Sharpe's Challenge
Encyclopedia
Sharpe's Challenge is a British
television drama, part of a series
that follows the career of Richard Sharpe
(based on the novels of Bernard Cornwell
). Here, the former British soldier undertakes his last mission for his former commander, the Duke of Wellington
.
(Sean Bean
) leads a patrol to an East India Company
outpost. He arrives shortly before another supposedly friendly group of soldiers led by Major William Dodd (Toby Stephens
). In a treacherous surprise attack, Dodd's men kill the entire garrison, leaving no witnesses, and makes off with the payroll. However, Sharpe is only wounded.
Fourteen years later, Sharpe, now a farmer in France, is summoned by the Duke of Wellington (Hugh Fraser
) to his London home
to undertake one more mission for him, to find a man in India. The missing agent was trying to learn the identity of a turncoat officer advising a rebellious Maratha
rajah
. Sharpe refuses, unwilling to press his luck any further, until he learns that the agent is his old comrade in arms and best friend, Patrick Harper (Daragh O'Malley
).
Sharpe sets out for India. On his way to report to General Burroughs (Peter Symonds), he passes a group of soldiers escorting Celia Burroughs (Lucy Brown
), the general's attractive daughter. After a short conversation with her, he rides on ahead. He is soon attacked by marauders, but is rescued by Patrick Harper, who shows up just in time with his signature 7-barrel gun.
Celia Burroughs' escort is also attacked, by none other than Dodd; she is captured and taken to the fortress of Khande Rao (Karan Panthaky), the nominal leader of the revolt. However, he is not yet of age and is under the influence of a regent
, his late father's favourite concubine, Madhuvanthi (Padma Lakshmi
), and her lover, now General William Dodd, who plan to kill Rao before he declares his majority.
Sharpe reaches the encampment of General Burroughs, who is preparing to lay siege to the fortress of Ferraghur. The General is ill, so command has passed to an old, bitter foe of Sharpe's, the cowardly General Sir Henry Simmerson (Michael Cochrane
). Simmerson refuses to act without orders and reinforcements from Agra
. However, when Sharpe requests permission to infiltrate the enemy fortress, Simmerson is only too happy to allow him to risk his life.
Sharpe and Harper, posing as deserters, are welcomed by the rebels. Sharpe makes the acquaintance of former French Colonel Gudin (Aurélien Recoing), a fellow veteran of the Battle of Waterloo
two years earlier. Gudin has been hired to train the men.
Meanwhile, General Burroughs recovers his health, dismisses Simmerson, and commences the siege. Sharpe discovers that Dodd has laid a trap for the British: they will attempt their breach of the wall just where he has mined it with barrels of gunpowder.
In a skirmish, some British soldiers are captured, among them Sergeant Shadrach Bickerstaff (Peter-Hugo Daly
), who had clashed with Sharpe earlier. To avoid torture and execution, Bickerstaff betrays Sharpe. Sharpe and Harper are beaten and imprisoned, but Gudin, disgusted by the barbaric execution of prisoners, helps Sharpe and Harper escape, just as the British launch their assault.
Gudin next attempts to free Celia, but is murdered by Bickerstaff. Sharpe and Harper successfully set off the gunpowder prematurely, resulting in a huge explosion which kills many defenders. Harper encounters and shoots Bickerstaff, while Sharpe goes off in search of Dodd.
When it is clear the fortress has fallen, Dodd prepares to flee. Madhuvanthi attacks him with a knife when she learns that he is going to abandon her; he murders her. Sharpe finds and kills Dodd.
Khande Rao is allowed to keep his throne after he signs a peace treaty, much to Sharpe's disgust. Celia is reunited with her father. Their mission accomplished, Sharpe and Harper ride off.
, Sharpe's Triumph
, and Sharpe's Fortress
, set in India between 1799 and 1803.
