About a month ago, an assistant to the BBC Drama dept contacted me to consult the historical accuracy of an upcoming mini-series. As I don’t live in Britain, the collaboration was aborted (but oh wouldn’t it have been fun!?), however, I still hold a fond memory of “what if,” and am pleased to see [...]
The BBC aired this mini-series in 1972, PBS’s Masterpiece Theater broadcasting it three years later, The Edwardians was a series of plays set during the reign of Edward VII, between 1901 and 1910 focusing on its most famous protagonists. According to the BFI, the episodes featured: David Lloyd George (portrayed by fellow Welshman Anthony Hopkins); [...]
The roots of our modern-day intelligence agencies are to be found in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Certainly espionage is one of the oldest professions (second to prostitution), and impressive spy networks were to be found in Elizabethan England under Francis Walsingham and Commonwealth England under John Thurloe, if not Catherine de Medici’s fabled coven [...]
Jennie Jerome is mainly known to modern audiences as “Winston Churchill’s mother.” Did you approach “American Jennie” with the object of explaining how Jennie’s personality shaped Winston, or to push this now-forgotten dynamo from behind the long shadow of her son?
Both is the honest answer. I didn’t want to write about someone who was not [...]
