Sean Bean returns to ITV as Sharpe after a two year gap next month in Sharpe’s Peril, an epic adventure shot entirely on location in India.
The drama starts with Sharpe and Sergeant Major Patrick Harper (Daragh O’Malley) travelling across India to escort the beautiful yet headstrong Marie-Angelique Bonnet (Beatrice Rosen) to meet her fiancée.
Travelling through the lawless, bandit-plagued badlands, they come upon a camp consisting of the very dregs of the Crown’s troops in India – an ill disciplined, rag-tag unit led by boy soldier Beauclare (Luke Ward Wilkinson), who are accompanying an Indian Maharani’s cavalcade whilst supervising the transfer of a suspected murderer to a court martial.
After the camp is attacked and Beauclare seriously injured Sharpe realises that he is the only person now capable of getting this wagon train to the safety of the next army garrison.
Bean says he was keen to show a deeper side to heroic soldier Richard Sharpe in this latest Sharpe escapade; a man weary of battle but resolved to do his duty.
“Sharpe is a man who has gone through 25 years of a military career. He has seen a lot; some good and some horrific things,” says Sean.
“My intention was that he was portrayed with meaning and thoughtfulness, and a sense of melancholy about the character. A man who wasn’t as rash, bold or ambitious as he was before, rather, that he is a man who has found himself in these dangerous situations. I hope that it will be received as such.”
Sunday, 2 November 2008, 9:00PM – 10:30PM