. Flogging was not a punishment meted out in the armies of the East India Company
, only King's soldiers were flogged.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television drama, part of a series
Sharpe (TV series)
Sharpe is a British series of television dramas starring Sean Bean about Richard Sharpe, a fictional British soldier in the Napoleonic Wars. Sharpe is the hero of a number of novels by Bernard Cornwell; most, though not all, of the episodes are based on the books...
that follows the career of Richard Sharpe
Richard Sharpe (fictional character)
Sharpe is a series of historical fiction stories by Bernard Cornwell centred on the character of Richard Sharpe. The stories formed the basis for an ITV television series wherein the eponymous character was played by Sean Bean....
(based on the novels of Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell OBE is an English author of historical novels. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe which were adapted into a series of Sharpe television films.-Biography:...
). Here, the former British soldier undertakes his last mission for his former commander, the Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
.
Plot
In 1803 India, Sergeant SharpeRichard Sharpe (fictional character)
Sharpe is a series of historical fiction stories by Bernard Cornwell centred on the character of Richard Sharpe. The stories formed the basis for an ITV television series wherein the eponymous character was played by Sean Bean....
(Sean Bean
Sean Bean
Shaun Mark "Sean" Bean is an English film and stage actor. Bean is best known for playing Boromir in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and, previously, British Colonel Richard Sharpe in the ITV television series Sharpe...
) leads a patrol to an East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
outpost. He arrives shortly before another supposedly friendly group of soldiers led by Major William Dodd (Toby Stephens
Toby Stephens
Toby Stephens is an English stage, television and film actor who has appeared in films in both Hollywood and Bollywood. He is best known for playing megavillain Gustav Graves in the James Bond film Die Another Day , Edward Fairfax Rochester in the BBC television adaptation of Jane Eyre and Philip...
). In a treacherous surprise attack, Dodd's men kill the entire garrison, leaving no witnesses, and makes off with the payroll. However, Sharpe is only wounded.
Fourteen years later, Sharpe, now a farmer in France, is summoned by the Duke of Wellington (Hugh Fraser
Hugh Fraser (actor)
Hugh Fraser is an English actor and theatre director.-Early life:Born in London but raised in the East Midlands, Fraser studied acting at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art...
) to his London home
Apsley House
Apsley House, also known as Number One, London, is the former London residence of the Dukes of Wellington. It stands alone at Hyde Park Corner, on the south-east corner of Hyde Park, facing south towards the busy traffic interchange and Wellington Arch...
to undertake one more mission for him, to find a man in India. The missing agent was trying to learn the identity of a turncoat officer advising a rebellious Maratha
Maratha
The Maratha are an Indian caste, predominantly in the state of Maharashtra. The term Marāthā has three related usages: within the Marathi speaking region it describes the dominant Maratha caste; outside Maharashtra it can refer to the entire regional population of Marathi-speaking people;...
rajah
Raja
Raja is an Indian term for a monarch, or princely ruler of the Kshatriya varna...
. Sharpe refuses, unwilling to press his luck any further, until he learns that the agent is his old comrade in arms and best friend, Patrick Harper (Daragh O'Malley
Daragh O'Malley
Daragh O'Malley is an Irish film, theatre and television actor, best known for his portrayal of the much loved and ever faithful but rather fearsome Patrick Harper in the legendary Sharpe TV series along side Sean Bean...
).
Sharpe sets out for India. On his way to report to General Burroughs (Peter Symonds), he passes a group of soldiers escorting Celia Burroughs (Lucy Brown
Lucy Brown
Lucy Brown is an English actress best known for dual roles in the TV series Primeval.-Early life:Lucy Brown was born in Crawley, Sussex, but grew up in Cambridgeshire. She is the daughter of Christopher Brown and Helen Burleigh and has a younger brother named Mark...
), the general's attractive daughter. After a short conversation with her, he rides on ahead. He is soon attacked by marauders, but is rescued by Patrick Harper, who shows up just in time with his signature 7-barrel gun.
