AG: I’d say our music is a blend of Rock, Folk and more recently Soul/Funk (a sign of things too come), but the foundation of all of our music is definitely in the story telling. With every song we think about our audience. What story do we want to tell them, lyrically and musically. How do we want to present it and serve it up without spoon feeding them. The best stories don’t have to be explained. Which I guess is what makes them universal.
UL: What’s your process for writing and creating music?
AG: Our process of writing music is forever changing. I think at its heart is collaboration. I’ve been writing lyrics since I was 15 and each story or song is always brought to life by the collaboration process. They are like little stories or scripts I carry around with me. They can be inspired by an instrument, a riff, a producer or even a piece of artwork. I’ve watched a lot of films of late and gone in the studio the next day with a clear idea for a song. That’s what I love about writing music – there’s no right or wrong way to do it.
The Winter King, which premiered last Sunday on MGM+ to overwhelmingly positive reviews, has found a home in Germany.
German Telekom’s Magenta TV will show the episodes in early 2024. While no exact release date has been given so far, speculation points to January 2024.
„The Winter King“ basiert auf der „Warlord Chronicles“-Serie von Bernard Cornwell (The Last Kingdom), das als Mischung aus historischer Fiktion und Legende beschrieben wird. „The Winter King“ spielt im fünften Jahrhundert, lange Zeit bevor Großbritannien vereinigt wurde, einem brutalen Land, das aus verschiedenen Fraktionen und Stämmen bestand. Im Zentrum geht es um Arthur Pendragon, der sich vom Außenseiter zum legendären Krieger und Anführer entwickelt.
The Winter King premiered on 20 August 2023 on MGM+ (USA), on 21 August 2023 on Stan (Australia) and will be released on 10 September on Crave (Canada) as well as “later this year” (rumours pointing towards Decemer) on ITVX (UK).
ETA (21 November 2023):
TV Wunschliste reported today that the episodes will be available on MagentaTV in Germany on 01 January 2024. What a way to start the new year!
In Australia streaming service Stan will show the episodes on Mondays, the day after the USA while Canadians fans can enjoy the revisionist take on the Arthurian legend on Crave starting on 10 September 2023.
Andrew’s British fans will have to wait a little longer. So far ITVX has not announced a release date but rumour has it placed in December 2023.
The hit Audible Original series from executive producers of The Walking Dead and the writer of Pacific Rim returns for its highly anticipated second season.
Six months have passed since the Vampire Queen fell silent, and the world balances on a knife’s edge. Rejoin the courageous Dunraven sisters, Darcy and Hope, as they navigate the vampire apocalypse in a sunless, endless winter that grows deadlier with each passing day. Brace yourself for a frigid realm of sacred daggers, mighty swords, secret seaside caves, unthinkable human blood farms, and a superpowered vampire villain on the hunt. Will Darcy emerge from hiding to save her sister? Will Hope venture from the castle refuge and find Darcy first? When all paths converge, everyone in Hope and Darcy’s orbit is in mortal danger, including the sisters themselves.
Dare to listen in the dark again as this thrilling saga expands to new lands, new loves, new weapons, and new warriors. Presented in Dolby Atmos spatial audio, the second season of Impact Winter is designed to haunt you like never before. Hear your heart stop.
As epic Arthurian drama The Winter King nears completion, executive producers Julie Gardner and Lachlan MacKinnon tell DQ about adapting Bernard Cornwell‘s Warlord Chronicles for television, playing with magic and being inspired by The West Wing.
Commissioned by ITVX in the UK and MGM+ in the US, The Winter King is set in the fifth century, long before Britain was united, in a brutal land of warring factions and tribes, where lives were often fleeting. The series follows Arthur Pendragon as he evolves from outcast to legendary warrior and leader.
“The Saxons arrive on our shores and they’re the true enemy of the kingdom, so [Arthur] was trying to find a new way to rule and to unite the various tribes together to stand up against them. But, of course, it’s never that simple, and love and Guinevere get in the way. There are so many different layers to it.”
With Australian streamer Stan announcing that the series will launch down under on August 21, the same day as it arrives in the US, work is rapidly progressing to deliver the finishing touches to the show, which is distributed internationally by Sony Pictures Television.
