004 following the merger of BBC Video and Video Collection International by BBC Worldwide and the Woolworths (United Kingd ...

in 1985, and on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

by Simply Media in 2016.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Legend of King Arthur 1970s British drama television series BBC television dramas 1979 British television series debuts 1979 British television series endings Television shows written by Andrew Davies British fantasy drama television series Television series based on Arthurian legend Period television series British English-language television shows