Colin Ridley

Oh dear, such a disappointment. The Warlord Chronicles are some of my most favourite books of all time. I was looking forward to seeing them bought to life on the screen, but Aaaghhh….terrible, I could only watch the first couple of episodes. May be if I had not read & loved the books so much it might be different, but I have read the books and this is a most awful adoption ever. I can not see that there will be any more in the series. In the books Derfel as an elderly retired warrior, now monk, writes the real story of Arthur for Princess Igraine, who then takes the parchment for her own scribes to rewrite. She is often complaining to Derfel that his writing is not like the songs that have been written by the bards, and Derfel is often saying that “I was there Lady”. This whole adaption of Bernard Cornell’s amazing books feels as though Princess Igraine has had her way +++ in dumbing down and making “politically correct” the story. It also feels as though the script writers, and perhaps everybody on the production team have only read a “Readers Digest” abridged summary of the books, and never actually read the whole of the books. The Winter King may not quite be “Lord of the Rings” or “Percy Jackson” or even “Harry Potter” but these three adaptions have remained remarkably faithful to the books and have been a success. I feel sure that if the producers of “The Winter King” had been more faithful to the book then a new Arthurian legend could have been born, but now I fear that it will sink without trace. May be in a few years there will be another attempt by those who love the books, but probably not now. Bernard Cornwell, I am sorry the show is so bad, but at least we still have the books, which I believe you enjoyed writing and researching more than most. Thank you Bernard Cornwell. If you want a new take on the Arthurian legend, read these books, or listen to them on talking book, read by Edmund Dehn if you can get hold of them. He brings them to life with humour and fun in his voice. When I have listened to a more recent reading by Jonathan Keeble, although technically good, his reading made me feel depressed and the whole book much darker and more miserable than I felt it needed to be. I was amazed how a different reader, reading the same words, can give such a different feel to a book.