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[b]1066: The Battle for Middle Earth
Ch4, Monday 18 May 9:00pm - 10:35pm
1/2
[/b]


The shades of The Lord of the Rings in the title are deliberate here. "Middle Earth" is apparently what Anglo-Saxons called the area between heaven and hell where humans dwell. And if those cinematic echoes help get a few more teenagers interested in a powerfully imagined drama about the Norman Conquest, so much the better. They may experience a few nightmares as a result, though. The battle scenes are horribly well done. We follow a group of Sussex villagers as they are recruited to fight for King Harold, then sent north to take on invading Vikings at the battles of Fulford and Stamford Bridge. It's these two battles that take up tonight's first part: tomorrow night we move on to Hastings itself. Ian Holm provides a fine narration, but the eye-watering fight scenes make us feel the impact of the story. Best not eat your dinner while you're watching.


VIDEO Plus+: 11838147

Subtitled, Audio-described
Episode written by Peter Harness

Cast
Tofi - Mike Baile
Leofric - Tim Pleste
Ordgar - Francis Mage
Ozouf - Anthony Debaec
Coutances - Peter Guinnes
Aelf - Sam Hard
Judith - Gemma Lawrenc
Snorri - Soren Byde
Drogo - Hamish McLeo
Edith - Amber Murra
Ealfrith - Kate Amble
Nun - Katrine Bac
Judith's father - Christopher Sloma
Gurdrada - Johanna Whyte
radiotimes

1066: The Battle for Middle Earth
CH4, Tuesday 19 May 9:00pm - 10:35pm

2/2

If you have the stomach for it, this ferocious history drama continues tonight, picking up where last night's episode left off, with the English army having defeated the Vikings in the North, only to learn that the Normans have landed in Sussex. So having run the length of the country once, they have to run it again. Life was tough back then. It would be easy to pick holes in the production for some of its details, but it reaches a cinematic intensity, particularly in the fight scenes, that sweeps you up in a way very few history programmes manage. Above all, it gets across a sense of how history turned on the events of the story, and a certain idea of England was lost for ever. There's an edge of nostalgia hanging over it, particularly in Ian Holm's haunting voiceover, but the final caption really drives the point home: a fifth of the UK is still owned by descendants of the 190 Normans granted land by William the Conqueror.



VIDEO Plus+: 11805819

Subtitled, Audio-described
radiotimes