j1mwallace wrote:The programme is a broad brush approach, not made for us geeks. I thought that it was pretty good, a fairly easy watch and quite informative.
As someone who is far from being steeped in Jacobite lore, I found a lot of the information new to me (especially the post-'45 stuff on BPC himself), and so the series was worth watching overall.
j1mwallace wrote:A producer can never cover everything given that its just two parts spanning 75 plus years.
Fair point; however, I did find the complete absence of any mention of Jacobitism in Ireland a little perplexing, ditto the Spanish involvement in 1719, when there was actual fighting unlike in 1708.
Another negative was that she seemed to suggest that it was the English Parliament that wanted union, rather than the bankrupt/desperate Scots (in fact, many English MPs were opposed to the idea). Similarly, she managed to be pro-Jacobite, yet anti-Tory - despite the prominent support many Tories gave to the Jacobite cause. Ditto her focus on Marlborough's fence-hopping, yet no mention of the Earl of Mar being known as "Bobbing John" for the same behaviour.
On a more "health & safety" oriented point, I found it a little disturbing how much time she spent driving on the wrong side of the road when she was being filmed in Scotland!