Celia Burroughs' escort is also attacked, by none other than Dodd; she is captured and taken to the fortress of Khande Rao (Karan Panthaky), the nominal leader of the revolt. However, he is not yet of age and is under the influence of a regent
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...
, his late father's favourite concubine, Madhuvanthi (Padma Lakshmi
Padma Lakshmi
Padma Parvati Lakshmi also Padma, Lady Rushdie is an American cookbook author, actress, model and television host. She has been the host of the US reality television program Top Chef since season two in 2006, for which she received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for...
), and her lover, now General William Dodd, who plan to kill Rao before he declares his majority.
Sharpe reaches the encampment of General Burroughs, who is preparing to lay siege to the fortress of Ferraghur. The General is ill, so command has passed to an old, bitter foe of Sharpe's, the cowardly General Sir Henry Simmerson (Michael Cochrane
Michael Cochrane
Michael Cochrane is an English actor who specialises in playing upper class characters, sometimes with a suaveness that hides their villainy....
). Simmerson refuses to act without orders and reinforcements from Agra
Agra
Agra a.k.a. Akbarabad is a city on the banks of the river Yamuna in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, west of state capital, Lucknow and south from national capital New Delhi. With a population of 1,686,976 , it is one of the most populous cities in Uttar Pradesh and the 19th most...
. However, when Sharpe requests permission to infiltrate the enemy fortress, Simmerson is only too happy to allow him to risk his life.
Sharpe and Harper, posing as deserters, are welcomed by the rebels. Sharpe makes the acquaintance of former French Colonel Gudin (Aurélien Recoing), a fellow veteran of the Battle of Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...
two years earlier. Gudin has been hired to train the men.
Meanwhile, General Burroughs recovers his health, dismisses Simmerson, and commences the siege. Sharpe discovers that Dodd has laid a trap for the British: they will attempt their breach of the wall just where he has mined it with barrels of gunpowder.
In a skirmish, some British soldiers are captured, among them Sergeant Shadrach Bickerstaff (Peter-Hugo Daly
Peter-Hugo Daly
Peter-Hugo Daly is an actor and musician. In the late 1970s and early 1980s Daly was a member of new wave band the Cross along with fellow actor Phil Daniels. The band released a single, "Kill Another Night" on RCA Records in 1979...
), who had clashed with Sharpe earlier. To avoid torture and execution, Bickerstaff betrays Sharpe. Sharpe and Harper are beaten and imprisoned, but Gudin, disgusted by the barbaric execution of prisoners, helps Sharpe and Harper escape, just as the British launch their assault.
Gudin next attempts to free Celia, but is murdered by Bickerstaff. Sharpe and Harper successfully set off the gunpowder prematurely, resulting in a huge explosion which kills many defenders. Harper encounters and shoots Bickerstaff, while Sharpe goes off in search of Dodd.
When it is clear the fortress has fallen, Dodd prepares to flee. Madhuvanthi attacks him with a knife when she learns that he is going to abandon her; he murders her. Sharpe finds and kills Dodd.
Khande Rao is allowed to keep his throne after he signs a peace treaty, much to Sharpe's disgust. Celia is reunited with her father. Their mission accomplished, Sharpe and Harper ride off.
Connections to Cornwell novels
Though the screenplay is set some 15 years later, it can be seen as an amalgam of the trio of Cornwell novels Sharpe's TigerSharpe's Tiger (novel)
Sharpe's Tiger is Bernard Cornwell's return to the Richard Sharpe series of novels, set during his early years in India. This is Cornwell's device to find prequel material for his hero...
, Sharpe's Triumph
Sharpe's Triumph (novel)
Sharpe's Triumph is the 1998 historical novel by Bernard Cornwell. It is a fast paced continuation of the Richard Sharpe story in his early, pre-officer days in India, and follows the build up to, and the Battle of Assaye. Sharpe is an individual born into the very lowest level of English society...
