Arthur of the Britons

I arrived at the building where Sean works for our 3 o’clock meeting, and he came down to meet me. On the way up to his office, he asked why I was so into “Arthur of the Britons”: was it Oliver? I said, no it was Michael. “Even then?” he said. Perhaps he thought a teenager would be more likely to fall for Oliver, though he did think that Michael was a very attractive man.

By way of background, Sean said that in the early 1970s, the smaller TV companies like HTV weren’t expected to do drama, especially on this scale, but Sean’s father, Patrick Dromgoole, decided that they should start. They had two crews, which produced a lot of great drama over the next 20 years, including "Children of the Stones" and “Robin of Sherwood.” “Arthur of the Britons” - along with “Pretenders” [a costume drama set in 1685, about two children during a rebellion against King James II] - was the start of this in many ways.

The story of Arthur, and the conflict between the Celts of Wales and Cornwall, and the Saxons in Wessex, was a natural choice for Harlech TV, which was based in the middle of those territories.

As we settled down to watch “The Gift of Life” together, Sean proved himself a man after my own heart by expressing approval for the 4:3 aspect ratio! He also said he loved Elmer Bernstein’s epic theme music.

Every now and then, as we watched the episode, he would press ‘pause’, and tell me something he remembered about what had just transpired.

The first thing he commented on was the horse Michael was riding. He said that either Michael wasn’t a natural rider, or the horses he’d been given weren’t up to the task, because he had been through about 3 horses without finding one that suited him. After some weeks, the horse wrangler, Ben Ford of Stroud, brought in a new bay horse, and named it Merlin because “if this works it will be a miracle.”



So Merlin was not the horse shown here - which Michael rode for the first few episodes.

As Krist and Elka stick their heads up on the boat, Sean drew his colleague’s attention to his first appearance: “I’m in show business!”



He then pointed out that much of the conversation between Arthur and Kai about what to do with the Saxon children – nearly a whole minute – was filmed in one take.

Then when Kai is getting ready to leave the village with the children, he drew my attention to a great shot of Michael.



He said there would have been huge polystyrene reflectors just out of shot, directing bright lights at Michael’s face; he would have been bravely keeping his eyes wide open to avoid squinting.

The riding scenes were filmed near Woodchester. Sean could ride already, as his mother had been very keen that he and his siblings should learn. It was alright for Tamzin riding in front of Michael, but very uncomfortable for him, riding at the back, where there was no saddle. Bumping along when they were cantering was agony!



The conversation between Krist and Kai about the scar on Kai’s neck would have been filmed by a tracking camera mounted on a vehicle, driven alongside the horse.

I mentioned how tall the bracken was, in the scene where Krist and Elka go missing. Sean said the problem was, trying to make sure the crew didn’t trample it all down!



When Kai was calling for the children, Sean said, “I did find Michael slightly scary – there was a threat about him. He was tall, distant, and rather magnificent.” He was also “moody” but Sean also recalled that he was “very kind, very patient.” He and Tamzin often screwed up a shot by, for example, looking straight into camera, but Michael understood that they were just learning. “In dealing with me and Tamzin, he was brilliant.”

When Kai teaches the children the secret whistle, Sean admitted that he couldn’t do it; that was the only part of the sound that wasn’t recorded live on location, but looped in a sound studio. The sound recordist, Mike Davey, a close friend of Sean’s, is deaf in one ear!

During the next scene where they were riding, Sean pointed out the vehicle tracks where the horse was trotting. I protested that they were cart tracks, but he said carts didn’t make tracks like that!

Where the children are sleeping, he said he remembered the feel of the sheepskin against his cheek.

I commented on Kai’s furry boot-covers, and Sean revealed that they were a lot of trouble, as they were always coming off.

As they walk into the Saxon village, Sean said that Heather Wright, who played Hildred, was a lovely girl. He commented once again on the wonderful cadence of the theme music.



He wondered what was the point of “putting fur on a guitar” (the minstrel’s lute).

