Warrior Queen (1978)

Warrior Queen (1978)

Dirs. Michael Custance / Neville Green | 6 episodes, approx 25 minutes each

A British TV series about Queen Boudicca of the Celtic Iceni tribe, played here by the striking actress Siân Phillips. It tells of the determined queen's campaign to unite the native tribes in order to drive from their homeland the occupying forces of the Roman Empire in the year 61 AD.

Aiding Boudicca in her struggle is druid priest Volthan (Michael Gothard), a man who hates the Romans more than most because of the slaughter they wrought upon his fellow druid practitioners, even going so far as to outlaw their sacred beliefs.

Volthan's personal agenda sometimes overrides rational judgements, making him something of a dangerous ally. Gothard sometimes overacts the part, but there's no denying his good intentions for breathing dramatic life into the driven character.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Siân. Even though she looks the part, the inner conflict between the queen's doubts and her persona of strength isn't externalised well enough to make her character seem like she's much more than someone simply dressed up for a re-enactment.

-Hey, Siân, why so blue?-

It was Siân's involvement that made me take an interest in the miniseries to begin with, she was great as Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam in David Lynch's filmed version (1984) of Frank Herbert's Dune novel (1965). Oh, well, some you win, some you lose.

First in the queen's sights is Procurator Caius Decianus (Nigel Hawthorne), a lazy and arrogant official who'd feed his own children to wolves if it would save his hide. Caius detests the tribes - to him they're savages who should be thankful for the Roman boot atop their painted faces.

-Anyone know what the Latin for 'asshole' is? We've got context.-

Battle scenes aren't good, it never feels like the numbers of warriors or soldiers mentioned on the DVD box are present, but I'm sure they did the best they could with the resources at their disposal. The strongest the series has in that regard is the Chief of the Catuvellauni tribe, Moticcus (Tony Haygarth), without whom many of the smaller skirmishes would be pretty limp. Similarly, I can see what they were aiming for with the ending, but it felt a little anticlimactic.

I'm not a history buff, so I've no idea how accurate the telling is to that of the historically accepted (or contested) version of Boudicca's story, but the series doesn't ever claim to be presenting the full truth, so if there's some creative liberties on display that's okay by me.

I enjoyed Warrior Queen's limited charms but don't feel that I'll be revisiting it in the future, because there's too many other series from yesteryear that I want to rewatch with adult eyes, or discover for the first time. Incidentally, I found out after viewing, by one episode's inclusion on a different Network release, that it was aired as a children's TV series! I'd never have guessed, what with the bloodshed, murdering, ritual sacrifice, flogging, implied sexual assault and suicide.

NOTE: the images used above are taken from the 'Gallery' bonus feature and for some reason are much better visual quality than the actual episodes themselves. The series is presented in the original 4:3 ratio, sourced from what appears to be some kind of 1970s VT format, from time to time it even has the telltale white and grey horizontal lines that indicate tape damage.