Arthur of the Britons

In the evening, I went down to the Waterwheel Suite and re-arranged the room, with a table at the front, on which I put the gifts which I had bought for Oliver on behalf of the group. There was also a folder of messages I had printed out, from people who could not attend.

People began to drift in at about 7 pm., so I put “Arthur is Dead” on the TV. Oliver arrived and sat watching with us.

During the scene where the Saxons were bogged down in a marsh and hit with multiple volleys of spears, Oliver looked quite affected; he observed that it was brutal – a massacre. I think as fans, we have watched the scene so many times that we tend to find it rather comical, but Oliver was absolutely right! Most of the Saxons were mercilessly slaughtered; only three men, including Cerdig, got away.

I asked how they got the spear to stick out of the extra’s back. Oliver said they wore a body rig to hold it in place.

In the final scene, where Arthur pretends to have been knocked off his horse in order to regain the lead from Kai, I asked whether he was really hanging off the side of the horse in that shot, and he confirmed that he was.

After the episode, I thanked Oliver for spending so much time with us. I then read out Paul Lewis’ letter to Oliver, and gave him a print out of this, and all the other messages he’d been sent. There were quite a few pages, so he put it aside to read later.

I then gave him the gifts from us all. He opened the sweater, and seemed pleased with it.



He put it on immediately, and pronounced it the correct size.



He then noticed the “Arthur of the Britons” wrapping paper. This is the design.



Finally he opened the “Arthur of the Britons” mug, which he liked.



Then we sat together and watched “The Challenge.” Oliver once again acknowledged that it was the place we had visited today – as though he hadn’t quite believed it, until now!

I pointed out that Arthur’s spear went no further than Kai’s, but Oliver said it was the story-telling that was important. Oliver pointed out that when Arthur un-horses Kai, a trick stirrup is used.

When Kai was mounted with his axe and Arthur said “Just a game, Llud” and Kai’s axe made the “whump, whump” sounds as he swung it round, Oliver made an incredulous sound.



Riding at each other full-tilt was really dangerous. The horses were very co-operative. Most people don’t appreciate their importance. The shields were made to break. The close-up fight scenes on horseback were all filmed with the actors actually in the saddle.

When Kai disarms Arthur, I think Oliver said “It’s over”, but they carried on with short swords. In the short sword fight, Oliver said they tried to keep the knife movements in a square, like the Romans did. Romans weren’t great with a sword, because they often fought behind a big shield. The stunt co-ordinator, Peter Brayham, was basically a sword-fighting coach. They practised a lot, and got really good.

Towards the end of the fight, when they roll down the bank into the water, Oliver said, “It’s a horror show.” “It’s all in the eyes” he said; “all in the eyes.” I pointed out that Kai had a knife the whole time, when they were fighting in the mud. Oliver said that Arthur did too! At the end, when Arthur threw aside the axe, he said, “This is really good … it’s real.”



It was Oliver who aimed the axe at Kai’s head as he lay in the mud, and they had practised the move. Oliver said it was good to have gone back to the place where he’d been injured.

I asked the meaning of Arthur’s little smile at the end. He said it showed his realisation of how foolish it was to have fought like that.

I put it to him that this fight might be the result of many years in which Kai, being the older, had often beat him over the years growing up. Oliver agreed it was possible.

After this, I dished out more cake (!) leaving about a third to be cut up and taken away. I asked what people wanted to do next – another episode was the answer. Oliver picked “The Marriage Feast.”

Oliver laughed at Brian Blessed. He pointed out Gila von Weitershausen’s large eyes, and spoke of her traumatic start in life. He’d got to know her better while filming an episode of a German drama series called “Unter weissen Segeln”, “Abschiedsvorstellung”, in 2004. The series was filmed on a tall sailing ship.

He said she was a lovely person, and he felt a real chemistry with her, which showed in Arthur’s relationship with Rowena. When she was a baby, her father was killed, and her mother had to flee from the Russians, with Rowena under her arm.

I asked about Georg Marischka, who played Yorath; Oliver said he was “a lovely man”, and that he “did a really good job”, especially as English was not his first language. The beard was not real.

After this, we decided that, as Oliver had really answered most of our questions already, rather than a formal Q & A, we would have the quiz. Everyone got into teams of two or three. I think there were 5 teams.

I read out Lynn’s excellent multi-choice questions – liberally sprinkled with jokes, which everyone appreciated. Everyone had brought a prize for someone else, so everyone got something!

All that was left was to thank Oliver and Jelly again, and give Oliver a few parting gifts, including a portrait I had drawn of him as Arthur, and a copy of “Konig Arthur” - a fanciful German novelisation of the stories in the show, which included location photos.

