For me, I have to go back to Tomas Vivar, the brother of Don Blas Vivar. One thing which I didn't like about the episode adaptation of Sharpe's Rifles was the fact that we don't learn much about Tomas except that he's the villain. But he's also a devout Bonapartist because he is not just an atheist, he is staunchly opposed to the Catholicism which he sees as holding Spain back in the dark ages.

Therefore, I appreciated the fact that the episode did give him one great moment between himself and Don Blas after their final duel. As he lies dying, looking up at his brother, Tomas murmurs "When you bury me... no priests."

Out of all the episode's "Sharpe's Gold" was the one that really strained the ability to suspend disbelief, especially its climax. While I could sort of see the possibility of a particularly eccentric Spanish partisan equipping himself with an old family heirloom, like a Conquistador's helmet or breastplate when going into battle, the idea that an Aztec-inspired cult (complete with a large cave complex and giant stone statues of deities) that carried out ritual human sacrifice endured for three centuries right under the noses of the Inquisition pushed this episode into the realm of fantasy.

Took my kids to an anglo saxon village ... and the 95th rifles are here. Baker rifle on the left.

Is it possible sharpe sent for Antonia after the war to live with him and Lucille?

If you want, you can give two different lists, one for the books and one for the show, because let‘s be honest, there are some big differences in the way those mediums adapted the same characters.

Here are my lists, in no particular order:

BOOK VILLAINS:

Sgt Hakeswill

Sir Henry Simmerson

Guy Loup

Ferragus

Pierre Ducos

SHOW VILLAINS:

Sgt. Hakeswill

Col. Girdwood

Sir Henry Simmerson

Lord Fenner

Count Dragomirov

Another post on this sub about Sharpe's Regiment reminded me of a small moment in that episode which always stuck with me afterwards.

Sharpe and Harper have taken over command of the South Essex's second battalion, they've armed and uniformed the men, and are marching them across the English countryside. That includes Captain Carline, who we first saw wasting his time at the abandoned barracks doing fuckall.

In this scene, Harper approaches Carline and declares that the company's "present, correct, and ready to march, sir!" Carline thanks him, and dutifully passes on the word to Sharpe as he walks up.

I don't know why, but I love this little moment. Harper's obviously a veteran of the wars, he's a strong and firm leader of troops, but he's also entirely respectful of Carline's rank, regardless of their difference in experience. Carline, meanwhile, is taking his rank seriously under Sharpe's mentorship (this is more obvious in the book than the episode, where a whole chapter is devoted to Sharpe and Harper preparing the second battalion for combat and campaigning in Spain). But at the same time, he's not a dick about outranking Harper either, showing him genuine respect.

It's a small moment, and doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, but it's nice character development. I wish we could have had Carline and Smith return in later episodes, serving under Sharpe and proving their worth. Charlie Weller too, for that matter.

After reading Mark Urbans book "Rifles" I think we need to take some time to just tip our hats to Major Peter O'hare of the Rifles.

The guy seems to have clawed his way up through the ranks just like Sharpe, which under the circumstances of the time deserves respect.

Then he died leading the forlorn hope at Badjoz.

I'd really like to know more about him and his life.

Here's to Major O'hare!

I've been watching Sharpe's Regiment and honestly? Lynch was so pathetic at times it was genuinely funny. It's so wrong of me, but I will miss that aggressive, small man.

Too bad he died so soon! Damn it

… which would you have most liked to see?

Hoping someone knowledgeable can advise me.

Looking to track down a Harper Collins paperback copy of Sharpe’s Command to match my existing copies of other titles in the series.

They all look like this first pic and that’s the version I would really like.

However most copies I can seem to find online look more like the second pic.

Does anyone know if Sharpe’s Command came out too late to look like the others? Is it possible even for me to get a matching copy?

Sharpe meme discovered in the wild on twitter.

