THE MAKING OF KING ARTHUR

 

1 x 60 BBC FOUR / BBC Arts (2011)

 

 Filmed, Porduced & Directed by Matthew Hill

 

This surreal film follows Simon Armitage, one of our greatest living poets on the trail of the story and legends of King Arthur. 

 

 

In a journey that takes him from a pantomine in Yorkshire, a pub in the Welsh Marches, a meeting with a muderer and an encounter with the true owner of the Holy Grail, Simon weaves a fastinating and at times absurd literary journey that befits hit style of poetry.

 

Tracing the evolution of the legend as he goes, a forceful polemic emerges in which King Arthur, far from being a iconic British hero, is in fact a Norman invention and his story constantly updated and subverted to fit shifting politics of British history.