In the scene where Kai is sitting in the hut, tied up, Sean pointed out that the wattle and daub panels, from which the walls were made, were actually moulded plastic! They had one real panel, and poured plastic onto it, then peeled it off, painted it, and poured some more on. They looked terrible in real life.



He thought Stephan Chase was a good actor; “You need to know who your villain is.”



When Kai springs out of the bracken to break the Saxon villager’s neck, Sean said he would have had his face smeared with Vaseline, to make it look as if he were sweating. By the time they filmed these scenes, they were losing the light.



Sean remembers being fascinated watching Peter Brayham organising the stunts, and by just how simple they were, up close. When Horgren surprises Kai, near his horse, it was Peter who buried the axe in the tree trunk, not Stephan Chase.



He remembers feeling the sticky “Kensington Gore” (theatrical fake blood) on his face after Kai palms his cheek as he rides away.

During the scene where Kai is lying on his sickbed, we speculated on where Arthur would have obtained the huge bunch of grapes Kai has in front of him. Sean suspects the cameraman was referencing Carravagio’s “Boy with a Basket of Fruit.”



The fire would have been made using a gas tube under some stone that had been painted to look like logs.

After the credits had rolled, Sean asked whether I had any other questions. I started by asking how he got the job!

He had acted before, in school plays and the like, but never in front of a camera. As soon as word got out about a new production, people in the business would be looking out for roles for their children. There was an audition: five boys and five girls, and a lot of those auditioning, like the Nevilles, were family friends.

The episode Director, Pat Jackson – a lovely man - must have auditioned them, but as the audition was held in Patrick Dromgoole’s office, Sean, and his younger brother Dominic and sister Jessica, were at something of an advantage. Sean himself was credited as “Sean Fleming” – his mother’s maiden name – because they didn’t want to give away the fact that he was in his dad’s production!

Sean got the part of Krist, partly because he was blond, which made him a better fit as a Saxon boy than his brother, Dominic whose hair was dark. Dominic got the part of Col’s son Frith, in “The Slaves.” He didn’t like the fact that at the end of the episode, he had to be lifted – almost thrown – high in the air by Dave Prowse. Jessica appeared in another episode as an extra.



Sean took it very seriously; he remembers rehearsing at the kitchen table with his mother. “I was the little pro – turned up with all my lines learnt!”

Being one of the youngest cast members was, “terrific! Everyone spoiled me.” People fell over themselves to look after them, especially the make-up lady, Christine Penwarden, on whom he had a crush. She used to show them how to make fake scars with Bostick, and shock their families.

When they went for the costume fittings, they were fascinated by the axes with rubber heads, used during the actual fight scenes. Saying, “This is a real one”, Oliver picked up an axe, took a swing at one of the posts in the Saxon village, struck into it, and also hit one of the female crew members - possibly the costume lady, Audrey MacLeod - on the head! She was okay though.

There were very small crews in those days – 30 or so – so everyone was racing about the whole time, but because of people like the cameraman, Bob Edwards and the director, Pat Jackson, the atmosphere was relaxed and very friendly; there seemed to be plenty of time. “It was great fun – a real confidence-booster. They made it so easy.”

Nevertheless, not being a ‘morning person’, Sean was “beguiled” by how early in the morning they started work (dawn). They only shot 3 and a half to four minutes’ worth of film each day, unlike these days, when 8 minutes is the norm. It took about a week to film each episode.

When asked how much direction he was given, Sean said, “Not enough, watching it! I think the idea was to keep us as relaxed as possible – not do take after take, which would have been intimidating for a child.” He thought he could have given a better performance. It was hard to know how much direction any of the adult cast received, because a good director would speak to the actors privately.

He didn’t see the rushes. There would be a lab. report the next morning, and the rushes would be seen the following night. Some directors invited the actors; the more experienced ones didn’t, because they didn’t want them to be distracted by thinking about what they’d done before.

Sean thinks he was paid for the performance, but has no idea what happened to the money; it didn’t end up in his pocket! He was present for the filming of some other episodes but didn’t appear as an extra, which was boring: not like being the centre of attention!