I was already well into the book series when I started watching the series. My parents got me a DVD of Sharpe’s Regiment as an introduction to the series. I don’t know why they picked that one, since I hadn’t read the book it’s based on at that point, but it was a fascinating choice. I still maintain that that episode is one of the better ones.

I was already a fan of Daniel Hagman from his portrayal in the books, but having him played by renowned folk singer John Tams was such a genius idea on the part of the filmmakers. He adds so much to the atmosphere simply by singing these old-time songs that an English soldier would know back in the day.

That artillery man in the middle firing a gun from Sharpe's Peril looks like advisor Richard Moore painted brown

Hi everyone,

I’m going to be completely honest with you all, this is one where we really need the Sharpe community to rally behind us.

A few years ago, as a huge Sharpe fan myself, I reached out to Daragh about starring in a short film I was making, and I honestly couldn’t believe it when he agreed to come on board. We immediately hit it off, and over the last few years we’ve become very close friends. Now my co-director Marko and I are developing a documentary centred around Daragh’s extraordinary friendship with Marlon Brando during the collapse of the unfinished 1995 film Divine Rapture in Ireland.

But honestly, alongside the Brando side of things, this documentary has also become a huge celebration of Sharpe itself, Patrick Harper, and all the incredible stories and memories that came out of that world. The more time I’ve spent with Daragh, the more I’ve realised just how many fascinating stories came out of those years making Sharpe, both on and off screen.

For me personally, Sergeant Patrick Harper is one of the greatest characters ever, and clearly still means so much to people decades later.

We’ve been uncovering unseen archive material connected to the project, including original Divine Rapture footage, rare photographs and even voicemail tapes left for Daragh by Brando himself.

Truthfully, independent filmmaking is hard, and we’re currently trying to get the core filming of the documentary properly off the ground ourselves. The core shoot would involve spending time with Daragh in Ireland, alongside filming interviews in London with contributors connected to Sharpe and that world. We’d also love, at some stage, to sit down with Sean Bean himself to talk about those years making Sharpe alongside Daragh, and the friendship they built over so many episodes and years together.

If anybody would like to support the documentary and help us get cameras rolling, the campaign link is here:

https://gofund.me/30dc214fc

P.S. The last photo is of Vincent, Daragh’s parrot, who may end up stealing the entire film.

Chris

Instagram: chris_jacobsen

One of those moments in the series where it's almost 100% accurate to the book it's based on.

Sean Bean and Pete Postlethwaite absolutely knocked it out of the park, as did the rest of the cast.

in this scene from Sharpe's Company, Cooper asks Harris to fix his boot. The boot in question is a chelsea boot, which dates back to 1837 and not 1812

I know this rivalry is rather hastily established, since Hakeswill isn’t around to play the original role he played in the India stories, but i still love this scene. Especially love the way Sharpe snarls “Come at me with a KNIFE, will ya?” as he beats the daylights out of Sgt Bickerstaff

Hi folks, does anyone know the best place to procure/stream the original uncut version of Sharpe's Challenge? In the original ITV airing there was approx. ~10 minutes of extra footage included, but all the recent versions I can find of Challenge are the cut down international release version.

I'm not sure if Peril also had the same issue (original airing being longer than the released version).

It almost feels like a default to list Sharpe's Regiment as the best adaptation, given that it takes place in England and has minimal battle scenes. That aside, they did a great job casting such vile figures as Lord Fenner, Lt. Col. Girdwood, and Sgt. Lynch. And bringing Julian Fellowes back to play the Prince of Wales was an inspired choice.

I'd also feel remiss to not include Sharpe's Company and Sharpe's Waterloo. For all that the episodes' budgets couldn't possibly recreate the scale and scope of such battles as Badajoz and Waterloo, they damn well tried their best, and these episodes contain my favourite battle scenes in the Sharpe series. One of my favourite small moments from either episode is when Cooper's bracing himself to join in the charge, and he mutters "It's time to go mad!"

