Bernard Cornwell | The Last Kingdom BBC 2

everybody and welcome to another episode of bookish protect today I'm joined with Bernard Cornwell finally I'm such a big fan so I'm very excited to be here and this is an honor of the Saxon series the last Kingdom which is actually going to be on BBC Two later this year and I've got Scott the privilege or finally talking to you about books it's pleasure to meet you and thank you for joining me today Cinzia thank you for asking I would like to start by just discussing how excited you are about this being televised because obviously there has been a television series of the Sharps series since on the BBC now and it seems to be a lot of production so how do you feel about that fun-filled and obviously I miss it's terrific and and and equally surprised I mean I guess about two or three years ago someone said oh carnival films wants to make a TV series about the last king weather okay I believe it when I see it cuz you never do believe it you know I mean people are always saying we want to do a movie or something and it never ever happens well it's happened but I haven't seen any of it I haven't seen anybody die when you see it I'll see it you know when and and not until them which I but I know it's gonna be terrific it's great I mean these are wonderful people they've got a terrific cast Alexander dreamer Matthew Macfadyen Emily Cox and being Rutger Hauer I mean it's an extraordinary cast and they're going to bring their creative imagination to it and curious about it I was a book reader and we're always i watch television series a lot of folks I always wonder how much input and author has but I get the impression well I guess you the author could have input know did they very kindly said to me did I did I want to have any I said no I don't want to be involved at all oh no not in the least I don't want and then they actually very kindly sent me the scripts and I never even bother to open them not because I don't care no look I used to work television over 40 years ago I was a television producer and the one thing I know is that I know nothing about producing television drama and these people do these people know all there is to know but and it did Downton Abbey for God's sake they know about making television drama what possible thing can I contribute you don't feel like you're losing like control of any of your characters or freedom of no I think I'm giving my character to some incredibly clever creative people and they're gonna add to it I mean when they made the show up films Pete Postlethwaite played Hakes will there's far better than my eggs were far better and then every subsequent book I wrote I was writing Sean Bean I wasn't writing the sharp-eyed originally written Bick but you don't hire actors of this caliber and say to them you're going to play it this way just as burn a corn we'll wrote it you've got to let them be creative too you got to let the script writers be creative the director everybody they're bringing all this to these stories so in fact youth the reader the viewer is getting more then I mean that's very similar to how a reader anyway gets the book you know we create our own imagination so it's just freedom by like the ASCII because I've heard other interviews of you in the past talk about this the importance of the Saxon period to you because this is obviously the 9th and 10th century that's set in and you said a lot about Alfred the Great being a very strong symbol of England is today and I was wondering if desertsol well it's most historical novels have a big store and a little story the big story in Gone with the Wind is was can the south win the Civil War the little story is can Scarlett save Tara and you flip them you put the little story in the foreground in the big story in the background and the story I wanted to tell is a story that for some strange reason the English don't know which is where did England come from if you go back to the to the to the year 800 850 there is no such place as England even the word doesn't exist there are other kingdoms as Wessex as East Anglia this Mercia there's Northumbria that had been Venezia that bent a year there been all sorts of kingdoms but no England so where does England come from and you know we sing they'll always be in England but there wasn't always in England so that is the big story which you put in the background and yet I wanted to tell that story which is which is just to say to you look this is part of our history so part of our history that we ought to know and we ought to celebrate and of course Alfred is terribly terribly important he doesn't make England but he dreams of it and it is very much Alfred's dream that there will be one country which unites all the people who speak the English tongue and just before he died he called himself the king of all the people who speak English but he's not yet King of England because England doesn't exist and it doesn't exist until his grandson really creates it though I wanted to ask you about that because when you're writing historic is obviously you know a lot about history why did you pick the right fiction there are not non-fiction ha I'm always curious like I know but lot of people read lots of I won't be at all because I know I'm a storyteller not an historian oh right oh that's amazing no it is true look if you want to know about about the the Saxon period there's a terrific book written by a guy called Stanton for start I mean there's all sorts of books and I can almost promise you that they won't keep you awake at night when you get to the end of chapter 2 you're not going to say oh god I can't with the letter I've got to keep reading my job is to make you tired