Then everyone headed off to the bar, some of us taking big slabs of cake with us!

One further anecdote I remember from the evening - Oliver told us how Roger Moore invented the Magnum. Roger asked an ice-cream manufacturer for a choc ice on a stick, and the company produced one, and wanted to call it a Walther PPK, after the gun used by James Bond, but the manufacturer of the weapon wouldn’t let them use the name, so they called it a Magnum instead!

On the 3 August 2019, fans visited Compton Dando, an area where, among other scenes from the series, one of the most iconic episodes of "Arthur of the Britons", "The Challenge", was filmed. From the village pub, the Compton Inn, we took a short walk northwards, crossed a bridge over the River Chew, and turned left onto a grassy track, which looked spine-tingling in its familiarity. Arthur and Kai often galloped along it.



Then into sight came an oh-so-familiar hillside, where Arthur and Kai battled almost to the death, under the astonished gaze of Llud, Garet and Gawain.



When fans first visited this location, with Camera Operator, Roger Pearce, we stayed at the bottom of the hill. This time, we did a bit more investigating, and were surprised at the size of the area.





At the bottom of the hill was the famous muddy bank.





Then it was back to the Compton Inn for lunch.

This review of the episode, "The Challenge", is so disparaging that the creators of this archive were rather reluctant to include it at all, but for completeness' sake, here it is.

Quite why someone with so little interest in Arthurian legend was chosen to review the series is a mystery, as is his reason for viewing the third episode in the series, without having seen its predecessors.

Unfortunately, this lack of background knowledge, along with the loss of sound for the first part of the broadcast, appears to have rendered this very visual episode incomprehensible for a reviewer who specialised in writing for radio. Judging by his inaccurate description of the action, he only bothered watching part two, and that, with one eye closed.

A response from HTV's Press Officer can be found here.

Arthur of the Britons

HTV, December 20

By Michael Kittermaster

I confess to a mental blockage about King Arthur and his entourage, whether as history or legend – the result no doubt of too much indoctrination, too early, and sitting too many examination papers on the Morte D’Arthur and The Idylls of the King. I am not therefore the person best qualified to write about this subject, particularly as I have not been following the fortunes of this HTV series. But I have read Jack Lindsay’s portrait, based on historical sources, in which he presents Arthur as the brilliant general, reared in the Roman tradition, a man with a genius for strategy and tactics who developed an intelligence system which enabled him to break down the Saxon communications with efficient and well-armed shock troops.

Yet although I remain unpersuaded that Arthur was anything more than a marauding tribal chief on horseback, I am ready to be convinced otherwise and I was interested to hear that Lord Harlech, in launching this series, said that the intention was to recreate the historical Arthur, that several respected and respectable authors had been selected for the job and that no expense was to be spared on the production or in finding authentic locations. Indeed, the sum of half a million pounds was mentioned, though this was to be recovered, at least in part, from export sales to the States.

With such a build-up one might surmise that the series was intended to be something more than just another adventure series for kids. Maybe I’ve missed out on something significant in previous episodes but if this one was in any way representative then Lord Harlech has led me up a Welsh path. It consisted of two young men first throwing javelins at a tree, then at each other on foot and then doing the same thing on horseback. Having exhausted all possible permutations with javelins they spent the next ten minutes going through a similar routine with swords, then with hatchets and finally engaging in a hand to hand fight. And that was it. It was not clear who they were or what they were fighting about or who were the three observers, though one of them was presumably Arthur. Maybe one has to get properly into the series to be enlightened on these points and, if so, I apologise.

The only remarkable aspect of this production, for those interested in such things, lies in the credits published in the TV Times which lists five actors, a script writer, a Director, Producer and Executive Producer. Not, you will observe, who arranged the fight! Since the production must have been entirely the work of this gentleman he can feel justifiably aggrieved at not receiving a mention. Or did he not wish to be associated with it?

The announcer apologised for loss of sound for the first five minutes but she need not have bothered as, incidental music apart, it was virtually a silent movie and I doubt if there were more than half a dozen lines of dialogue. As a tailpiece she added: “I hope you’ll agree that in spite of the loss of sound that exciting fight made up for everything.” Sorry, luv, not for me it didn’t.

Roger Pearce was the camera operator on many episodes. He was kind enough to share some memories of the times, and supplied some of the photos seen elsewhere on this archive.

I was the camera operator on much of the series – some 26 weeks in shooting – which began in a place called Woodchester Park in Gloucestershire. This is where the first village was constructed on the bank of a lake.