But aside from the battlefields, Company and Waterloo also kept a lot of dialogue from the books themselves, or at least being faithful to the intention. And they also had some truly moving moments, like when Col. Windham is standing over the bodies at Badajoz and bursts into tears at the sight of his wife's picture. It was almost Shakespearean how he spoke of her beauty in the midst of a horrific battle's aftermath. And meanwhile, need I even mention the genius of casting Pete Postlethwaite as Sgt. Hakeswill?

From the episodes I've seen, Sharpe's Gold sticks the most with me because Lt. Ayres, who's acts as one of the antagonistic roles for the episode, really doesn't seem that antagonistic to me.

Yes I know he hanged one of Sharpe's men for what can be considered a minor crime, but he follows strict orders from the provost marshal to punish crimes as, in this case (Stealing a chicken), with death, since the provost marshal intends to see that Wellington's army is free from "Corruption" by the time they invade France; in other words, he's just another soldier following orders set by superior officers, since by the time Wellington orders the provost marshal to hold all current and future desertors in detention we dont really see Ayres doing something that goes againts said orders, as seen when he and his provost take the desertors from El Casco back to the camp in one piece (Or at least till they go back to find Elli and Bess Nugent)

On top of that, he doesn't really show any despicable actions during the episode done out of malice: When he's assigned to go out with Sharpe and his men to conduct the desertors trade, he doesn't object to it and instead seeks Sharpe to state he means to be on good terms with him since he was just doing his job, and during the trip when he sees Sharpe and Elli making out he doesn't even mention it till waay later in the episode while they're looking for Elli and Bess, questioning if Sharpe is really only looking for them cause of Ellie. You can also mention the fact he decided to help Sharpe look for Ellie and Bess instead of going back to camp (Though this might've been for self interest reasons, Im not sure), he proves useful at deciphering what the book dropped by the french calvary captain said thanks to his studies. Lastly, when they were at El Casco's sacrificial place, he was the first to go in to rescue Ellie after the distraction caused by rifles and the french captain, eating a knife that would've most likely killed Sharpe if he was the one going first since Sharpe isn't exacly known for being good at dodging attacks in the previous episodes, though you could also say this was just Ayres being inexperienced compared to Sharpe, as shown earlier in the episode when Ayres alerted the French Calvary that they were spotted by acting erratically.

I feel the only real reason why he's considered as someone "bad" in the episode is just because Sharpe doesn't like him cause he killed one of his men and Sharpe not only was able to do nothing about it but also had to apologize to him and the provost marshal as ordered by Wellington, and as such held a grudge againts him for the whole episode; you could also consider some scenes as him making fun of Ellie's american gun, acting a bit weird during the shooting competition between Ellie and Sharpe, scaring Ellie by telling her more about the sacrificial rituals (Though I feel like this was just him trying to show off his studies) and that scene where he provoques Sharpe by mentioning he was only looking for the women for Ellie since he was making out with her.

Overall I feel like Lt. Ayres was just a character that was labled as "bad" due to having friction with Sharpe, who's our main character and who the story is based off about. Maybe someone who read the books could confirm if in the books it is the same way or something is different that depicts him as more of an actual bad guy?

Hear me out!

First off, I appreciate what they tried to do with Private Skillicorn. He had good chemistry with the others, and Hagman’s song about him was fun to listen to. But all the same, he only appeared in less than half of one episode.

Meanwhile, Sharpe’s Gold was the last time we saw Cooper anyway (not sure why that was, but I digress). Just like poor Isaiah Tongue, Cooper disappears without so much as a farewell in the series, which is rather sad given the tragic send-off that Perkins got in the very next episode. And yes, I know he’s injured at one point, but he seems to have made a full recovery by the time the episode is over.

So why not have him be the victim of Ayres’ rigid law enforcement? He was long established to be a career criminal (despite his repeated denials). And his being hanged would have really hit audiences hard after he’d been around for several episodes.

To be clear, I’m not saying that being hanged for looting was a great departure for Cooper. I’m saying that if Sharpe’s Gold was going to be his final episode regardless, why not at least acknowledge it?