Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Tom Burke, Santiago Cabrera, Howard Charles, Luke Pasqualino, Alexandra Dowling, Ryan Gage, Tamla Jari, Matthew McNulty, Hugo Speer, Robby Fisher, Andre Flynn, Robert Glenister, Crispin Letts, Thalissa Teixeira, Matt Stokoe, Victoria Alcock, Melanie Kilburn.
All good stories end far too soon and as one of the biggest hits on the B.B.C., The Musketeers, will attest as it draws to its finale, such stories are only possible to love because they have been given absolute care and love by those involved and the audience at home; that rare mix to which so many lengthy serials strive for but so few actually grasp the true meaning of The Prize at hand.
It is in the very nature of the swashbuckling heroes painted with deftness and intelligence by Alexandre Dumas that the characters he created have thrilled both the literary fans and the cinema goers alike for over a century; yet it has taken this 21st Century offering to really get under the skin of what the period in France was like, a nation teetering under its own weight, enemies on all sides and many who have managed to get inside the inner circle.
The penultimate episode of them all, The Prize, is no less intriguing, a splendid example of what good direction from the hands of Sue Tully and excellent writing can bring to the small screen and placed with great sensitivity to history at its core. France was just as a dangerous place to be caught on the wrong side of history as it was on the other side of the channel during the war of the three kingdoms, the supposed English Civil War but there seemed to be a lot more at stake in these disquiet times where a king was dying of tuberculosis and a young child was at the mercy of all who wanted him dead.
The Prize really brings out the very best in the entire cast, but especially in the actions and cunning of Minister Treville, played with wonderful aplomb by Hugo Speer. Too long a separate cog, straddling both the actions of the court and his former Musketeers; this was an episode in which the actor and the character were given the true measure of responsibility in which they fully deserved.
With the series coming to a close, a fond farewell is always inevitable but there is something in the heroic nature of Hugo Speer’s determination to make the Minister’s actions more heroic that should never be overlooked when appraising the series in the future. A good man will always win through and Hugo Speers encapsulates that fully as the curtain closes.
A drama filled episode, one of stirring quality; The Musketeers will be much missed.
Ian D. Hall