Woodchester was actually a far better place [than Woollard] to shoot Iron Age Britain; it’s a vast park, and though managed and farmed, is allowed to live and decay naturally and so pictorially looked more convincing. But it proved far too expensive to travel the cast and crew from Bristol and surrounding area every day, and the company couldn’t afford the accommodation for maybe 100 or so people, so it was decided to build a village much nearer to the Bristol base, and the chosen spot was the top and eastern side of Wollard: a large and steep meadow which slopes down to the river Chew. I remember a bridge was constructed over the river; perhaps the remnants might still be visible.

The disadvantages of this location were the rather restricted view for big wide shots, domestic dwellings, electricity poles and cables, clearly defined farm land with cultivated hedgerows, and the fact that Woollard is on the flight path to Bristol Airport though that not so busy then.

Two other locations you might recall, where two brothers were fighting in a wood, then spill out into open countryside, (one actor was Ken Hutchings; can’t remember t’other) and during the title sequence, 3 or 4 horsemen are following at speed the camera. We pass a telegraph pole: it’s still there, and was in shot! These two locations are on public ground, very near a pub called, ‘The Compton’.

Our unit base was at the top of the field where vehicles and large marquees were erected, one of which was the dining area. During really bad weather, of which there were many instances, we had to raise one side of the tent to allow a flow of water through and out the other side down to the river.

It being the 70s, many of our extras were student types who – apart from their every day clothes – quite looked the part. Some took to hiding at the end of each shooting day to evade crew; they would then re-emerge, occupy the better made huts, co-habit under furs and skins to the warmth of wood fires, and be ready for filming next day! Shall we say security was not what it is today! There was one security guard, and all he did was lock the gate when he thought the last person had gone. When the extras showed up early in the morning, the crew just thought they were really conscientious.

With regard to weaponry: most of the time it would be moulded rubber spear tips and daggers; only when the camera was close in would we switch to metal, although blunted, fake items could still inflict a wound. For any close up work or ‘no combat’ scenes, Kai’s axe would be genuine, but for hand-to-hand combat, an identical rubber axe would be substituted.

I have a vague memory of Ollie being injured. I think it was late afternoon and the result of a spear being thrown; it would not have been metal but a solid rubber tipped one. But with the weight of the wooden shaft behind it, it could still wound. I seem to remember Ollie was taken off by ambulance to be checked over and there may have been a few stitches to boot! Was filming halted? No, just rearrange the call sheet and press on! Nothing has changed.

When you are filming a series, you are like family, for the time you are together.

Additional information from Roger:

The scenes where people were riding were filmed from Range Rovers; they were very new at the time, so the crew was very excited about that!

The rock in “Arthur is Dead” was actually made of cloth, over a wooden frame. At one point, you can see a hole in it!

When filming “The Challenge”, they rolled down the bank a couple of times to practice, but they couldn’t get their costumes wet or it would have been all over. The scenes where they ride through the bracken were filmed in the Mendips.

The rock on which Arthur was tied to be flogged in “The Slaves” was in that position already. Black Rock Quarry has been used as a filming location many times.

When asked about filming "The Pupil", Roger says, "the only thing I do recall since you mention Peter Firth is, filming him under a stone bridge or culvert very close to the weir. He would have been hiding from someone, perhaps Kai?¹ We chatted about girls between takes! ... As to the fight in the Long House, I can’t remember why we remained inside. It may have been scripted that way or, indeed if the weather was poor, a decision would have been taken to do it there."

The series photographer was Stuart/Stewart Sadd.

Director Sid Hayers was a tall fat jolly man – nicknamed the Michelin Man.

¹The weir featured in "In Common Cause". The scene where Peter Firth was hiding would have been the one in the flashback, when he saw Arthur kill his father, Mordor.

Meic Stevens is an acclaimed Welsh folk singer. This is a photo from 1972.



He appears in “Arthur is Dead”, playing a Celt named Cabot, who is also Arthur’s Minstrel; in "The Gift of Life" as Ulrich's minstrel; in "Enemies and Lovers", as the minstrel who accompanies Goda, and at the end of "The Penitent Invader", when he sings for Arthur once more.



He was kind enough to set down a few memories.

Thanks for the letter and pictures. I’d almost forgot all that stuff, long time ago.

HTV had built an ancient village in the Forest of Dean. It was brilliantly built and the hall (Arthur’s) was real, thatched roofs etc, stockade.

It was a beautiful spot, but very muddy! The production had started off trying to look authentic, of the period (Dark Ages), but the weather wasn’t kind, so we rejected the original shoes, which were not waterproof because they were made of hessian-like cloth. We finally got leather boots which were modern. We could have done with wellies!

