British TV Historical Series

British TV Historical series

Nowadays we have got many resources to learn a little bit of English everyday and if we do so while we enjoy our favourite or new TV series so much the better :)

It is a good chance to improve your English and enjoy many famous and good TV series if you use the Original Version, you can start with Netflix, HBO, Movistar, Imagenio or just YouTube downloaded videos

-Britannia (2017-): a British historical period drama coproduced by Sky and Amazon Prime Video, it is aired on Sky Atlantic in the UK and Amazon in the US. Set in AD 43 the series follow the conquest of Britain in which Celtin rivals Kerra and Antedia must work together to fight off the Roman invasion led by the general and Roman politician Aulus Platius.

-The Vikings (2013- ): A good account of the Vikings deeds, plunders and daily life brought to life in the history of the legendary king of Danes and Norsemen, Rathnar Lothbrok and his wife Ladgerda.

-The Last kingdom (2015- ): Based on the book by Bernard Cornwell´s “The Saxon Stories” and produced by Netflix and BBC America. It is set in 872 in Northumbria, the protagonist Uhtred a descendant of the Saxon nobility is caged and carried to Scandinavia by Danes after the murder of king Aethelred and the fall of the legendary kingdoms the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy and the struggle of the surviving kingdom of Wessex.

-The Vikings: Athelstan´s Journal (2015-): This a Canadian produced serie based on the life of the young Anglo-Saxon Athelstan, once a monk in Lindisfarne but brought to live in Viking society as a slave when he was kidnapped by Ragnar Lothbrok and his adventures when he rejoins the Anglo-Saxons under king Egcbert.

-Robin Hood (2006-2009): the last of the TV series about this legendary folk myth produced by Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC One and BBC American cable Tv, the hero Robin returns to England after five years fighting in the Crusades and leads a band of outlaws to halt the cruelties and injustices of the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham.

-The White Queen (2013-14): a BBC1 tv drama in ten parts based on Phillippa Gregory´s historical novels series “The Cousins Wars: The White Queen, The Red Queen and The Kingmaker´s daughter”, presenting three women such as Elizabeth Woodville later wife of Edward IV, Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor and Anne Neville, wife of Richard III and the supporter of York, as  involved in the long conflict of The War of the Roses from 1464.

-The White Princess (2016-17): it is a British-American historical fiction television series of Starz as a sequel of the White Queen and it focuses in the eldest daughter of Elizabeth Woodville and her late husband King Edward IV, Elizabeth of York would end the longest civil war in British history, the War of the Roses after her marriage to king Henry VII Tudor.

-The Hollow Crowns (2012- ): a British tv series adaptations of the historical plays by William Shakespeare starred by famous actors  such as Jeremy Irons, Benedict Cumberbatch and Judi Dench. In the first cycle it were adapted Richard III, Henry IV, Henry V, and the second cycle Henry VI and Richard III.

-The Tudors (2007-10): a TV serie by BBC2 and American Premium cable TV channel Showtime as an historical fiction TV serie set in 1500s England, based specifically on the reign of king Henry VIII of England. Starred mainly by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Henry Cavill and Natalie Dormer.

-Will (2017- ) an American serie broadcast in TNT dealing with the lost years of the young playwright William Shakespeare after his arrival to London in 1589 mixed with rock songs.

-Wolf Hall (2015): this TV serial was broadcast on BBC2 and it is an adaptation of two of Hilary Mantel´s novels “Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies” a fictionalized biographies of Thomas Cromwell and Saint Thomas More in the court of Henry VIII till the death of the famous saint.

-Poldark (2015- ): a British-American drama television drama based on the first two Poldark novels by Winston Graham and an earlier television series broadcast by BBC One between 1975 and 1977. It deals with the story of Ross Poldark who returns from the American War of Independence to his Cornish mineral mines, he finds his state ruined, his father dead and his girlfriend Elizabeth engaged to his cousin but he still helps a young woman from a beating and takes her as his kitchen maid as well as the people of his village to gain control of the mines against the greedy and arrogant George Warleggan.

-Banished (2015-): a BBC 2 drama television serial inspired by the lives of British in Australia during the eighteenth century when it was a penal colony. Conflicts and conviviality are mingled in New South Wales in the year 1788 alongside the British convicts and their Royal Navy Marine guards.

-Jamaica Inn (2014-): produced by BBC One and now broadcast in HBO Spain. Based on Daphne du Maurier novel´s. Set in Cornwall in 1821 a young woman, Mary Yellan moves in with her aunt and uncle to their Inn and discovers the dark trade and personality of her uncle.

