Sharpe

Amazing to go back and watch this after thirty years and see all the now famous actors at the start of their careers. Sean Bean, Daniel Craig, Brian Cox, Pete Poselthwaite, Emily Mortimer, Julian Fellowes, Mark Strong....... I could go on.

They episodes are a great watch and it is fun to follow the progress of Sharpe and his band of men through the Napoleonic War.

Has to be said that there are some problems. The scripts are quite hammy. Some of the plots are very samey. It becomes easy to see who the bad guys are, who the traitor is and guess when will Sharpe sleep with the damsel in distress in each episode whilst wondering how many times Sharpe will be injured and miraculously shrug off mortal wounds to save the day in the end.

During the Peninsular War Sergeant Richard Sharpe is promoted to Lieutenant after saving the Duke of Wellington's life. He is given command of a squad of riflemen, the best shots in the army. He soon earns a reputation for being the man to entrust a dangerous mission to and Wellington regularly finds tasks for him.

An excellent war-drama series. Based on the novels by Bernard Cornwell and starring Sean Bean as Sharpe, this is as a series of rollicking adventures, often set against the background of actual historic battles in the Peninsular War.

Not perfect: the action scenes can be a bit gung ho at times and the plots aren't always 100% plausible. This is more than made up for by the sheer pace and momentum of each episode and the solid performances from the cast.

The Sharpe series is a very enjoyable piece of historical fiction. Sean Bean is excellent as Sharpe. He is one of the finest actors of modern times. Everything he is in is great. His great strength is portraying flawed (and very human) characters either heroic or evil. The other actors in the show are also very good- with some going on to greater fame.

The stories range from very good and gripping to the somewhat silly but even the worst will keep you watching. The best part of the show is the dialog and the interactions between the characters. The worst is the combat action which is quite laughable in some instances ( with the classic pick up the enemy soldier and toss him over your shoulder scene). Everyone is killed, few are wounded except our heroes.

Also particularly annoying is the two main characters, Sharpe and Harper constantly running around outdoors with out some form of headgear. At that time, a man was considered indecent and in a state of undress to be out of doors with his head uncovered. Most of the other characters follow this convention, so I'm not quite sure why this is the case with Sharpe and Harper.

But overall a enjoyable and fun " guys soap opera" as the wife of my best friend calls it.

Sean Bean IS Richard Sharpe, the British rifleman whose career mirrors that of Sir Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington through the British campaigns in Europe against the French forces under Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

Even though Bernard Cornell originally had his most famous character sporting black hair, I personally can't read Sharpe and not think of Sean Bean. That's how well he owned the role. Same with Daragh O'Malley as Sharpe's constant companion, the big Irishman Patrick Harper.

All but the last two instalments in this series were based on Cornwell's books, and even Sharpe's Challenge, the penultimate TV movie, was loosely based around Cornwall's trio of books where Sharpe is in India. I only wish these had been big screen productions, with a larger budget for extras and such. As good as the ITV production is - and it is very, very good - it could have been better with larger battle scenes.

That said, there is great Napoleonic action in each episode, and brilliant acting. Hugh Fraser is sensational as Wellington, and Pete Postlethwaite as Sharpe's sworn enemy Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill deserves special mention. A better villain, you will struggle to find. And lots of guest starring roles from famous British actors like Daniel Craig and Liz Hurley.

A really great series. I've not read the books so this was my first introduction to Sharpe. Each episode is quite long but they're well paced and good fun. The villains are proper villains, treacherous, wicked and delighting in their misdeeds. Sharpe is introduced as a hard but decent man raised from the ranks, from humble beginnings, now commanding a company of loyal misfits with his right hand man ever at his side. The costumes and attention to detail are good, you can tell they filmed it abroad, most episodes are set in Spain and Portugal. The modern score works quite well, they took a brave risk including electric guitar but I was surprised how well it worked. Some of it is pretty low budget but some pretty ladies turn up luckily throughout the series for Sharpe to flirt with. A lot of the fighting is actually very brutal and real, not lots of slick acting and fast editing but generally much more realistic with men grappling, wrestling, grunting, going for a low blow. Towards the end it Sharpe starts to seem like he's blessed with nine lives. There's another interesting episode where the war is over and Sharpe is working for the local yeomanry, but his sympathies lie more with the common people than the mill owners he's paid to protect. I like this one because we get to see Sharpe out of his comfort zone while we explore the poverty of Yorkshire in the 1810s. There's also a running gap in the series about Sharpe often being mistaken for a common solider rather than an officer. Many people are astonished to discover this rough mannered low born man is in fact an officer. Many of these men though lack his battle readiness and skill. Not that Sharpe is perfect, he has a weakness for women, he sometimes struggles to control his temper and he can occasionally be quite blind about certain things.

The casting is spot on, especially Sean Bean. Themes of social class, army life and justice/injustice, betrayal, jealousy and loyalty run throughout the series.