My hair was long and dark brown then, and they wouldn’t let us shave.

Patrick Dromgoole was the producer, and they hired actors who were quite well known like Hillary Dwyer, Brian Blessed etc. We all stayed in the Unicorn Hotel, Bristol. ¹

Anyway, Oliver Tobias was an up and coming actor; good-looking. Some of the others had been members of the Old Vic, Royal Shakespeare Company, RADA, etc.

It was a bit of a soap really – a historical soap!

The instrument I played was a mandolin, disguised as a Welsh crwth. I remember quite well, I did it myself. I also wrote the lyrics of the songs.



In one of the pictures, I am playing a Saxon, and the instrument is a dud, just a board with ordinary ‘strings strings.’ I recorded the musical bits (songs) in a studio in Bristol, and mimed.



It was a wig I was wearing as Athel’s minstrel.²



Anyway, can’t remember much more, it’s pretty boring on a film set in the middle of nowhere! Sometimes we’d walk (me and some of the actors) down this earthen track about a mile or two to the road, where lay a country pub.³ We were in there one afternoon, playing darts, when some American tourists came in to find half a dozen Celtic warriors playing darts and a pile of swords and spears in the corner. They didn’t make any comment, but left rather hurriedly.

¹ Call sheets 35 and 36 show Clive Revill being collected from the Unicorn.
² This instrument seems to be the one Meic Stevens described as a dud. The one he plays as Ulrich’s Saxon minstrel looks like the same one he uses when working for Arthur, with a bit of added fur!
³ The Compton Inn is in the right location.

Plot

The episode starts with a fight in the woods, between two cousins, Garet and Gawain, who are continuing a long-standing feud between their fathers, over an inheritance.

When Arthur interrupts them, Garet admits, “It all starts from nothing.” He and Gawain don’t really hate each other – they just get carried away.

But Garet and Gawain are the leaders of their villages, and Arthur had charged them with keeping the Saxons to the North at bay - not fighting each other. Mightily displeased, Arthur banishes them both to Gaul. Each cousin offers to go there alone, to stop the fighting, then they squabble again, over who should have the right to make this sacrifice! Finally they work together, taking Arthur, Kai and Llud by surprise, pushing them off their horses, and escaping.

When Arthur and Kai give chase, Kai suggests a bet: Arthur’s dagger against Kai’s new spear, that Kai is the first to catch one of the brothers.

Arthur ambushes and catches Garet with minimal effort, while Kai rides after Gawain, and takes him prisoner. Both miscreants react with good-natured acceptance, and – this time – their hands are tied, to stop them getting away again.

Now Kai wants to know who won the bet. Suspecting that the answer will cause trouble, Llud is reluctant to tell him, but Kai won’t let it rest, and Llud has to admit that Arthur won by a narrow margin.

Kai resents giving up his new spear, but resents Arthur even more for refusing to accept it. Kai launches it over their heads; Arthur observes that he must be tired, then throws his own spear, which lands a little further away.

They ignore Llud's efforts to get them moving on, and challenge each other for both distance and accuracy, in spear throwing. Their exchanges become more barbed, and the contest, more hazardous.

Amused at first, Garet and Gawain give each other increasingly puzzled looks, perhaps wondering why they are the ones tied up. Llud is also worried, but Arthur laughs off his concerns – “It’s just a game, Llud” – while Kai continues to rise to Arthur’s baiting.

Arthur and Kai then test out each other’s shield arms, then joust, then belabour each other with their spears. Arthur knocks Kai’s spear from his hand; Kai draws his axe. Arthur throws away his spear and draws his sword. They fight again, until they break each other’s shields. Then they simply ride at each other, their weapons crashing together.

Arthur cuts Kai’s stirrup, unhorsing him. Arthur dismounts, and they continue fighting, sword against axe. Kai disarms Arthur. Arthur runs to get one of Garet and Gawain’s confiscated weapons – a short sword – and Kai throws his axe away and asks for the other, to make the contest more even.

Both wounded, they fight on until both are disarmed. Then they throttle each other, and – locked together – roll down a bank into a stream, and struggle in the mud and water.

As Llud and the two cousins look on in dismay, Arthur picks up Kai’s axe, and brings the blade down into the mud, where Kai’s head lay a split second before. Kai gets to his feet, pulls a knife from his belt, and stares at Arthur.

The sight of Kai’s axe embedded in the mud finally brings Arthur to his senses, and they both stand down, then help each other climb up the bank.