because you can't put it down I've got to find out what I will tell you I change history all the time you have to confess in the historical note because it depends what you're writing I mean but I just finished a book about it read and really it is mostly imagination because we don't know much about what happened in that year and but that's great for me because I can just make it up as I go along I said I'm a storyteller I'm not an historian and how do you decide what you want to write about them the period why do you read about the history personally I want to create a story yes yes well with this one it all happened because I very carelessly lost my real parents when I was born and then when I was 58 I met my real father for the first time discovered that he came from a family the surname was out Trudeau ugh T re D and they trace their family tree all the way back to Northumbria to ultra and although the huge read that I write about it certainly is not real in the sense that we don't know much about the 8th 9th 10th century hundreds we've got his signature on a charter or two that gave me my little story so this is actually a story about a fictional member of my family I want to know how longs it take to write historical fiction so we know it's epic and it must be so hard to have an epic history sighs technically I don't you know it really depends to you on what you're doing I mean I I'm splitting it up I mean they've been hate or nine books in the series so far I'm quite sure I think is I think I've just finished the ninth so I mean yes if you put on line together you've got I don't know you've got a million words or more and that's that's an epic but we've you know we've chopped it all out I generally write it takes about six months to write a book but I mean behind that there is I hope a lifetime of research that makes me feel so bad that my dissertations taking so long to write are you feeling quite hopeful for more people reading historical fiction because I know obviously people tend to get scared the sizes of them my generation I know and do you think this out quite nice hope about it being dramatized so we've seen quite and I'm a bookseller and I've seen a lot of people suddenly buying Hilary mantel because of the historical dramatization of that projector are you quite hopeful that will happen with historical fiction and you're well it already has I mean you know the nice thing is is that that you know it obviously to happen with the sharp books I'm very very lucky I mean eyes did you know I seem to have a solid number of readers but yes I'm sure more people will read it I mean they know they're going to see Alexander Traven playing autre they're going to want to know more about who tried and the only place to find that out until the next series comes out is to go to the books and there does seem to have been explosion of historical fiction when I started writing it it was actually not a particularly particularly popular genre has got more and more popular over the last 3040 years and you started writing that in America dingy writing yeah when I married an American and couldn't get a work permit and and so had to do something that living which didn't need the US government's permission that's a wonderful way to get into writing early I mean it was a wonderful way but it is desperate way normally where the greatest work comes from but one said another interview how much you appreciated the title of the great and you mentioned how Queen Elizabeth should have been a certain great member I do I think Elizabeth the first should be Elizabeth the great but but but that you know there is no Nobel Committee that Awards this it is up to history to a sort of general thing and we call we say Alfred Alfred the Great and quite rightly he deserves that but I say there is no Nobel Committee to do this so I doubt Elizabeth will ever be called Elizabeth the great but she certainly deserves to be if would you ever write a serial of that period I don't know this is tough tooters been done an awful lot you know I mean the start there's the goddess herself Hilary mantel I know she's not Elizabeth but but so I didn't maybe maybe one day I hope think I really enjoyed that if not I will thank you ever so much for joining me today and I hope you really enjoyed it I can't wait for dramatization if you haven't read the last Kingdom please do I also love the Holy Grail series if you haven't read that either are the Arthur in series but thank you ever so much for joining me it was a pleasure to talk thank you thank you what are you writing oh I'm doing a dissertation on the use of classicism and modernist political fiction good luck thank you very much I mean did ah do you mind if I look at my note pardon me thank you very much sorry no it's fine dissertation on the classically oh that's I wanted to ask you oh sorry I rushed up again may I do it again I'll castanares it all together thank you sorry Bella I get nervous at the end of the production ojas we thank you very very cheeky and I'll see you to sign my additional

Channel: The Personal Philosophy Project

Views: 45,017

Rating: 4.9408603 out of 5

Keywords: Choncey Boddington books, literature, novels, blogger, beauty, daily log, Academia, academics, english literature, fashion, haul, makeup, student, zoella, Tanya burr, booksandquills, the petite britette, les belles lettres, book club, Book reviews, book blogger, book tuber, booktube, British Broadcasting Corporation (Production Company), The Last Kingdom (Book), Bernard Cornwell (Author), BBC Two (TV Network), Books, Reading, bbc, The Last Kingdom

Id: l6Dsjlwol0Q

Length: 9min 26sec (566 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 20 2015