Filming took place last summer in places such as St Audries Bay in Somerset, Rhossili Bay on the Gower Peninsula, Cheddar Gorge and Morlais Quarry, while Caer Cadarn was a set build near Cribbs Causeway. Avalon, Merlin and Nimue’s home, takes its exterior from Blaise Castle, while its interior was constructed at a studio in Bristol.
“When you’re doing deep period, it’s like doing an alien planet on Doctor Who. You’ve got to build the rules and the logic,” [Julie Gardner] says. “We felt a lot of deep period could either be muddy, brown, dark and rainy, and a tough visual viewing experience, or incredibly beautiful, where you’ve got gorgeous people in chiffon and furs. What we’ve tried to do in this piece is bring the two together and give it real beauty, but also make it quite grounded so there are real emotions and real issues playing through the piece.”
[…] it’s a very grim world to live in. Avalon is full of colour and beauty. But Otto [Bathurst, lead director] wants this to be the definitive version of Arthurian legend and to really get under the skin of the real Arthur. It’s not the slightly colourful Arthur who’s very pumped up with shiny armour. He’s very much a man of his time and of his people as well. It’s a different side from the Arthur we’ve seen before.”
With Merlin among the roster of characters, The Winter King features magical elements.
“Every time there’s been a moment involving magic, we’ve always made sure it was grounded within the narrative and not making it feel like something that takes away from the power of Merlin, for example,” MacKinnon notes. “If it’s a vision or something that Merlin’s having, it will be within the narrative. It won’t be some sort of deus ex machina moment that takes away from the audience’s enjoyment of it.”
Diversity in front and behind the camera was carefully considered too. “We’re not making, in 2023, the white King Arthur story,” Gardner says. “It’s key to us that we cast diversity in the main roles, and we had a script-editing team who really dug deep into the research of the period. This was quite a diverse moment for England at the time, so we’ve really embraced that.”
Executive Producer Lachlan MacKinnon originally thought the series could be drawn out across three seasons – one per book – as was the approach when adapting Philip Pullman’s novel trilogy His Dark Materials.
But once writers Kate Brooke (A Discovery Of Witches, Medici) and Ed Whitmore (Manhunt) began working, “we started to realise there’s way more than three seasons here,” MacKinnon says. “The books are just so rich in character and story, and also in a political context. […] We wanted it to feel much more like a political show, and [The West Wing] led a lot on our thinking of the tone.”
Arthur Pendragon (Iain De Caestecker) and his father High King Uther (Eddie Marsan)
The Winter King includes material from only two-thirds of the first book in The Warlord Chronicles but has made two key changes to the source material. The first is introducing an origin story for Arthur himself, who doesn’t appear until later in the novel of the same name. The second is structural: Cornwell’s novels have Derfel retelling the story as an old man, but that device has been removed for the screen.
The series, however, adopts the multi-character perspectives used in Cornwell’s novels, following Derfel, who as a child is saved by Arthur from a death pit, and Merlin’s apprentice Nimue, alongside Arthur.
“They’re much younger characters, so we see the whole world through their eyes,” MacKinnon says. “And of course, we still have the familiar characters like Merlin and Guinevere. But what Bernard [Cornwell]did so well in the novels is give the female characters agency, so Guinevere is Arthur’s consigliere, so she’s always part of his political thinking and planning.”
Early development is now starting on a potential second season, with filming likely to start this summer if it is greenlit or risk waiting another year. But should the show run to only its initial 10 episodes, despite the huge amount of Cornwell’s material left on the table, the producers are confident they have created wholly satisfactory story arcs for the main characters.
Iain De Caestecker as Arthur Pendragon and Nathaniel Martello-White as Merlin
ITVX has finally revealed a first look at The Winter King, the new series based on Bernard Cornwell‘s Warlord Chronicles, “a bold and revisionist take on well-loved Arthurian legends” which is set to be released later this year on the new British streaming service.
Deadline further announced that MGM+ has boarded the 10-part adaptation and will launch the series on Sunday, 20 August 2023 in the USA. MGM+ Head Michael Wright described The Winter King as a “cinematic and imaginative reinterpretation of the Arthurian legend.”