Llud unties Garet and Gawain. Their banishment is rescinded.


Timeline

In “The Gift of Life”, both Krist’s enquiry about a wound on Kai’s neck, given to him by Arthur, and the reference by Ulrich’s minstrel to Arthur and Kai’s great fights, suggest that the events in “The Challenge” were supposed to have occurred before those in “The Gift of Life.”

So despite being aired after “The Gift of Life” in the UK, “The Challenge” seems to have been intended to be shown first. It appears before “The Gift of Life” in the “Arthur of the Britons” annual-format book by Terence Feely, in a German book loosely based on the series, “Konig Arthur”, and on the German DVD set.

But an injury suffered by Oliver Tobias while filming “The Challenge” caused a delay in completing the episode. An article in the Bristol Evening Post published 13 July refers to this incident as having occurred the night before, which indicates that "The Challenge" was being filmed during the week beginning 11 July.

As cameraman Roger Pearce acknowledges, they changed the schedule so as to keep filming, so most of both "Enemies and Lovers" and "The Gift of Life" - neither of which made too many demands on Oliver Tobias - were filmed before the completion of "The Challenge", to allow Oliver time to recover.

There is a telling note at the bottom of call sheet no. 25 showing that "pick ups" - shots filmed after the bulk of an episode has been completed - from both "Enemies and Lovers" and "The Challenge" were to be filmed on Saturday 29 July. From this, we can safely conclude that those episodes were filmed prior to "The Gift of Life."

The keeper of this archive speculates that the "pick-ups" scheduled for 29 July might have been shots of Arthur and Kai riding along a track near the banks of the River Chew; similar shots were used in both "The Challenge" and "Enemies and Lovers."

Suggested shooting order so far

Arthur is Dead
Daughter of the King
The Challenge


Broadcast problems

On 11 January 1973, a letter from R.J. Simmons, Press Officer for HTV West, was published in The Stage.

Simmons was responding to a complaint that episode 3 of “Arthur of the Britons”, "The Challenge", broadcast on 20 December 1972, was difficult to understand. Simmons explained that this was because a Post Office fault caused the loss of sound during the first 8 minutes, resulting in the loss of much vital dialogue. According to the letter, several companies showed that episode again later.


Locations

Cameraman Roger Pearce confirmed that the scenes where the protagonists ride through the bracken were filmed in the Mendips. The rest of the episode was filmed in Compton Dando, at this location.


Inside information

Oliver Tobias is justifiably proud of having done all but one of his own stunts for the series, and sports a “Worldwide British Equity Registered Stuntman” sticker on the windscreen of his Ducati.

While filming stunts for “The Challenge”, he suffered a serious injury. At a meeting with fans in 2010, he said: “Christ I’m lucky to be here – I nearly died during filming.”

For the sequence where Arthur had to use his shield to parry spears, they had a champion javelin thrower from Bristol University standing beside the camera, hurling them at him. Camera 2nd assistant Peter Thornton remembers: "The spear was thrown by one of the extras, a neighbour of ours at the time, Ken Holmes, who represented England in the Commonwealth Games. He competed in the javelin!"

Oliver thought he was young and athletic enough to jump out of the way in time, but on one occasion, he didn’t make it: a spear glanced off the inside of his shield instead of the outside, and hit him on the back of the head.

“When it hit me, it was like a ship running aground.”

He remembers Michael holding his head in his lap while they were waiting for the ambulance, and waking up in Bristol Infirmary, thinking he’d died and gone to heaven, and that the very pretty nurse bending over him with a gold cross dangling from her neck was an angel. He remembers being out of action for a fortnight with concussion.

“You feel terrible and can’t focus on anything.”

Producer, Patrick Dromgoole was very worried about the injury to his star:

“Oliver's spear injury terrified the life out of us, and might have been quite serious although he tended to play it down and got out of hospital and back to work as fast as he possibly could.”

Cameraman Roger Pearce was rather more sanguine:

“I have a vague memory of Ollie being injured. I think it was late afternoon and the result of a spear being thrown; it would not have been metal but a solid rubber tipped one. But with the weight of the wooden shaft behind it, it could still wound. I seem to remember Ollie was taken off by ambulance to be checked over and there may have been a few stitches to boot! Was filming halted? No, just rearrange the call sheet and press on!”

When filming the fight in the stream, Roger recalls that they rolled down the bank a couple of times to practice, but they couldn’t get their costumes wet, or it would have been all over.

Oliver remembered that they were extremely cold by the time they finished filming the fight. In the scene following the fight, where they ride off on their separate ways, Arthur is wearing different breeches. Oliver said this was because ‘we washed our clothes, and I refused to get on a horse with a wet gusset!’


