Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Tom Burke, Santiago Cabrera, Howard Charles, Luke Pasqualino, Tamla Kari, Alexandra Dowling, Rupert Everett, Ryan Gage, Hugo Speer, Michael Ballard, Terence Beesley, Danny Burns, Sam Clemmett, Chris Corrigan, Crispin Letts, Matthew McNulty, Dan Parr, Giselle Scantlebury, Matt Stokoe, John Woodvine.
War between the two great 17th Century European superpowers of France and Spain was never one that ended easily or with much gained upon either side; just lots of dead men, lots of potential wasted and heroes made, some of bronze, some of clay.
The return of The Musketeers to television is one that has been salivated over by many of its fans but one that has been shoved out of its normal place in the fixtures and fittings and now seems destined to not be taken up as well as the light Saturday evenings of the summer saturate the thoughts, the comfortable weather making its normal charming approach to venture outside, and interesting television programmes start to feel the heat, The Spoils Of War, in such climates.
War it may be but brotherhood is not forgotten, honour is never in short supply within the ranks of The Musketeers and in The Spoils Of War, the seeds are sown for the friends to rejoin after four long years of separation, but not without blood being spilled and the treachery of some within France to show their faces once more.
With a new face in tow in Rupert Everett as Governor Feron, the enemies within the inner circle grows still further and whilst it might take storylines of immense magnitude to ever replace Peter Capaldi or Marc Warren as a main villain of the piece, in Rupert Everett there is the quality of anger, the sense of the quiet discomfort to make it happen.
Whilst placing the programme in the summer schedules might hurt its viewing figures, it will not detract from the sense of immensity that the drama exposes to its viewers and fans. The heat of battle and the effects of war upon a man’s mind are explored, perhaps even in the smallest detail in the relationship between D’Artagnan and Constance, played beautifully by Luke Pasqualino and the superb Tamla Kari, or in the bigger picture played out between Santiago Cabrera’s Aramis and Howard Charles’ Porthos, war has a habit of creating heroes and monsters of us all.
A welcome return to the screen to one of the best dramas the B.B.C. has put out in years; it is just a shame they have let it slide in to the wrong time of year.
Ian D. Hall