It rained, half the time, and the cast and crew would either stand under tarpaulins, film indoors, or just got on with it, pretending it wasn’t there.

Tony Shaffer – the writer of “Sleuth” - suggested that John Hurt should play Arthur; the series would have been “different”. But Patrick cast Oliver Tobias, who they already knew really well. Oliver used to bring his Haflinger 4 x 4 to their parents’ place, and drive them up an almost vertical hillside, making them all scream!

Oliver was hugely popular, “an utter delight.” He maintained friendships with all levels of the crew, to the extent that, years later, when he played the villain, Bertrand de Nivelle, in the “Robin of Sherwood” episode, “Lord of the Trees”, and had to fight Michael Praed, who played Robin, the crew were all cheering for Oliver: “Come on – give him what for!”



When the episode was broadcast, on 13 December 1972, Sean’s whole cub scout troop – all in their uniforms – came to their house in Somerset to watch it. “I was a fucking star!”

Though he hasn’t been back to the locations where they filmed, Sean sometimes feels drawn to visit them. His involvement with “Arthur of the Britons” was a very intense experience, and his attachment to it is deep set. He asked me what I thought of the series when I saw it again on DVD after nearly 40 years; I said it was better than I remembered, and he agreed. The series has stood up well.

He wanted to take up acting as a career, until his first professional auditions, which were so ugly and intimidating, he wondered why anyone would ever put themselves through the process. He probably should have gone to drama school, but his parents didn’t believe in it. He flirted with the idea of becoming and engineer, but decided it would be too dull, so he studied Philosophy at University, where he also did 22 plays, and had his own punk band, The Ripchords.

[The Ripchords' sole release was an eponymous EP with four tracks, “Ringing in the Streets”, “Music is...”, “Peace artist”, and “Television television”, was championed by John Peel, and quickly sold out. "Punk 77" described their music as “Tuneful punk with sepulchral vocals and deep growling bass”, and "My Life's a Jigsaw" as “Great garage/DIY punk.” Sean Dromgoole was the vocalist.]

When Sean finished his studies, he spent a number of years behind the camera, working for his father as an Assistant Director.

Arthur
Warlord of the Britons

words by Peter Escourt
pictures by Stuart Sadd

The figure of King Arthur strides across the pages of British history like a giant, but it is the romantic figure of the Age of Chivalry, the figure that has inspired the songs of medieval troubadours and modern poets alike. In HTV’s new 24-part series, Arthur of the Britons, which begins this week, Arthur is brought from the world of legend to the world of reality and pictured, below, as he really was – a desperate sixth-century warlord struggling to hold off the English invaders leading small forays into their territory from a grubby little stronghold that became known, in later times, as the romantic Camelot.

Finding an actual location for Camelot was to the Middle Ages what Unidentified Flying Objects have been to this century. The riddle was romantic and happily unanswerable. Was it Winchester, Caerleon, Carlisle – or where? It was the one thing which, as a modern scholar has remarked, held them spellbound for three centuries.

But, since this summer, there have been no such doubts at HTV in Bristol: Camelot is about six miles from Stroud, Gloucestershire, a half-mile off the main road to Bath. They should know: their set-designers built it there for Arthur of the Britons.

It is small and rather grimy. A collection of small wooden huts, thatched with straw, insulated with mud, straggles along the lake shore. There are a few skins left out to dry, and a skin coracle pulled up out of the water. 

Certainly it isn't what scholars of the Middle Ages, or Alfred, Lord Tennyson, or any Hollywood mogul would recognise as Camelot. Ironically, Arthur himself might recognise it.

The series brings to television the most mysterious figure in our history, not as legend or romance would have him, but as he really must have been. It is the first time the historical Arthur has been presented dramatically on film.

It will be a great shock to viewers who see him as a great and cultivated king of the Middle Ages, all-wise and quite legendary. This was the Arthur of romance and legend: a golden figure whose empire of great palaces and towns stretched to Rome and beyond.

But the archaeological research of the 20th century suggests that there must have been someone there, a real man where the legends all begin. Drawing on this, the series seeks to show him as he was: a desperate guerrilla fighter trying to unite the rag-tag armies of Britain in the collapse which followed the Roman evacuation.

