#peter bowles

"Good morning, Richard."

"Good morning, I trust you have an appointment."

"Yes, and if this takes too long I shall be late for it."

Peter Bowles and Penelope Keith in The Honours List, A New Year's Eve special of To the Manor Born. (Although first broadcast on BBC1, November 2nd, 1980, the penultimate episode of series two).

The series was conceived as a star vehicle for Penelope Keith following her success as Margo Leadbetter in The Good Life, and became one of the BBC's most popular programmes of the era, reaching an audience of up to 24 million.

I do post about Arthur Wellesley quite a bit! He's lovely. A bit of an idiot sometimes, but I'm fond of him.

That being said, I wouldn't call myself an expert on his portrayal in media. I know I hate his portrayal by Peter Bowles in ITV's Victoria, because he's far too old for his season one age and his face is too plump, and despite it being comedy, I also dislike Stephen Fry's portrayal of him in Blackadder the Third. I did quite enjoy Christopher Plummer's portrayal of him in Waterloo (1970).

Having done some googling, I am generally unimpressed, but it's also a little difficult to judge. We do have a daguerreotype of Wellington, but it was taken when he was 75, in 1844. For anything earlier, we're relying on portraits done with varying amounts of talent and accuracy, and comparing a genetically unrelated human being to a portrait that may or may not be accurate is, uh, difficult.