Cast notes

Both Ken Hutchison (Gawain) and Nicky Henson have long careers in TV and film.


Re-working the legend

In Arthurian legend, Gawain is one of the greatest knights of the Round Table. His brothers, Gareth and Mordred, are also knights. When Lancelot accidentally kills Gareth, the recriminations and political machinations that follow precipitate the break-up of Arthur’s Round Table, and Arthur’s death in battle with Mordred.

In “The Challenge”, Garet and Gawain’s dispute precipitates the struggle between Arthur and Kai, which prompts Gawain’s fearful speculation, “It’s to the death …” to which Llud responds, “If what you say is true, then it’s more than the death of one man. It’ll destroy the other. It will destroy this land”: echoes of “The King and the Land are one.”


Family ties

This episode introduces a recurring theme of familial rivalry, in the persons of cousins, Garet and Gawain, whose quarrel goes back generations.

The relationship between Arthur, Kai and Llud has still not been explained, but we hear Llud say: “I trained you both for battle”, letting us know that Llud’s mentoring role in their lives is long-standing. Then, as their contest intensifies, Llud says, “had to come – now they must fight it out.”

This tells us that Llud has seen them grow up together, and been aware of the rivalry bubbling under the surface for a long time; that Arthur and Kai have often fought before, probably with varying degrees of seriousness, ranging from play, through practice, to quite serious quarrels.

Arthur, the younger and more slightly built of the two², has probably been on the losing side of fights with Kai for most of his life - and he hasn’t liked it. This explains why Llud thinks it “had to come.”

Their importance to each other is hinted at when Llud answers Gawain’s “It’s to the death …” with “If what you say is true, then it’s more than the death of one man. It’ll destroy the other.”


Dark Age Men

The whole 25 minute episode is a feast of macho posturing. The competition to catch Garet and Gawain starts innocently enough, but Kai is a little too anxious to learn who caught his man first, and gets annoyed when Arthur claims that his victory was because he knew Gareth and Gawain’s minds: tantamount to saying, “It wasn’t fair on you – I used my superior intellect.”

Then when Kai beats Arthur for distance with the spear-throwing contest, Arthur moves the goalposts: “It’s accuracy that counts.”

Having beaten Kai at hitting the target, he then goes out of his way to insult Kai’s defensive capabilities:
Kai: So you have a better shield arm too, have you?
Arthur: I did not say that … To state the obvious is a tedious pastime.

As the contest continues, it is Kai who keeps the coolest head, while Arthur seams desperate to win at all costs; during the jousting, when Kai wounds him, drawing blood, he is clearly furious.

Though Arthur gives up the advantage of his spear, apparently for the sake of fairness, later, when he has cut Kai’s stirrup, pitching him from his horse, he says: “I wouldn’t want you to say that my horse beat you.”

Then Kai, with his axe, sends Arthur’s sword flying off out of reach; at this point, with no weapon in his hand, Arthur should have admitted defeat, and – if he was in his right mind – he would have. But he runs to fetch a short sword. He seems to want to keep fighting until he has beaten Kai in as many ways as he can; until Kai acknowledges him the better warrior.

Now, Kai gives up his axe, in exchange for another short sword, because he can see that there is no point trying to call a halt to the fight; Arthur will not be satisfied until he has won. And it isn’t until Arthur nearly splits Kai’s head open, and Kai gets to his feet and pulls a knife from his belt – which he could have done any time while they were fighting hand-to hand – that Arthur comes to his senses.


The best laid plans …

Not tying Garet and Gawain up right from the start wasn’t one of Arthur’s best moves. As a result, Garet and Gawain’s escape plan, made up on the fly, works like a dream.

The smug look Arthur gives Garet and Gawain at the end almost hints that his fight with Kai was a deliberate attempt to teach the Garet and Gawain a lesson; to show them how they look from the outside. If so, they took the charade much too far!

And the plan to send Garet and Gawain to Gaul … well, that didn’t really work out.


Great moments

Here are just a few of the many in this episode.



The beginning of Arthur and Kai's disagreement.



The little flick Kai gives Arthur’s hand at 10.25 to try to get him to calm down.



Kai, standing at bay (at 16:02) with only an axe, against Arthur’s spear:





The moment Arthur comes to his senses and throws the axe away, and the way they help each other back up the bank afterwards.


Quote/Unquote

Arthur: You’re a broken shield at my back.

Gawain: All those who are close by blood ties have their differences. Only holy men and cowards agree all the time.

