Archive Gems - Cadfael
 
 


There have been many detective series down the years,
but the number of those that have been set in times past have been few and far between.
Most of them have been set in comparatively recent times,
such as the recent Murder Rooms or the various incarnations of Sherlock Holmes.
But not many have ventured as far back in time for their setting as Cadfael.

  The twelfth century monk, a former Crusader knight, had renounced the way of the sword and taken holy vows as a man of the cloth. However, although his vows are important to him, truth and justice are far more so, which could bring him into conflict with his abbot who while usually following God's ways and scriptures some times put the affairs of the abbey ahead of what was right by the world.

Cadfael's creator

The first novel to feature Cadfael was first published in 1977 under the pen name of Ellis Peters. His creator, whose real name was Edith Mary Pargeter, was born 28th September 1913. She worked as a chemist’s assistant until the outbreak of the Second World War when she joined the Women's Royal Navy Service in 1941; for her service she received the British Empire Medal in 1944. Her first novel was Hortensius, Friend of Nero in 1936, one of several historical novels along with her mystery novels and translations of Czech literature. She received the Edgar Allan Poe award by Mystery Writers of America for the best novel for Death and Joyful Woman, the British Crime Writers Association's Silver Dagger for the Cadfael novel Monk's Hood, and Cartier Diamond Dagger awards as well as an Order of the British Empire from the Queen in 1994. But to most people, Cadfael will always be the creation for which she is best known and remembered.

Although the Cadfael of the screen differed from the Cadfael of her books, Pargeter was enthusiastic about the change from her literary interpretation to the small-screen persona, as the actor cast remembered in a recent interview:

"The upshot of it was that Edith Pargeter got to hear that I wanted to play it and said 'Oh what a wonderful idea, can I meet him?' Again, it was Claudius (the series I, Claudius) that did it. So I met Edith and we hit it off and she said, 'Of course, you must play it' Well I said, 'I don't actually fit the description that you gave in the book. ' 'It doesn't matter, doesn't matter, you're perfect perfect' So that's how it happened"

The actor Pargeter was enthusing about was Derek Jacobi.

Jacobi - his life and times

Born October 22nd 1938 in Leytonstone, East London, Jacobi first acted at the local secondary school, Leyton High, playing girl's roles until his voice deepened sufficiently. He went on to Cambridge University where he studied both acting and history. Although acting has always been his first love, the history studies were there as a backup, should his dream not come true.

It was while portraying Hamlet at Cambridge that his performance was noted by Richard Burton, who later advised him on voice work. He went on to perform many works on the stage in rep, where while in Birmingham doing Henry VIII, he was invited by Laurence Olivier to be one of the eight founding members of the New National Theatre in London, where he stayed for the next eight years sharing the limelight with noted actors such as Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellan. Jacobi was knighted in 1992.

Appearing in many films over the years - his first was Othello in 1965 - his list of credits includes classics such as The Day Of The Jackal, The Odessa File and Little Dorrit up to more recent films such as Kenneth Brannagh's Hamlet and Gladiator. His television credits are no less impressive, in fact possibly more so, with appearances in The Strauss Family, The Pallisers, I, Claudius (as Claudius), Inside The Third Reich, Cyrano De Bergerac - for which he won a Laurence Olivier award, The Secret Garden, Breaking The Code and, more recently, Jason and The Argonauts and The Wyvern Mystery.

One of his hobbies is gardening, although he doesn't claim to be more than an enthusiastic amateur, and he was to go on to narrate a series on British flowers, Flora Britannica, in 1999. Hence, in some respects at least, although he may not have been the physical equivalent of the literary Cadfael they did at least share something of a green-fingered nature, with the monk often seen to employ a knowledge of herbs and flowers to solve the crime.

Cadfael - the man

Cadfael on television is a man in his 60's - he is noted as being of Welsh descent in the books, here it is not made known. He has been in the world - he spent around 15 years in the Middle East, first as a Crusader, then as captain of a fishing boat. While there, he began to learn about gardening and herbs, loved several women and even fathered a son, although he did not know it at the time. Finally, the quiet, the peace of the monastery called to him, and he came home to England and took vows.

As a Brother at the Abbey of St Peter and St Paul at Shrewsbury, Cadfael was not highly placed in the ecclesiastical rankings and certainly not as devout as some of his order. However, his knowledge of herbs, salves and balms was useful to the abbey and the town, and so despite his past and his curiousity in things outside the cloisters, he is tolerated, though only just and only if it does not affect the Abbey. Whereas the original Abbot, Herribert, was more inclined to give Cadfael some lee-way, his replacement, Abbot Radulfus, was perhaps more ‘politically-minded’, which was liable to make things difficult for the Brother.