Arthur is doing this to fight off the barbarian invasions - which will prove a further shock to national susceptibilities: these barbarians are the English, coming from their ancestral lands in Germany, and the men in the white hats in Britain in the early sixth century were the Welsh. Arthur was a Welshman.

But he was not a king. Modern historical theories portray him as a professional soldier who, by strength of personality, held together a mounted force drawn from the petty kings of Britain. This force managed to inflict a series of defeats on the Saxons, who fought on foot. It eventually broke up when internal discord led to the civil war in which Arthur was killed.

No Guineveres,
Lancelots, Galahads
or Merlins. No
armour, no romance.
Just grime.

The gradual emergence of an historical Arthur, pieced together by scholars from recent excavations, old Welsh poetry, traditions and Dark Age chronicles, is one of the most romantic achievements of recent historical research. But it has meant that Arthur's world has shrunk from a great European stage, with thousands locked in
battle and besieging huge castles, to the forests of Dark Age Britain, where armies of a few hundred waged desperate little battles into which chivalry never came.

The historical Arthur is ideal for a television production. There are no elaborate sets to be built, no army to be hired, no plate armour to be assembled. There is just wood and straw and skins, everything small and grubby - but in the sixth century, anything can happen.

HTV are proud of their historical research. Their first big attempt to struggle out of the anonymity which can afflict regional TV companies was Pretenders, an historical series networked earlier this year. It was an account of the Monmouth rebellion in 1685 and the cameras went where the events actually took place. The Battle of Sedgemoor was filmed on Sedgemoor in Somerset and wandering bands of players got up to their mummeries in old West Country inns. The series was a success, and has been sold abroad.

With Arthur of the Britons the company feels it is on to another winner. The same production team is involved. Networking is guaranteed and an American distributor has been acquired. At HTV they enthusiastically talk about the few names that have come down to us from the murk of the sixth century as though they were in yesterday's newspapers.

The set-designers have been doing their homework. In his office, Douglas James, art director for the series, is surrounded by drawings of log-huts and of the wooden tools that have come down through lrish history and would have been used in Celtic Britain. There are sketches of breast-ploughs, wooden spades, and a ponderous wooden-wheeled cart.

"We knew filming would last six months so we had to build something which would last that time. We had to use the building materials they would have used: larch poles, roofed with turf, thatch and bracken. The building rook 16 men about l0 days. In addition to the small huts, we have a long-hut which is sound-proofed to act as a studio.

"We built it by a lake with a stockade and a jetty, so it is defensible. We had to clear the bracken and the conifers around the lake. Conifers aren't indigenous to Britain, and there would have been none here in Arthur's time. Inside the huts we put things like wooden platters and bronze grease lamps."

The TV Camelot was built in a steeply-wooded valley near Stroud owned by the Forestry Commission, where no pylon or concrete wall can drag the viewer back sharply into the 20th century. For a moment, disregarding the odd glass-fibre boulder and a rival encampment of canteens and car parks 200 yards up the track, this really could be the Dark Ages.

But enough wiring for a pop festival or a small country town trails out of the long-hut. Inside are lights, clapper-boards and cameramen, and the inevitable young man in tight trousers calling like a wild prophet for silence. Beyond all this, stark in lighting that would have terrified the Dark Ages, are skins, straw - and Arthur.

Arthur is played by Oliver Tobias, 24. Suitably rugged and unsmiling, he is about to begin the great task of uniting the kingdoms under one military command. Tobias is a former leading man of Hair.

His Arthur is a complex figure. Between takes he sits on the steps of the long-hut playing with his broad sword.

"Arthur would have had to be rugged. He would have had to be prepared to back up with fact everything he said. It was a small world. If you travelled three miles you were in danger: it would have been like travelling 3,000 miles today," said Tobias.

He points towards the top of the track leading away from the huts. “Look up there. In his day, at any time, a horde might be coming over to rape and kill. I think he would have been a sad man. He would have been slightly higher than everybody else, a thinker, but he would always have been having to reach for his dagger."