Kai: I was pinning frogs’ legs before I could talk.
Arthur: It must have been irksome – not being able to tell anyone about it.

Arthur: I wouldn’t want you to say that my horse beat you.
Kai: Your horse would have a better chance.

Gawain: It’s to the death …
Llud: If what you say is true, then it’s more than the death of one man. It’ll destroy the other. It will destroy this land.


Arthur’s wisdom

In "Arthur is Dead", Arthur himself said: “If I fight now to prove myself, reason will have flown.” Reason certainly embarks on a long migration in this episode! Arthur seems to forget that just because he is the leader, he doesn’t necessarily have to be the strongest or most skillful fighter; as a result, he allows himself to get so caught up in the contest that he almost kills his best friend.


The burden of command

The worry about having to keep his people safe, and sort out these squabbles between his underlings, must put Arthur under a lot of pressure. Llud reminds Arthur and Kai: “This is no feast day. We have work ahead of us” – but perhaps that is part of the problem. And as Arthur puts it: “Young men must have their sport.”


The hot-headed sidekick …

… seems less hot-headed than Arthur, on this occasion.


A wager’s a wager

Wagering is part of normal life for Arthur and Kai – as in their race at the end of “Arthur is Dead”, and their knife-throwing for who fetches supplies, in “Daughter of the King.” But for some reason, the wager over who catches his miscreant first leads to trouble. Arthur must have known that his rejection of Kai's spear would lead to trouble.


'A man on a horse is worth ten on foot'

This week, Arthur is seen doing the same unconventional dismount as Kai did in “Daughter of the King”, swinging his right leg over his horse’s neck, so he doesn’t have to take his eyes off Garet and Gawain.

At a meeting in 2010, Oliver Tobias told of how, in one scene from “The Challenge”, Skyline (the horse that he was riding at the time), who hadn’t been trained to cope with the loud clanking noise made by the two spears dangling from either side of the saddle, was spooked, and bolted. It was running for ages in a blind panic. Oliver tried steering it towards a tree, but that didn’t slow it down, and he was thinking of throwing himself off, but he eventually managed to get it under control again. Throughout most of the rest of the episode, Arthur is seen riding his other white horse, Bernie.

Kai once again rides the dark horse with a wide irregular blaze, "Trooper" - who seems to cope with all kinds of irregular activities during the series. Llud rides his usual chestnut, Curly; Gawain rides the small flaxen chestnut, Blondie, and Garet rides a large dapple grey horse with a pink snip, "Pinkie".

See this post for further details of the horses of "Arthur of the Britons."


'That is bloody dangerous!'

There is a lot of stunt work in this episode, and some of it was evidently quite dangerous, given the aforementioned injury to Oliver Tobias. Everyone except Gawain falls off their horse; Kai falls off twice! The lack of any kind of head protection is, as ever, taken for granted.

To open the episode, Garet and Gawain go at it hammer and tongs, and as for Arthur and Kai: there aren’t many weapons they don’t make use of. They fight with spears, swords, shields, and short swords; Kai fights with his axe for the first time, and Arthur also uses it, nearly splitting Kai’s skull. At the end, Kai pulls a knife to defend himself.

As well as the fights, there is the scene where Kai rides after Gawain, at a gallop, holding his spear over his head with both hands, and launches the spear. This must have required great strength and balance.


Dressed to kill?

Arthur is wearing the same brown tunic with light brown trim that he wore for part of “Daughter of the King”, with a white shirt underneath. Kai wears a suede lace-up shirt. His studded tunic can be seen stowed behind his saddle, but – despite the fact that he spends much of the episode fighting – he doesn’t put it on. Llud wears a suede jerkin, with a white shirt.

'By the Gods!'

There is little reference to religion in this episode, apart from Garet’s opening line, “God! I’ll kill you!”

Arthur’s shield has a cross on it.


Honourable mention

The horses ridden by Arthur and Kai during their battle have to be mentioned here, for bravery and trust in their riders, who were swinging axes and swords around their heads.



Garet and Gawain provide great comic relief.


What’s going on here?

While Arthur berates Garet and Gawain in the woods, we see a reaction shot of Llud which was clearly taken out in the open. The shot was stolen from the scene where Arthur and Kai are about to throw spears at each other.



When Kai first launches his spear, Arthur observes that he must be tired, then throws his own spear. Everyone, including Kai, seems to acknowledge Arthur’s throw as the longest, but if you take into account the positions from which each man threw his spear, Kai’s clearly traveled further than Arthur’s.

The bits of sheepskin binding meant to blunt the points of Arthur and Kai’s spears look entirely ineffective.