In the first of the television episodes, One Corpse Too Many, civil war comes knocking on the gates of Shrewsbury town, as factions supporting Queen Maud and the upstart pretender who overthrows her, King Stephen, fight for supremacy in the area. When there is battle and murder within the town, and Cadfael notes that there are more bodies requiring his ministration for burial than had been accounted for, it is up to young lord Hugh Beringer, appointed by Stephen, to find out what has happened. Although he is not initially trusted by Cadfael, the monk comes to see that Beringer is just as much a seeker of justice as he is, even if his hands are often tied, and they develop a respectful friendship.When Beringer was made responsible for the law in the area, he looked to Cadfael to help him get to the truth, although he may not always have seen that truth as clearly as the monk.

Sherrif Beringer, I presume?

Beringer was played by three actors over the series' run. The first was Sean Pertwee, son of former Doctor Who Jon, who has since gone on to make a name for himself in his own right in various television movies and films including Event Horizon. He had previously guested in series including Poirot, Casualty, The Chief, Virtual Murder, Boon, Peak Practise and A Touch Of Frost amongst others. Pertwee stayed throughout the first series of four episodes.

The next, Eoin McCarthy, was a virtual unknown on television and film prior to taking over the role from Pertwee. His only previous appearances had been in the films Being Human and Land And Freedom, and an episode of Lovejoy. Certainly, Beringer was his first major role on television, which he made the most of during the two series he played the role. He would later go on to feature in the tv mini series Original Sin and the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies – as would his successor; but although both play naval officers in the film, both serve on separate ships!

McCarthy’s successor and last incumbent in the role of Beringer was Anthony Green. Like McCarthy he was very inexperienced, in fact even more so when coming to the part, although he has worked quite extensively since with roles in series including Wycllffe, Pie In The Sky, Where The Heart Is and the mini-series The Scarlet Pimpernel starring Richard E. Grant.

Both McCarthy and Green carried on the role as played by Pertwee in a similar manner, and although their performances are very good, their inexperience does show when compared to the other. Perhaps because of this the role of Beringer's right-hand man, the Sergeant- Warden, Will, played by supporting actor Albie Woodington, was given more to do in some of the later adaptations. Woodington had played small parts, usually heavy types for fifteen years before coming to Cadfael and his appearances had included series such as the BBC’s version of The Day Of The Triffids, PD James' The Black Tower and Lovejoy and tv plays including The Four Minute Mile, The Woman In Black and The Fairy Queen. His physical appearance made him an impressive figure which allowed his character to keep a lot of the Shrewsbury townspeople in order should he need to.

Brothers in alms

The original abbot of Shrewsbury abbey was Abbot Herribert, a man grown old in the service of God and played by veteran supporting actor Peter Copley. Copley was in his late seventies by the time the part in Cadfael came along, and had been appearing in films since the 1950’s. Some of his best known film work includes The Sword And The Rose, King And Country, Quatermass And The Pit and Empire Of The Sun, although his television work has been much more extensive and perhaps better known. His many appearances have included Dimensions Of Fear, Out Of The Unknown, Redcap, Danger Man, The Avengers, Department S, Jane Ayre, Doomwatch, Callan, Arthur Of The Britons, You’re Only Young Twice, Doctor Who, Sky, The Cedar Tree, Flambards, Churchill And The Generals, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Hot Metal, Lovejoy, The Bill and most recently, Casualty and Wives And Daughters.

During the last episode of the first series, Monk’s Hood, Herribert is called away to a legatine council about reform of the Church and the abbey is told that a new abbot will arrive shortly to serve in his stead. This marks a turning point in Cadfael’s position within his order; whereas Herribert would entertain the other’s ways because ‘the truth to be found was also God’s truth’, the new Abbot, Radulfus, was less inclined to consider it so. While Radulfus would do the right thing by God and was no doubt devoted to the order as Herribert had been, a lot more politicking would go on under his leadership, and Cadfael certainly could be a thorn in both his side and Prior Robert’s, who had been kept in order by Herribert.

Both Abbot Radulfus and Prior Robert had one thing in common outside of the series; both actors had appeared in the Seventies wartime drama Secret Army, with Terrence Hardiman (Abbot Radulfus) playing the sometimes sinister Major Reinhard who replaces Major Brandt played by Michael Culver (Prior Robert), both acting as aides to Kessler, played by Clifford Rose.