-Doctor Thorne (2016- ): a three-part television drama by ITV channel adaptation of the novel by Anthony Trollope. Mary Thorne a penniless orphan grows up under the guardianship of her uncle doctor Thorne, she befriends the Gresham family though financial problems threaten their friendship.

-The Mill (2013- ): a Channel 4 British TV series about the struggle of workers during the Industrial Revolution, it is very well documented serie about the hard labour of cotton mill workers and the abuse they endure, very tragic stories contrast with the children´s tenderness.

-Dickensians (2015- ):  A serie by BBC One based on the characters and Victorian setting of Charles Dickens novels, it brings together some of the most iconic characters and their lives.

-Great Expectations (2012- ): the story of orphan Pip who becomes a gentleman when his life is transformed by a mysterious benefactor his late love quest for Estella.

-Desperate Romantics (2009- ): a BBC six-part drama based on the lives of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt and the journalist and narrator offers them a muse, the young shopkeeper Elizabeth Siddal.

-North and South (2004- ): A drama series broadcast by BBC One and Netflix based on Elizabeth Gaskell´s novel about the story of Margaret Hale the daughter of an Anglican clergyman when they move to an industrial mill town and she adapts to her hard surroundings.

-Jericho (2016-2017): an ITV serie based on the inhabitants of a city in Yorkshire Dalesun whose lives will be changed after the building of the viaduct of Ribblehead.

-Death comes to Pemberley (2013- ): A tv serie by BBC One adapted from P.D. James sequel to Jane Austen´s “Pride and Prejudice” now Elizabeth and Darcy are six years married and preparing for their annual party when festivities have to be stopped due to a murder.

-The Village (2013- ): it is a BBC Tv series set in a Derbyshire village from 1914 to 1920s, the main character is Bert Middleton as a boy and his life as a working-class adult.

-Upstairs Downstairs (2010- ): an award winning British tv series by BBC One based on the lives of servants and family of the diplomat Sir Hallam Holland and his wife Lady Agnes in their sumptuous home at 165 Eaton Place, London.

-Ripper Street (2012- ): it’s a BBC tv serie set in 1889, six months since the last Jack the Ripper killing, in the streets of Whitechapel detective inspector Edmund Reid tries to establish justice, order and law to East London.

-Victoria (2016- ): another biography of Queen Victoria detailing the early years at the throne and her engagement and marriage to Prince Albert.

-Indian Summers (2015-16): a Channel 4 serie set in 1932 in Simla a town in the foothills of the Himalaya, a little England where power brokers (poderosos, corredores de bolsa) spend their summers in the final years of British colonial rule in India and the birth of a new modern nation.

-The Crimson Field (2014- ): A BBC One serie previously named as “The Ark” set in a war hospital in northern France during the Great War (1914-1918) as Kitty Treveyan as protagonist and other nurses and doctors who volunteered into busy and grim war hospitals.

-Downton Abbey (2010-2015): an awarded famous British serie (15 Emmy prizes, 3 Golden Globes and Bafta prizes) dealing with the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and servants.

-The Passing Bells (2014- ): It is an historic epic historical drama by the BBC One, based on the lives two young ordinary soldiers during five years centered mainly in the First World War.

-Rebellion (2016-): It´s produced by the state Irish tv (RTE) dealing with the events of the Easter Rising in 1916 and three women take part in different sides and their families.

-Peaky Blinders ( 2013- ): a British action crime drama by BBC Two set in the 1920s Birmingham a gang family who sew razor blades in the peaks of their caps starring Cillian Murphy.

-Mr Selfridge (2013- ): a British period drama set from 1908 to 1928 about the Harry Gordon Selfridge, owner of the glamorous stores Selfridges´ in London.

-The Outcast (2015- ): based in a novel by Sadie Jones, it deals with the life of Lewis Aldridge and his struggle to adapt into the life of a post-war English village.

-My mother and other strangers (2016- ): Produced by BBC Northern Ireland and it follows the life of the Coyne family and their neighbours after the US Army Air Force sets up there a camp.

-Call the Midwife (2012- ): Produced by BBC One and it deals with the lives of nurses and midwives living in East London in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

-Our Zoo (2014- ): It´s a British drama tv serie about the Mottershead family in the 1930s who founded Chester Zoo in spite of huge opposition and personal sacrifice.

-The Crown (2016- ): the beginning of Queen Elizabeth´s reign with the social and political trends of the twentieth century.

-This is England ´86-´88-´90 (2006- ) it follows the life of twelve year old Shaun and the lives of young skinheads Woody, Michelle, Combo, Lol, Milky, Meggy, Pukey, etc. and different social and musical trends in England during these years.