Jordan Alexandra as Guinevere, Emily John as Ceinwyn, Iain De Caestecker as Arthur Pendragon
The Winter King is set in the fifth century, long before Britain was united, in a brutal land of warring factions and tribes, where lives were often fleeting. The series follows Arthur Pendragon as he evolves from outcast to legendary warrior and leader.
More than a decade after a comet strike has inflicted an “impact winter” and blacked out the sun, vampires have emerged in the darkness to take over what remains of the world. Humans have fled underground, clinging to an existence that feels increasingly doomed. One vampire hunter, a young woman named Darcy, is lured from her bunker beneath an ancient castle by a powerful vampire overlord and thrust into a fight for her people’s future.
Less than two months before the premiere of the penultimate Outlander season, fans are in for a special treat as two stars of the time-travelling hit series are teaming up for a special event.
Andrew Gower, who famously played Bonnie Prince Charlie, talked to Express.co.uk about his upcoming London gig with his band Gustaffson.
The whole evening, we’re excited about, it’s not just a gig, it’s also a variety of things we really believe in as artists.
Andrew Gower will be joined on stage by Caitlin O’Ryan, who plays Lizzie Wemyss on Outlander.
[Caitlin] is an amazing spoken word artist and from a neighbouring northern town from Oldham, I’m from Liverpool. She’s opening the event and she’ll be performing some spoken word. […] It’s absolutely incredible. […] Similar to [Laoghaire MacKenzie actress] Nell Hudson, they both went to the same drama school as me. So we all went to The Oxford School of Drama.
Gustaffson will further be supported on stafe by singer/songwriter Martha Goddard and Gaia Ahuja from Girls Don’t Sync.
At the event funds will be raised for the Al-Khidmat Foundation in Pakistan, which helps orphans and widows as well as giving students access to education.
I went back to do the season before last as the Bonnie Prince – and it’s really nice that some of the people I met at the premiere last year, I was never on set with them but we all just seemed to be a nice Outlander community, which is fantastic.
Even the likes of [composer] Bear McCreary from Outlander is responding to our work, so it’s been a really, really nice surprise for us.
Like all the Outlander family, as we say, every time we bring out a single, he reaches out and congratulates us and asks if we need any advice.
If Bear McCreary picks up the phone and asks me to do anything, I’ll be there. We’re trying to get him over to our London gig at some point.
Andrew Gower added the following about what’s in store for Gustaffson in the future:
We’ve got some plans to be up north in Liverpool and Manchester but this is our first London gig. I’m so excited. It feels about time.
We’re ready as a band to show them what we’ve got.
We’re ready to make an album but it’s in the works, but as an unsigned band, we’ve got the people ready to collaborate with, we’re just keeping our fingers crossed that somebody out there gives us the means to make it.
As the Netflix hit series The Last Kingdom has come to a final conclusion with the release of the film Seven Kings Must Die, it is time for the cast to pass on the torch to the next adaptation. The Winter King is a 10-part returning series based on the best-selling Warlord Chronicles, a re-telling of the Arthurian legend, by The Last Kingdom author Bernard Cornwell.
In a recent interview with Radio Times Alexander Dreymon, who played The Last Kingdom‘s lead character Uhtred of Bebbanburg, gave some advice to the actors following in his footsteps:
I would say, if there’s any chance for him to meet with and hang out with Bernard Cornwell, I would jump on that chance. First of all, he’s such a wonderful man and great fun to hang out with, but he’s [also] such a wealth of resources. And to build your character, it is such a luxury to have him in your corner.
Twitter user @todbristol shared this first look at Andrew Gower who plays Sansum the Priest, a character who Andrew described as “the Bill Gates of Christianity. He starts out as a nobody with just a seedling of an idea and, I think to a lot of people’s surprise, he becomes a somebody.” (Book of Man Interview)
@AndrewGowerF4ns here is a still from a video of Andrew gower as priest sansun in The winter king.he is in white with the fir neck garment.. thought you might like it.. pic.twitter.com/u1S3kT6IjD
Andrew Gower Online 