Sharp Practices!

Sean Bean returned to the role of Richard Sharpe, after a nine year absence from the small screen, this weekend on ITV1 in the two-part story "Sharpe's Challenge". Based on three of Bernard Cornwell's novels, this adventure is set in Jaipur one year on from Napoleon's demise at the Battle of Waterloo. It sees Sean reunited with director Tom Clegg and sparring partner Daragh O'Malley, as Sergeant Patrick Harper, whom he sets out to find on a mission to India, but on the pretext of looking for General Burroughs' daughter Celia who has been kidnapped and is held hostage against attack at Khande Rao's fort.

Sharpe's opposition on this occasion is a rogue East India Company officer, Colonel William Dodd, played by Toby Stephens, able to put his fencing skills to good use again after his appearance as the villain Gustav Graves in the James Bond movie "Die Another Day"! The real power behind young maharajah Khande Rao, Dodd is aided and abetted against the English by the late maharajah's favourite consort, Madhuvanthi, played by Salman Rushdie's wife Padma Lakshmi. She tries to seduce Sharpe but, naturally, he's having none of it! And, not surprisingly, Sharpe has unfinished business with the Colonel! Dodd lays a trap for the troops of the East India Company who are coerced by General Sir Henry Simmerson into attacking the fort, regardless of the consequences to the indisposed General's daughter, and thus the stage is set for the final battle...

Watching the "Behind the Scenes" documentary after the concluding episode, on ITV3, it's a wonder the programme ever got made! The number of extras, and costumes required for them, hand-built rifles and cannons, learning how to become a soldier in ten days flat, not to mention Sean and Toby going down with Delhi belly both on the same day! But the finished product was a treat with a terrific cliffhanger at the end of episode one which wasn't immediately spoiled in the next time trailer! Having infiltrated the enemy, and unrecognised by Dodd, Sharpe has to prove his new found loyalty to the young maharajah when he is ordered by the Colonel to shoot his best friend...

If you missed it, and want to find out whether or not Harper survives, after all Sharpe is a good shot, the best, then the DVD is out at the beginning of May! It's worth seeing just for Peter-Hugo Daly's performance as Sergeant Shadrach Bickerstaff, a constant thorn in Sharpe's side, who steals every scene he is in with consummate ease!