Hi Bernard,

I have been reading your books for a good 20 years now and have loved each and everyone (The warlord trilogy being my absolute favourites!) I am enjoying following Uhtreds journey on both paper and film, particularly David Dawson’s Alfred… Absolutely first class and those last scenes with him and Uhtred (brilliantly portrayed by Alexander Doetsch)   in the show are really powerful and sum up perfectly the relationship you created in the books of a Grudging respect and mutual realisation of dependence! It fuels hope that maybe the Warlord chronicles will get a debut via the colossus that is Netflix… and you know what?, I reckon Dawson and Doestch would make a great pairing as Arthur and Derfel! I get that you don’t really worry about the onscreen portrayal’s of your books and characters, but do you ever amuse yourself with considering if any other books were made into a series/ film what actors would suit the what roles? For example Sean Bean became Sharpe in most peoples eyes and I couldn’t imagine anyone else portraying the long retired Lt Col  (I think that’s the last rank he made!) but imagine a Sharpe played by Richard Armitage!   A dead ringer for the Sharpe described in the books… so who would you like to see cast as Merlin and Nimue if it was ever made into a series… (fingers crossed if ever a show needed to be made its that one! At the very least to repair some of damage wreaked by recent cinema efforts on  the Arthurian legends!)

James Shoebridge