Recollections from David Osborn: "If I remember correctly ..."
Thursday, 3 October 2013 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arthur_of_the_britonsAccording to his website (now defunct), David Osborn, a New Yorker by birth, left the USA when black-listed, along with one of the actors in a radio play he had written, during the McCarthy witch hunts. He went to France, where he owned and operated a small rock quarry on the Cote D’Azur.
Around 1958, when his script for “Chase a Crooked Shadow” became successful, he came to work in England, and spent many years writing for film and TV, including three of the episodes of “Arthur of the Britons” with the most overtly political messages: “Some Saxon Women”, “The Wood People”, and “The Games.”
When contacted in 2013, David Osborn’s immediate recollection was that he “created the series, wrote a pilot script and received an award for it as best children's series”1, though he admitted that his memory, at the age of 90, was a little hazy. “If I remember correctly, I was approached by a TV company … and asked to come up with a series. I took a different approach than the usual Knights of the Round Table etc. and cast Arthur as a tribal chief of the Britons who was waging guerrilla warfare as his people were being slowly driven out by the Saxons.” He also said, “I've written nine novels since, am deep into my tenth, and have finally hit ninety, so I might be excused at being less definite.”
Patrick Dromgoole is generally thought of as the originator of the series, and the episodes written by David Osborn were all filmed during the later half of the shooting, so whether Osborn was actually as deeply involved in the creation of the series as he remembers, we will probably never know. But according to James Chapman, in Swashbucklers: The Costume Adventure Series”, “HTV was too small an outfit to mount such an ambitious undertaking itself and had to seek co-production partners. Arthur of the Britons was produced in association with Heritage Enterprises of New York … which released an abridged feature film from the series, King Arthur the Young Warlord, in America in 1975 …” Perhaps New Yorker David Osborn was part of this US connection.
He had earlier written the original screen story for “Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?”, in which Michael Gothard appeared, so if he really was involved in the genesis of “Arthur of the Britons”, it may not be too much of a stretch to see his influence in Michael’s casting as “Kai”. Osborn’s personal experience with a rock quarry may have provided the inspiration or background for “The Slaves.”
1 He was referring to The Writers’ Guild Award, shared with the other writers on the series.
Around 1958, when his script for “Chase a Crooked Shadow” became successful, he came to work in England, and spent many years writing for film and TV, including three of the episodes of “Arthur of the Britons” with the most overtly political messages: “Some Saxon Women”, “The Wood People”, and “The Games.”
When contacted in 2013, David Osborn’s immediate recollection was that he “created the series, wrote a pilot script and received an award for it as best children's series”1, though he admitted that his memory, at the age of 90, was a little hazy. “If I remember correctly, I was approached by a TV company … and asked to come up with a series. I took a different approach than the usual Knights of the Round Table etc. and cast Arthur as a tribal chief of the Britons who was waging guerrilla warfare as his people were being slowly driven out by the Saxons.” He also said, “I've written nine novels since, am deep into my tenth, and have finally hit ninety, so I might be excused at being less definite.”
Patrick Dromgoole is generally thought of as the originator of the series, and the episodes written by David Osborn were all filmed during the later half of the shooting, so whether Osborn was actually as deeply involved in the creation of the series as he remembers, we will probably never know. But according to James Chapman, in Swashbucklers: The Costume Adventure Series”, “HTV was too small an outfit to mount such an ambitious undertaking itself and had to seek co-production partners. Arthur of the Britons was produced in association with Heritage Enterprises of New York … which released an abridged feature film from the series, King Arthur the Young Warlord, in America in 1975 …” Perhaps New Yorker David Osborn was part of this US connection.
He had earlier written the original screen story for “Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?”, in which Michael Gothard appeared, so if he really was involved in the genesis of “Arthur of the Britons”, it may not be too much of a stretch to see his influence in Michael’s casting as “Kai”. Osborn’s personal experience with a rock quarry may have provided the inspiration or background for “The Slaves.”
1 He was referring to The Writers’ Guild Award, shared with the other writers on the series.