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Churchill's People

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Churchill's People
GenreHistorical Drama
Country of originUnited Kingdom
No. of episodes26
Production
ProducerGerald Savory
Running time50 min
Original release
NetworkBBC1
Release30 December 1974 (1974-12-30) –
23 June 1975 (1975-06-23)

Churchill's People is a series of 26 historical dramas produced by the BBC, based on Winston Churchill's A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. They were first broadcast on BBC1 in 1974 and 1975. It was produced to mark the centenary of Churchill's birth.

The series was considered misconceived for multiple reasons, such as the studio-bound production which offered little in the way of realism and the lack of available funding. Each episode dealt with a particular period in British history, and the quality was consequently variable. Much of the acting was criticised, despite the involvement of Richard Johnson, Robert Hardy, Alan Howard, Colin Blakely, Anna Massey, Gemma Jones, and Edward Fox, amongst others. The series was reviewed at some length in the programme TV Hell, which revealed that viewing figures had plummeted from 2 million at the series' launch to less than half a million by the fifth episode. The programme was swiftly buried in a later time-slot for the remainder of its run.

Nancy Banks-Smith in The Guardian described it as having "little to offer us but blood, horsehair and history. Though a hell of a lot of each."[1]

Episodes

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# Title Original air date
1 Pritan 30 Dec 1974
2 The Lost Island 6 Jan 1975
3 The Coming of the Cross 13 Jan 1975
4 King Alfred 20 Jan 1975
5 The Saxon Dusk 27 Jan 1975
6 The Conquerors 3 Feb 1975
7 A Sprig of Broom 10 Feb 1975
8 Silver Giant, Wooden Dwarf 17 Feb 1975
9 On the Anvil 24 Feb 1975
10 The Wallace 3 Mar 1975
11 Shouts and Murmurs 10 Mar 1975
12 A Wilderness of Roses 17 Mar 1975
13 The Whip of Heaven 24 Mar 1975
14 A Rich and Beautiful Empire 31 Mar 1975
15 America! America! 7 Apr 1975
16 March On, Boys! 14 Apr 1975
17 The Agreement of the People 21 Apr 1975
18 A Bill of Mortality 28 Apr 1975
19 The Derry Boys 5 May 1975
20 The Fine Art of Bubble-Blowing 12 May 1975
21 O Canada 19 May 1975
22 Liberty Tree 26 May 1975
23 Mother India 2 Jun 1975
24 Mutiny 9 Jun 1975
25 True Patriots All 16 Jun 1975
26 Death of Liberty 23 Jun 1975

References

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  1. ^ Banks-Smith, Nancy (7 January 1975). "Churchill's People". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 February 2010.
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