Arthur is unmarried in the series. There are no Guineveres, Lancelots or Galahads. Instead, Arthur operates in a kind of Three Musketeers act, with a grizzled veteran called Lud the Silver-Handed, a pagan, and a Saxon foundling called Kai.

Sadly, HTV jettisoned some of their more interesting ideas. At first it was suggested that scenes be filmed in places with traditional links with Arthur, like Cadbury un Devon and Glastonbury, Somerset, where tradition has it he was buried. Peter Miller, the producer, explained: “These places are now just relics. We decided to film Arthur as a young man in his encampment and in woods.”

It was also intended to bring in Merlin as an historical figure, a man who had travelled the known world, had studied medicine under the Arabs, mathematics under the Moors, all of which would have made him a god-like person in Dark Age Britain. But he was thrown out with the rest of the Round Table.

He would have been a hangover from the knights in shining armour and HTV wanted to sever the last link with the legends.

But the earlier episodes do succeed in giving a picture of sixth-century Britain. In one episode all the rag-tag elements of petty royalties assemble. There is Ambrose, still aping Roman ways, dressed in the tatty remnants of Roman armour, Mark of Cornwall, a great bull of a man, played by Brian Blessed, and Hereward, a religious maniac calling for help to his old Celtic gods.

Such eccentric figures might well have emerged from the wilds once the Romans went. Ambrose is a fairly accurate figure: Celtic and barbarian warlords probably did attempt a form of Roman parade dress, as shown by some of the Sutton Hoo archaeological finds.

The form of the series, with self-contained episodes, makes it necessary that something happens every week, and so Arthur quarrels constantly with Kai, or the Saxons, or the odd Celtic king to heighten the drama in individual episodes.

Feminine interest is provided in one episode by giving him a Celtic wild-cat to tame, whom he has captured from her father, a hostile princeling. The girl, played by Madeleine Hinde, has to be persuaded to eat. Wild-eyed and furious, she spits chicken pieces all over Arthur. The shot is done and re-done. A chicken carcass off-stage is carved until it almost disappears. At last the director is satisfied.

"A lot of my friends,” said Oliver Tobias seriously, brushing bits of chicken off his jerkin, “believe that Arthur will come back some day.”

They, and the viewing public, are in for a surprise.

NEXT WEEK: our Star of the Month double-page pull-out portrait is Oliver Tobias as he appears in Arthur of the Britons.

This photo in this news article giving advance publicity for the series, shows the heroes wearing a prototype costume, some elements of which were abandoned before filming began. For example, Llud is never seen wearing a jacket like this in the series, and - in colour versions of this picture - Arthur and Kai are shown cross-gartered, whereas in the series, this is an element of the Saxon and Jute costumes.

This call sheet was kindly donated to this archive by Peter Thornton, who was employed as Clapper/Loader – a role now known as 2nd Camera Assistant – for much of the series. The episode concerned is “The Penitent Invader.”



“The Penitent Invader” was episode ‘G’ - the seventh episode to be filmed.

The call sheet is No.34, and is dated 8 August 1972, which was a Tuesday, so this would have been the second day of filming.

The scenes scheduled for this date were to be filmed at Woollard.

Jack Watson (Llud), Clive Revill (Rolf), Roy Carne (Blacksmith), Sean McCauley (Llud’s Messenger), and Hedley Goodall (Abbot Morpeth), along with 25 extras (12 Celtic men, 8 Celtic women and 5 Celtic children) were required in Make-up/Wardrobe at 07:30, to begin filming at 08:30. Jack Watson had his own transport, and Clive Revill was collected from the Unicorn Hotel ¹ at 07:00.

Scenes 10 and 10a, with Llud, Rolf and the Abbot, for which filming began the day before, were to be completed.

New scenes scheduled to be filmed were 8, 11, 13, 25, 33, 35, 36, 36a, 37 and 38.

Props listed include “practical” (ie. real) fire, blacksmiths’ tools, whip, rope for tying, burning logs and “chaffe to throw on fire.”