Of the two, Hardiman had had a shorter film and television career although both were of a similar age. His first screen role was in keeping with his role in Cadfael, playing Cardinal Anastasius in the film Pope Joan in 1972. Prior to Secret Army, he had roles in Crown Court, The Story Of David and Rebecca, but it was after his role as Reinhard that he found himself more often employed, sometimes in films such as Gandhi, Mask Of Murder and God's Outlaw, but more often on the small screen in episodes of Juliet Bravo, Bergerac, Inspector Morse, Poirot, The Brittas Empire, Miss Marple, Prime Suspect 3 and Inside The Third Reich, this last along with Derek Jacobi. In recent times he has become known to many children for his sinister portrayal of The Demon Headmaster.

Culver's career stretched back ten years further than Hardiman, with his first appearance coming in the 1961 film Gli Invasori (known in the UK as Fury Of The Vikings and by a range of other titles elsewhere). He would next be seen on film in the Sean Connery Bond film Thunderball as an ill-fated bomber pilot but his career was already well on track and both a gassing and a drowning at the hands of SPECTRE agents wouldn't put him off! His film roles continued with parts in Goodbye Mr Chips, Crossplot, The Fast Kill, The Empire Strikes Back and A Passage To India, while his many roles on television before and after Secret Army included R3, The Avengers, The Guardians, The Devil's Eggshell – a Play Of The Month with Peter Copley – The Persuaders, Elizabeth R, The Adventures Of Black Beauty, Van Der Valk, The Duchess Of Duke Street, Philby, Burgess and MacLean – Culver played played Maclean to Derek Jacobi's Guy Burgess – The Sweeney, Dick Turpin, Shoestring, A Fine Romance, The Bounder, Boon and The Green Man.

Brotherhood of men

Other brothers of Cadfael's order were also vital to the stories as presented on screen. None more so than the snide and toadying Brother Jerome, played with great alacrity by Julian Firth. Firth had started his career in the late Seventies, coming to prominence in the Eighties in films such as Absolute Beginners and Lifeforce and tv mini-series such as Oliver Twist, A Perfect Spy and the original Prime Suspect. Before coming to Cadfael, he finished a related role in the film Shadowlands with Anthony Hopkins as Father John Fisher. In Cadfael, if the monk needed to pursue a certain path to get to the truth or shelter someone from harm, Firth's Jerome could be relied upon to scuttle away and tell Prior Robert or Abbot Radulfus, often doing a great deal of harm to Cadfael's investigations and position within the order, as well as occasionally backfiring on the abbey itself. Although it was impossible to like the 'slimey' Jerome, it has to be said that he is one of the best characters in the series, due both to Pargeter's original creation and on screen to Firth's excellent portrayal.

Balancing Brother Jerome was Oswin, the devoted brother who was not always the brightest, but helped Cadfael in his work in the abbey grounds and with the preparation of his herbs. As a general gofer, Oswin was a likeable innocent who occasionally found himself in trouble, most notably in the story The Virgin In The Ice where he believes he has raped a nun he was escorting; in fact, nothing could be further from the truth, but circumstantial evidence made Oswin look the guilty party until Cadfael deduces the truth. Unlike Julian Firth playing Jerome, Mark Charnock was almost totally new to television, his only appearance being a single episode of the sitcom 2point4 children in 1992. However, his performance as Oswin belied his lack of experience and both he and Firth would prove extremely fine and solid additions to the cast, both staying with the series for its full run.

The medieval mysteries screened

In all, thirteen of the Cadfael stories were made. The murder cases the monk had to solve including proving the innocence of a young juggler who was thought to have robbed and assaulted the goldsmith who later died; Oswin’s alleged rape of a young nun, found murdered and frozen in a block of ice in the middle of winter; the innocence of a suitor to a wealthy widow when a rival and a monk are killed, and the identity of the killer of an old man found in a sack within the abbey grounds, the guilty party thought to be one of a group of pilgrims who are harbouring a pair of thieves.

The abbey and its brothers were also the subject of some of the stories; in particular A Morbid Taste For Bones, when a young brother, Columbanus, has a vision that St. Winifred is uneasy in her grave in Wales and Radulfus orders an expedition to the village of Gwytherin to bring her bones back to Shrewsbury. When the local lord, opposed to the exhumation, is found murdered, the monks are drawn into a tangled web of love, defiance and intrigue that only Cadfael can bring them out of.

That is not to say that Cadfael himself was immune to the machinations of the cases he was called upon to solve. In Monk's Hood, when a wealthy land-owner cuts his stepson out of his will and is found poisoned, Cadfael comes into contact with his widow and finds her to be Richildis, his childhood sweetheart who he has not seen for forty years when he went off to the Crusades - and who he promised to marry on his return.

Shrewsbury, Hungary?

