Rupert Everett goes in search of Lord Byron for Channel 4

jetsetjason · **Posted:** Mon Nov 17, 2008 7:30 pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/no ... -channel-4

Rupert Everett is making a return to Channel 4 to front a two-part documentary about Lord Byron.

The actor will retrace the steps of the romantic poet during his debauched tours of the Mediterranean and Europe.

Called Rupert Everett - In Search of Byron, the two 60-minute films have been commissioned to mark the 200th anniversary of the year Byron embarked on his legendary travels. The two-parter is expected to be broadcast next year.

Everett will follow Byron's journeys through Portugal, Greece, Albania, Turkey, Switzerland and Italy, looking at his work and the flamboyant personal life of arguably the first modern celebrity.

Leena · **Posted:** Tue Nov 18, 2008 1:31 pm

Should be interesting...

violaine · **Posted:** Tue Nov 18, 2008 2:33 pm

yep yep I was talking about that!!! Remember he visited the exhibition on the British Orientalists in Istanbul:) So it was Channel 4 - not BBC. oh, well :roll:

Lambpower · **Posted:** Mon Nov 24, 2008 4:31 pm

Fenomenal!!! Those of you living in the UK please please think about those living abroad and please post date and time as soon as you know so maybe we can call a friend to record it.
I really like Rupert. and love Byron...!!

Lots of love from Spain

jetsetjason · **Posted:** Wed Nov 26, 2008 9:35 pm

I expect it will come out on dvd

Lambpower · **Posted:** Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:36 pm

Hello!!
Any news about this? :?:

Debora · **Posted:** Tue Jun 02, 2009 3:53 pm

Dear,I read they were shooting a few months ago-though the idea of a Byron played by a brand new plastic-surgered Rupert Everett scares the hell out of me.
Besos :-)

violaine · **Posted:** Wed Jun 03, 2009 5:25 am

I don't think he is playing Byron, he is narrating the whole thing

kingfisher · **Joined:** Fri Feb 10, 2006 2:34 pm **Posts:** 34

Hi all, just wanted to let everyone know that the first part of this documentary is on 27th July, Channel 4 : not sure what time yet.

Debora · **Posted:** Sun Jul 26, 2009 9:19 pm

Thanks honey!!

Just a mend:I DO love yummy Rupert and found out those pics of him were a silly scam (though he's done something to his eyes recently,anyway Rupy he's 50 and an actor).

some fresh hints:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 716177.ece

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 722034.ece

and this is for VIOLAINE:

http://arama.hurriyet.com.tr/arsivnews.aspx?id=-639459

uhm,sad to read it's going to be another scandalous/pervert/sexsexsex same old Byron's stuff,yet the blame is on the authors.I wonder when,if ever,there will be a shift to the real and the true B.Poor guy.

strathcarron · **Joined:** Thu Sep 18, 2008 11:08 am **Posts:** 13

The programme was enjoyable enough in a prurient Graham Norton/News of the World kind of way, but to reduce the amazing two-year adventure of the young Byron’s Grand Tour to salacious bisexual tittle-tattle is just too easy and predictable. And the attempts to shock us are all rather ‘so-what?’ these days. So he had the clap? So what? So he lusted after boys and lusted after girls too? So what? So he observed the Turks practiced sodomy and sherbet (four times in the programme)? So what (each time)? So he debauched in a bathhouse? So what? The most interesting apart of his bisexuality was that his sexual on/off switch was not male/female but beautiful/not beautiful, and that wasn't mentioned at all.

While the crew were assembled why not make a film of the Grand Tour in the round over, say, four episodes? Where was the mention of his grandstanding involvement in the Napoleonic or Peninsula Wars? Where his recruitment as an agent for British Intelligence in Malta and subsequent mission in Albania – the only reason to go to Albania, and not mentioned at all? Or his revelations at Beckford’s house in Cintra? Or his confinement in the hell hole of Gibraltar? Or his development as a poet and a peer? Or his privateering adventures in the Aegean?

The historical inaccuracies were annoying as this was a story so easy to get right – all the writers had to do was the read the Fiona MacCarthy biography Rupert Everett was carrying around in the PR shots. What happened to Sardinia and Sicily? Byron visited Greece before Turkey and first arrived on land from the west not by sea from the east; he was agitated about Elgin long before he left London, not as a result of anything that happened in Athens; he never stayed at the British Embassy in Istanbul; he never demanded an audience with the sultan and didn’t flounce out it when granted, and anyway the sultan (Sultan Mahmoud II) wasn’t ‘fearsome’ at all; Hobhouse had already left for England by the time Byron visited Greece for the second time; Byron didn’t swim the Hellespont on the way back from Constantinople but on the way there, and crossed it further downstream; there is absolutely no evidence at all that Donna Josefa cut off her hair in pique at Byron romancing her sister, quite the contrary, and there is no evidence at all that Byron’s manhood was ‘Brazilian’, sub-Brazilian or even from anywhere on planet earth, and neither is there any evidence he lost his virginity at nine (athough he was sexually abused); Ali Pasha was never fighting for Albanian independence – he already owned it and half of Greece as an Ottoman protected fiefdom; he didn’t claim two hundred intercourses with just one boyfriend but with a much larger Greek contingent; and only an act-or could pronounce Ali Pasha as Ali Pash-ar. Only a very ill-mannered actor would try to embarrass the (female Moslem) Rector of Istanbul University on camera with yet another comment on sodomy or HM’s (female) Consul General with a lewd remark about HM’s figure. Cheap shocks, cheap shots.

For sure Byron enjoyed leg-over a-plenty, as no doubt does Rupert Everett, and - shock-horror! - don’t we all? But for Byron and his readers the Grand Tour was about so much more than pubic hairs and peccadilloes, brothels and bathhouses. It’s shame the programme makers chose to concentrate just on Byron’s sexuality and then tabloid it, when it was just part of a whole host of contradictions and variations which made the man as life and legend.

jetsetjason · **Posted:** Sun Aug 02, 2009 11:31 am

I have no tv so did not see it,and I try avoid the media,but ran into an article with Rupert talking about Byron and it was obvious that he did not 'get it' at all, Byron was not mad, he just lived his life according to his own rules, even that affair with his sister would not seem odd, once you have read greek and egyptian history.

He was ahead of his time, Karl Popper would have approved, as Byron lived according to the principals of 'the open society', really, in that laws and social morals change over time and hence, who can be sure what is right and wrong ?

Jason
philosopher / byron fan/ poet at large !

Eywood Lady · **Joined:** Fri Sep 29, 2006 1:50 pm **Posts:** 18

I ts time to ask the question,? What did you all think of the Rupert Everett , Byron prog in two parts, I missed part one and have just seen part two. I am not sure what to think, but lets just say some elderly people friends of mine who are great fans of Byron were not impressed, unlike the bingo hall ladies at the end of the prog . It will be interesting to see what other forum members think, I have read somewhere that Byron had a son could anyone enlighten me on this. :

Eywood Lady · **Joined:** Fri Sep 29, 2006 1:50 pm **Posts:** 18

Congratulations to Strathcarron on such a well written post, I agree with you , Shame something that could have been so great turned out to be nothing but a disapointment

violaine · **Posted:** Wed Aug 05, 2009 1:02 pm

I agree with Strathcarron one hundred percent. It does not say anything new, and there certainly no need for cheap tricks.

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Rupert Everett goes in search of Lord Byron for Channel 4

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