The Prophecies of Merlin

I've always enjoyed stories based on the legend of King Arthur (John Boorman’s film Excalibur was particularly good) and I've recently been watching the complete series of Merlin, the BBC’s brilliant re-imagining of the early years of Arthur, on DVD.


It’s a clever scenario, and it owes much to the success of other fantasy epics like the Harry Potter series and The Lord of the Rings, but it’s only in the past week that its contemporary relevance has occurred to me. One of the central stories across the episodes in the growing relationship of Arthur and Guinevere (or Gwen as she’s call here) in the face of their different positions in society: he’s a prince and she’s a commoner (in this case a serving maid to the Lady Morgana). Sound familiar?

It's easy to update the character of Merlin as a contemporary spin doctor/PR man, carefully guarding the Prince’s image, but does Buckingham Palace have cellars deep enough to conceal a dragon?