, and Sharpe's Fortress
Sharpe's Fortress (novel)
Sharpe's Fortress is the third of the Richard Sharpe series, and last of the Sharpe India trilogy, by English author Bernard Cornwell...
, set in India between 1799 and 1803.
- In Sharpe's Tiger, Sharpe (then a private) infiltrates an Indian fortress, pretending to be a deserter along with Lieutenant Lawford, instead of Patrick Harper (whom he would not yet have met). He is ordered to do so on the initiative of Colonel WellesleyArthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of WellingtonField Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
, while in the screenplay, he is persuaded to go to India by the same man (though with a much higher rank).
- In Sharpe's Tiger, Sharpe and Lawford infiltrate the fortress of SeringapatamBattle of SeringapatamThe Siege of Seringapatam was the final confrontation of the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War between the British East India Company and the Kingdom of Mysore. The British achieved a decisive victory after breaching the walls of the fortress at Seringapatam and storming the citadel. Tippu Sultan, Mysore's...
shortly before it is laid to siege, with the intention of saving Colonel Hector McCandless, head of the East India Company's intelligence service.
- To test his loyalty, Sharpe is told to shoot McCandless with a musket at point-blank range, which he does, knowing that the powder he is using will not fire. In the screenplay, Sharpe is supposed to shoot Harper, with similar results, although here he knows the gunpowder is fake by the taste.
- Colonel Gudin appears in both screenplay and novel as a French officer training Indian soldiers. However, in the novel, he has been sanctioned by Napoleon Bonaparte's government to aid the SultanTipu SultanTipu Sultan , also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. He was the son of Hyder Ali, at that time an officer in the Mysorean army, and his second wife, Fatima or Fakhr-un-Nissa...
of Mysore in fighting off the British. In the novel, as in the film, he appears honourable, often opposing the Sultan's wishes to inflict capital punishments on prisoners.
- The role of Sergeant Shadrach Bickerstaff in the screenplay is taken from that of Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill in the novels. In Sharpe's Tiger, Private Sharpe is the target of Hakeswill's bullying. The scene early on in the screenplay where Sharpe provokes Bickerstaff to fight him mimicks a scene at the start of the book in which Hakeswill goads Sharpe into striking him, engineering a punishment of 2000 lashes for Sharpe, and leading up to the events of the rest of the book. Bickerstaff appears to be a character who dies before the events of Sharpe's Tiger, and whose widow is Sharpe's love interest. The plotline in the screenplay where Bickerstaff effectively deserts to the enemy and becomes Dodd's right hand man is reminiscent of Hakeswill's actions in Sharpe's Fortress.
- The use of jettis (Indian strongmen) is borrowed from the novels, where they carry out similar acts of violence on the command of the Sultan, such as the execution by pounding nails into prisoners' heads using only their bare hands, as depicted in the screenplay.
- The character of William Dodd is described in Sharpe's TriumphSharpe's Triumph (novel)Sharpe's Triumph is the 1998 historical novel by Bernard Cornwell. It is a fast paced continuation of the Richard Sharpe story in his early, pre-officer days in India, and follows the build up to, and the Battle of Assaye. Sharpe is an individual born into the very lowest level of English society...
and Sharpe's FortressSharpe's Fortress (novel)Sharpe's Fortress is the third of the Richard Sharpe series, and last of the Sharpe India trilogy, by English author Bernard Cornwell...
. Dodd's introduction to Sharpe and his death at Sharpe's hands in the screenplay are reminiscent of those in the two respective novels.
- In the Novels, Gudin does not die but is captured by the English after helping Sharpe.
Historical Errors
Simmerson is first shown having ordered the flogging of a sepoySepoy
A sepoy was formerly the designation given to an Indian soldier in the service of a European power. In the modern Indian Army, Pakistan Army and Bangladesh Army it remains in use for the rank of private soldier.-Etymology and Historical usage:...
. Flogging was not a punishment meted out in the armies of the East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
, only King's soldiers were flogged.