Edward the Seventh

This historical drama series was not made, as you might expect, by the BBC, but by ATV (who also made Sapphire & Steel) for showing on the ITV channel. It was first broadcast in 1975, although the copyright notice at the end of each episode implies it was made in 1973, which puts it either side of the broadcast of the BBC's Fall of Eagles.

While superficially similar series, and certainly there is a great deal of overlap in terms of the time period covered and the characters who appear, Edward the Seventh is generally lighter on dramatic incidents than Fall of Eagles - there is certainly nothing so shocking as the events of Requiem for a Crown Prince to be found here.

Edward the Seventh's strengths are to be found in showing us the functioning of international diplomacy and soft power between countries where the royal families were all related to one another by blood, marriage, or both, and also the influence the senior royals had upon the British governments throughout that period, despite supposedly being "politically neutral." It would therefore be fair to describe this series as interesting rather than thrilling, and it gives the lie to the idea that series made for commercial television are inherently more sensationalist (or lowbrow) than those made for public broadcasters.

The main character is Albert Edward, known as "Bertie" while he is the Prince of Wales (for 10 out of the 13 episodes) and Edward vii once he becomes king, and the series runs from his birth through to his death. As an adult he is played by Timothy West, although the first four parts concentrate on his childhood, where the main character is Prince Albert (Robert Hardy, once again proving that he was the prince consort king of historical dramas). Albert is shown as being an absolute cunt to his young son, and when you're watching this I expect that, like me, you'll think that his early death in 1861 (or at the end of episode four) can't come soon enough.

Queen Victoria (Annette Crosbie, if you can believe it) then dominates the series until she finally kicks the bucket at the end of part 10, and the middle of the series is about how Bertie, the heir to the throne, spends his time while he is being kept away from any real power by his mother.

The acting here is as good as in any other historical drama series I have seen (well... maybe not quite I Claudius levels) and we see various prime ministers of the era being played by distinguished actors, including Andre "Quatermass" Morell as Lord Palmerston, John Gielgud as Disraeli, Michael "Gandalf" Hordern as Gladstone, and Richard "Slartibartfast" Vernon as Lord Salisbury.

Kaiser Wilhelm (Christopher "Skagra" Neame, fresh from Colditz), is both Bertie's nephew and the closest thing the series has to an antagonist, what with the shadow of the first world war looming ever closer. However it is a storyline whose climax we never reach because the series concludes with the death of King Edward in 1910. We must therefore look to Fall of Eagles to see how Wilhelm's story ends (the clue is in the name).

The two series thus complement each other very well, with this showing the British side of some of the same events that Fall of Eagles shows from points of view on the continent. Some characters overlap, but are played with significant differences - most notably the kaiser, who Neame plays as an aloof and overbearing autocrat, because in Edward the Seventh he is an outsider and so we see only his public persona as perceived by the British royals, while Barry Foster's Wilhelm showed us the private manny.

Other characters in both series include Tsar Nicholas, here played by Michael "Paul Foster" Billington (not long after he was in UFO) in a big beard, and the kaiser's parents Fritz (Michael "not Jayston" Byrne) and Vicky (Felicity Kendall), who have a more substantial role here due to Vicky being Bertie's eldest sister.

The best episode of Edward the Seventh is part nine, Scandal, in which two scandals befall Bertie one after the other, neither of which are really his fault except through his poor choice of friends. The first concerns Colonel Gordon-Cumming (Donald "Major Grenlee in Rumours of Death" Douglas), caught cheating at cards while a guest of Bertie's (I guess some days really are better than others, mew), and then the second is Blake himself, Gareth Thomas as Lord Beresford, Bertie's former friend who threatens to beat him up, despite his status as heir apparent, for saying Avon is the best character siding against him in his own marital scandal.

(Also seen here is Peter "Saruman" Howell as Bertie's private secretary Francis Knollys.)

This episode also sees the death of Bertie's eldest son Edward, played by a very young Charles Dance. Edward dies of an illness, like several other main characters over the course of the series (eventually including the title character himself), and these deaths are inevitably accompanied by scenes of the family gathered around their loved one's bedside and waiting for them to get one last bit of acting in as they make a final speech.