Horses were required for Llud, Rolf, and Llud’s messenger, with an additional three “for carts”, and – somewhat confusingly – 3 donkeys. The intended use of these donkeys is unknown – nowhere in the episode do we see more than one (baby) donkey.

From this, we can conclude that among the scenes to be filmed were the one where Rolf shows Llud to the village forge; the scene where Llud give Rolf the shirt with spikes on the inside; the scene in which Rolf is publicly flogged, and the scene in which Llud is called away by a Messenger, just before Rolf walks on hot coals – and then sets out to raid a fictional caravan carrying tribute to Arthur.

The weather prospects must have been uncertain, as Fred Wedlock (Minstrel) was on standby, in case indoor banquet scenes 9, 9a, 30, 32 and 32a were to be filmed instead.

Breakfast, lunch and afternoon break for the cast and crew – about 70 to 75 people - was laid on, by George Cook (or Cooke) on location.

¹ Possibly The Unicorn Hotel, West Street, Somerton TA11 7PR England – this would have been about an hour away by car.

In, in response to a request in the Chew Valley Gazette, Mrs Barbara Hatherall offered these memories.

Barbara Hatherall knew the Maxwell family who owned Woodborough Mill Farm, where much of "Arthur of the Britons" was filmed. The "Giant’s Dam" - seen in the episode, "In Common Cause" - is the weir at Woodborough Mill Farm, where they used to play when they were kids.

Barbara’s son Robert helped his uncle to build the village on a field near the River Chew, dragging logs and such like from the nearby woods to make the buildings, etc.

In the summer of 1972, Barbara would go up to the shooting location nearly every day, for one thing or another. She appeared as an extra on many occasions, and they all thought the pay they got as extras was brilliant.

The family had a caravan in their back garden and the production rented it from them for the summer, for one of the crew who had to be there early. It came back spotless.

She had a shop that sold odds and ends in her front room. The cast and crew would come in to buy chocolate, etc. Patrick Dromgoole, the Executive Producer who also directed five episodes, used to come in and sit in her chair, and put his cup of tea on the arm (there was a little wooden stand to put things on) and say what a nice chair it was. She got it for £12!

He’d ask her to recommend people who lived in the area for particular parts. At one time, he wanted a man of a certain age. She said, "Well, my husband’s free that day," so Patrick had a look at a picture, and cast Barbara and her husband as the jeweller and his wife in "The Penitent Invader."

Well, her husband went into the make-up caravan, and when he came out she didn’t recognise him! They put him in a wig and a beard, and – later on, after he was supposed to have been robbed by Rolf – Patrick gave them some dirty old rags to bandage his head. Patrick kept screaming at her because she was laughing so much at silly things her husband was saying to her while they were trying to film.

In the scene where Rolf had attacked a young girl on the river bank, Patrick was telling the victim to spread her legs out, and look like she’s been raped, but she said "I can’t, there’s all stinging nettles there!"

Barbara was also in a banquet scene as a serving wench, and they had to do the scene over and over, because she had to take a tray of food to where Oliver Tobias was sitting, and he would stab a dagger into the table, making her jump back.

In the scene in "The Penitent Invader", where Clive Revill, as Rolf, has to walk across hot coals as penance, he was supposed to put his feet in gaps which had been left between the coals, but ended up actually walking on hot coals because he kept missing the gaps. And he had to do it again, because Patrick shouted out "someone’s got a watch on!" and that was Barbara, with a watch under her hessian dress!



Barbara’s daughter also appeared in a scene,¹ walking across a bridge.

One day, Patrick Dromgoole had asked the agency to send a lot of dark (meaning "dark-haired") extras, but when the transport turned up, it was full of black people! They couldn’t be used for filming, but they got a free meal at the canteen.

The production really brought the village to life, with all the horses coming in, in big wagons, and all the cast and crew. There were a lot of people involved. It was good fun, and the actors would all chat to you. Barbara couldn’t remember anyone being stand-offish – everyone mucked in and worked together.

¹ Possibly in “The Gift of Life.”