Sharpe's Rifles (TV programme)

Sharpe's Rifles is the first of the Sharpe television dramas, based on Bernard Cornwell's 1988 novel of the same name. Shown on ITV in 1993, the adaptation stars Sean Bean, Daragh O'Malley and Assumpta Serna. It began a long series of successful and critically acclaimed television adaptations of the novels.

The drama tells the story of Richard Sharpe, an ambitious and hardened soldier from Yorkshire. The story follows the exploits of Sharpe and his band of chosen men through Spain after they survive an ambush by French cavalry.

Filming took place in the Crimea, Portugal and England, during which Paul McGann who was the original actor cast for the role of Richard Sharpe, broke his leg and was quickly replaced with Sean Bean.

Plot summary
In 1809, Sergeant Richard Sharpe (Sean Bean) of the 95th Rifles saves Sir Arthur Wellesley, the commander of the British army fighting the French in Portugal, from three French cavalrymen. Wellesley rewards Sharpe with a field commission to lieutenant.

Wellesley has no money to pay his men, so he has arranged for a loan from the Rothschild family. James Rothschild has set out from Vienna with a badly needed bank draft, but has gone missing in the Spanish mountains. A company of the 95th, under Major Dunnett, is being sent to search for him, and Sharpe's first assignment is to command the Chosen Men, a handful of sharpshooters attached to the company. Sharpe, still uncomfortable in his new rank, does not make a good impression on his men, particularly their unofficial leader, Irishman Patrick Harper.

While Sharpe and his men are out scouting the terrain, the company is surprised and wiped out by enemy cavalry led by Colonel de L'Eclin and a man in dark civilian clothes, with only the young Rifleman Perkins and a gravely wounded Captain Murray, the company's executive officer, surviving. Sharpe's men and the survivors hide in a barn, where Murray dies after giving Sharpe his sword.

Harper tells Sharpe that he and the men have decided to return to the army, against orders. To assert his authority, Sharpe engages Harper in a brutal fistfight, but they are interrupted by a band of Spanish guerrillas led by Commandante Teresa Moreno and Major Blas Vivar. Sharpe declares Harper a mutineer and joins forces with the Spanish guerrillas for mutual protection, since they are headed in the same general direction. Sharpe begins to bond with his men and also with Teresa. The guerrillas are protecting a chest; when Harper kills two French cavalrymen to save it, Sharpe drops the mutiny charge. Along the way, they encounter the Parkers, a Methodist missionary couple and their niece, whom they take under their protection.

Vivar claims the chest contains important government documents, but Sharpe opens it and finds the Gonfalon of Santiago or "Banner of Blood". Legend has it that Santiago (Saint James) himself will appear to defend Spain when the flag is raised over the chapel in the town of Torrecastro. Major Hogan, Wellesley's chief of military intelligence, shows up and orders Sharpe to assist Vivar with his mission, saying their belief in a flag is no different from his fighting in the army, for Britain. On the eve of the attack, Sharpe promotes Harper to sergeant.

Sharpe, Teresa, Vivar and their men attack and defeat the French garrison. Vivar crosses swords with the man in black, who turns out to be his own brother, and kills him. He then raises the flag. At the end of the battle, Colonel de L'Eclin is about to shoot an unarmed Sharpe, but is shot and killed by Perkins. Sharpe rewards him by making him a Chosen Man, though Hogan advises Perkins to decline the favour.

Sharpe reports back to Wellesley. When the general expresses his disappointment that Sharpe did not find Rothschild, Sharpe reveals that "Mrs. Parker" is the banker in disguise, to Wellesley's delight. Afterwards, Sharpe and Teresa make love, before she leaves to continue fighting the French.

Cast

 * Sean Bean as Sergeant/Lieutenant Richard Sharpe
 * Daragh O'Malley as Rifleman/Sergeant Patrick Harper
 * Assumpta Serna as Comandante Teresa Moreno
 * Brian Cox as Major Michael Hogan
 * David Troughton as Sir Arthur Wellesley
 * Simón Andreu as Major Blas Vivar
 * Anthony Hyde as Count of Matamoros (credited as the Man in Black)
 * Malcolm Jamieson as Colonel de L'Eclin
 * Michael Mears as Rifleman Francis Cooper
 * John Tams as Rifleman Daniel Hagman
 * Jason Salkey as Rifleman Harris
 * Lyndon Davies as Rifleman Ben Perkins
 * Paul Trussell as Rifleman Isaiah Tongue
 * Julian Fellowes as Major Dunnett
 * Richard Ireson as Sgt. Williams
 * Jack McKenzie as Mr. Parker
 * Tim Bentinck as Captain Murray
 * Kerry Shale as James Rothschild
 * Martin Jacobs as Major William Lawford
 * Karen Tungay as Louisa Parker