The Making of Sharpe's Peril

Last Update: 19 Oct 2008

Here Michael Mallinson (right) watches the approach of a 'dust-devil' in the desert as a previous 'devil' at another location completely destroyed the tents comprising part of a set and caused an injury to a principal actor. This particular 'devil' missed us by 100 metres but previously an unforeseen heavy rainstorm caused an upset on Sharpe's Peril through Making us all take cover and afterwards created insurmountable 'continuity' problems. To make things worse, the tractor in this photograph (left) has also grounded due to carrying an excess load of materials from base-camp and completely blocked the access road to the set.

'Continuity' is important in film-making - Sharpe shoots scenes at different locations and in different pages in the script to be fitted into the film as and when and a scene shot last in schedule in 'real-time' could be the first scene seen in 'screen-time' on the television. A slip in 'continuity' results in letters from people - especially fans - who watch videos of episodes on an alarming regularity, but to whom I do refer to on to keep us 'up to scratch'. Even the stitching I did once as a makeshift repair on Richard Sharpe's sword-belt after it snapped was noticed by one eagle-eyed fan watching Sharpe's Company and he later wrote in that the sword he carried in Sharpe Series Three was not the sword he carried at the end of Series Two or the one he carried during Series Four. If you think this is in excess, you should hear some of the other write-in's I've handled …

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