Arthur claims to have been taught the short sword by the Romans, and Kai retorts that he’s killed Romans with it. Both these statements appear anachronistic, as the Romans officially left Britain before they were born. It’s possible they are referring to former Romans who had become naturalised, or to Britons like Ambrose, who still emulated the Roman ways.




Music

Paul Lewis revealed that for the scene where Arthur and Kai fight in the stream, one of the editors reversed the tape and played a music cue backwards. “It was a long sequence of sustained string tremolos punctuated by drumbeats, rising in pitch and intensity to a big climax. There was a fight in the mud which got slower and slower until the combatants dropped from exhaustion, so Editor Alex Kirby played the music backwards so that it gradually sagged away to nothing! So resourceful, and the joke is I never noticed! So much grunting, clashing of weapons and muddy splodgy sounds!”

The reversed track seems to be “Battle on Horseback.” In total, the tracks of incidental music used in this episode, were:

Track 12, Duel: Garet and Gawain fight in the woods.
Track 34, Title theme (bridge): riding through the bracken.
Track 14, Chase!: Arthur and Kai chase Gawain and Garet.
Track 26, Evil Stirs: tensions mount between Arthur and Kai.
Track 11, Desolation and Despair: Arthur insults Kai’s defensive abilities.
Track 9, Muttering and Plotting: Arthur and Kai throw spears at each other, and joust.
Track 10, Battle on Horseback/Bitter Victory: they fight on horseback.
Track 12, Duel: they fight on foot, with short swords.
Track 10, Battle on Horseback (reversed): they roll down the bank and fight in the stream.
Track 23, Arrival of Arthur: the two groups go their separate ways.

The whole suite of music, written by Paul Lewis, is available on CD.


Cast

Arthur ……………... Oliver Tobias
Kai .….….….….…... Michael Gothard
Llud ………………... Jack Watson
Garet ………………. Nicky Henson
Gawain ………….… Ken Hutchison

Crew

Executive Producer ... Patrick Dromgoole
Producer …………… Peter Miller
Director ……………. Sidney Hayers
Story ………………. Terence Feely
Associate Producer … John Peverall
Production Manager ... Keith Evans
Action Arranger ……. Peter Brayham
Post-production ……. Barry Peters
Cameraman ………... Tony Impey
Camera Operator …... Roger Pearce
Film Editing ………... David Williams
Sound recordist ……. Bob Stokes
Dubbing Mixer …….. John Cross
Art Direction ….…… Doug James
Assistant Director ….. Simon Hinkley
Production Assistant .. Maggie Hayes
Wardrobe ……..……. Audrey MacLeod
Make-up ….….…….. Christine Penwarden
Incidental music ……. Paul Lewis
Theme music ………. Elmer Bernstein

¹ Ken Holmes competed in the javelin at the 1970 Commonwealth Games – he actually represented Wales, and came 7th, with a throw of 68.62 metres.

² Michael Gothard is older than Oliver Tobias by eight years, and in Arthurian legend, Sir Kay is generally said to be older than Arthur.

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King Arthur’s duel to the death was too realistic …

By Paul Dalby

Filming on HTV’s £500,000 serial “Arthur” will be held up for several days after the star Oliver Tobias, was speared in a mock duel.

Oliver (24), who plays the young King, is being held for observation in Bristol Royal Infirmary, where he was said to be “satisfactory” today.

The accident happened last night in a field near Compton Dando as Oliver and actor Michael Gothard fought a furious duel “to the death.”

Gothard, who plays rival warlord Kai, aimed a spear thrust at King Arthur’s head and Oliver Tobias parried the blow with his shield.

‘PRECAUTION’

But, in doing so, he slipped and the spear glanced off the shield, cutting open the back of his head.

Producer Peter Miller said today: “We take every precaution but it was supposed to be a fight to the death and it’s got to look good.”

Oliver, the former lead star of the musical “Hair,” said from his bedside today: “I’ve been fighting Michael all week and this was the last shot.”

The bad news for Oliver is that when he’s fit again and filming resumes the scene will be done again.

This report doesn't entirely agree with the way Oliver described events, at a meeting with fans during 2010. For one thing, the spear was thrown rather than thrust, and not by Michael Gothard himself. However, it does give an exact date for the accident. Oliver's remembrance can be found here.

Cameraman Roger Pearce remembered filming "The Challenge" at a location near the Compton Inn, Compton Dando, on the River Chew, in Somerset. This is how the locations looked in May 2014. It's astonishing and heartening to see how little the landscape has changed since 1972.




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