This is the bloodthirsty Dane, Skorpa, ably played by the Swedish actor Jonas Malmsjö. I loved the costumes, and the way the Danes were portrayed in terms of their dress and hairstyles as opposed to the Saxons. The makers of the series went to a great deal of trouble to get the details right, for the most part, although I did have a couple of small quibbles with it, which I will cover later.įirst of all, high marks to the producers for their excellent production values. I mean, if it’s good to read another novel about the era you are interested in, imagine the delight of seeing it come to life?Īnd I will say the The Last Kingdom did not disappoint. So, caveat aside, it was with great anticipation that I settled down with my husband to watch this series. And besides, Cornwell’s books take place after the Viking invasion, and mine, before, so I didn’t want to mix myself up in the history that I was learning.īecause I have only a little familiarity with the books, therefore, this review will strictly be on the series itself, without any reference to the books and how well the series did or did not capture the essence of the books. Of course I enjoyed the book, but I didn’t want to read any more than one, because I didn’t want my books to take on any “Cornwell” flavour. I read the first book to get a flavour of how another novelist tackled some of the practicalities of writing about this era, like, what do you call the various places? How do you explain the social structure of the times? What do these people eat? etc. To be clear, I only read the first of the Cornwall novels, also called The Last Kingdom, as I discovered them in the midst of writing my own Dark Ages novel. It is an 8-episode adaptation of the Saxon novels by Bernard Cornwell.

I finally finished watching this 2015 BBC series, which has been available on Netflix for some time now.

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