Rosemary Sutcliff‘s historical novel The Eagle of the Ninth, which has now sold more than a million copies since its appearance in 1954, was made into a BBC TV mini-series shot in Aberdeenshire in the 1970s.
Rosemary adored the portrayal of Marcus, the hero. As I have posted before: I probably have old old video tapes of hers in the attic. I have no idea if the BBC still has copies in its archives and vaults . Some readers here and ‘likers’ of the Facebook page are lobbying for a re-release or at least DVD. Join them?
It was broadcast in six episodes.
- Frontier Fort (4 September 1977)
- Esca (11 September 1977)
- Across the Frontier (18 September 1977)
- The Lost Legion (25 September 1977)
- The Wild Hunt (2 October 1977)
- Valedictory (9 October 1977)
Very tiny excerpts here.
Is that tv series available as a video/dvd at all? I saw it at the time and would like to see it again.
Margaret – I saw it also and was delighted as I was very familiar with the book as a child (many years ago)! and would be thrilled to obtain a copy on dvd or video. What a fantastic tale and what a brilliant writer.
I would love to see this too
I’ve been told that at the time this series was made the BBC commonly binned the reels of film after a series was finished. People in the know would sometimes retrieve them from the skips, and in more recent times the Beeb have occasionally been able to “borrow” these reels back (no questions asked) copy them, and return them.
Maybe someone somewhere has the originals for the “Eagle of the Ninth” mini-series? I’d also love to see it if possible.
“The Eagle of the Ninth” BBC Radio dramatisation is still available though at Amazon and the BBC Shop.
I would love to see this production. Unfortunately, according to this article, “Some time in the early 1990s, a huge amount of videotaped children’s programmes were bulk-erased by the BBC archives.”
Obviously, I don’t know whether “The Eagle of the Ninth” was one of the victims (though this post claims it was, but if it was, and if you turn up a videotape of the show, the BBC might be interested in a copy of it. They’ve used viewers’ copies to issue DVDs of other shows, such as certain wiped episodes of Doctor Who.
in the unlikely event that anyone should have any sort of videotape of the series, or suspect they may, I’d urge them to find it and have it recorded to DVD urgently. I’ve hear the BBC had wiped the originals, so there may well be no copies in existence and that would be a crying shame. Please, please, if you have it, try to save it. It was a magnificent piece of theatre which must be preserved.