The look of Cadfael was as authentic as could be created, and this was due in no small part to the vision of its producer Stephen Smallwood. It was, however, impossible to film the series in England, as he explainedin an interview during the launch of the series in 1994;

"There are buildings that are appropriate to a story like this scattered around England and Wales, but to render them back to their original state would be nigh on impossible given the fact they’re all being used… And they are scattered. It is essential to have all your sets and locations within 10 or 20 minutes of where your crew and cast are. Every minute you travel is a great deal of money."

The answer in the end was to take everything and everyone to Budapest and construct an abbey and a medieval village from scratch. The result, which looked absolutely superb on screen, took three months to build and a good deal of the £4½ million budget for the first series. This may sound a lot, but it was a similar amount of money to contemporary-based series made at that time by ITV – around £850,000 for an hour of television - which would require a lot less effort. As Smallwood commented at the time;

"As far as I'm concerned as producer, I could have done with a whole lot more money. It was a struggle from beginning to end… but I think all the money’s on the screen. That’s my task and I had a very good team (who’ve) done very well.”

The abbey and village would be reused for the rest of the episodes when the series was renewed after its initial run of four, helping to stretch the money. Also, by this time, computer graphics had advanced sufficiently for some backdrops to be added into the scene to give more depth and grandeur than the budget would stretch to. While this had been done on historical series before with paintings, the effect was usually not as seamless as it was here.

The music for the series was provided by noted television composer and ex-Gillan keyboard player Colin Towns, who had provided scores for series such as Capital City, Clarissa, The Blackheath Poisonings, Between The Lines, A Question Of Guilt, Stark and Pie In The Sky, as well as films including The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase and The Puppet Masters. His sonorous theme reminiscent of an order's holy chant beautifully complemented the visual look of the series, which was initially directed to great and epic effect by Graham Theakston, a style that was followed by the directors who followed him throughout the series' run.

Network knotwork

Cadfael debuted on the ITV network on Sunday May 29th 1994 in a prime-time slot and received very good ratings and a lot of favourable criticism from the various tv commentators. Comments included praise for the recreation of Shrewsbury, the action sequences of which the first episode had a large set piece - and both the adaptation and Derek Jacobi's performance.

However, as is too often the case with good series, after its initial run, Cadfael was overlooked for a coherent schedule of either repeats or new productions. The next episode, the somewhat seasonal mystery The Virgin In The Ice, was held over until Boxing Day 1995, eighteen months after the last of the first series had aired. No further Cadfael was shown until the following two episodes were used in a ratings battle over August Bank Holiday weekend in 1996 – 18th and 19th August were the dates of transmission – although they were clearly made at the same time as The Virgin In The Ice. The third series debuted a year later, with all three episodes shown on consecutive weeks giving some coherence, but the old scheduling fiasco was back in evidence by the time the last block of stories was shown, with the first shown in June 1998 while the other two were held back until the Christmas period of the same year.

Considering the haphazard and political nature of the scheduling, it is amazing that after its initial run of episodes, Cadfael picked up any viewers at all and is a prime example of network Incompetence. Here was a quality historical drama with murder, mystery and intrigue thrown in with a top-notch leading man playing the title role. Instead of capitalising on it like they had done with other series - and it must be noted contemporary-based series - like Inspector Morse and A Touch Of Frost – they quietly buried it. This may seem a harsh summation, given that when it was on it did have good time slots and often shown on holiday weekends. But a regular timeslot would have worked far better for the series, and a place in the Autumn/Winter schedules would have suited the atmosphere particularly well.

A rare benedictine

Cadfael came to an end in 1998 when the last episode, The Pilgrim Of Hate, was screened, three years after author Edith Pargeter herself had died. Like many other ITV productions worth a second screening, it has never been repeated on either ITV1 or Channel 4 for terrestrial viewers to get a second opinion of the series, an error in judgement which never seems to apply with the other shows previously mentioned where repeats are shown ad nauseam. I knew some Latin would appear in this review somewhere... This is a real shame, as Cadfael was a quality production on every front. That is not to say that the series has not been commercially exploited, with all episodes released by Central/Carlton on video and by Acorn Media on DVD (only in the USA at the time of writing). Of course, in this modern age, this Holy Grail would be for sale!

I wholeheartedly recommend the on-screen works of the holy brother and his order to you all. For here was a series that entertained first and foremost, had a look that holds up against any historical film in a similar setting in the last twenty years, had a first-rate, quality cast of main artists and a good cast of supporting players in the smaller roles, and adapted some rollicking good mysteries from well-respected and admired books. You can't go wrong.

Well, except when you ruin the scheduling… Enough! Repent, brother, repent! Cadfael was, and is, well worth embracing, and is one of those series fallen by the wayside that really should be celebrated - and lamented for what it could have been.

article copyright PPS / M.Hearn 2002