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In 335BC, Alexander of Macedonia set off on an expedition to conquer the world. The voyage of Alexander the Great covered more than 22,000 miles in ten years, from Greece to India and back, through some of the most difficult and unforgiving terrain.

While the Maya Vision crew lacked the timescale, budget and manpower of Alexander’s original conquest, they did have the advantages of modern transport. Travelling by jeep, bus, truck, retired Russian ambulance and cadging occasional lifts in helicopters, they discovered that some parts of the world are still completely inaccessible to anything but the feet of camels, mules, horses and occasionally humans.

Leaving countless baffled border guards in their wake, the Maya Vision crew travelled through 16 countries, crossing post-Gulf War Iraq and entering Afghanistan during the rise of the Taliban. They crossed the Great Sea of Sand, the Great Salt Desert and the Desert of Death and climbed one of the highest mountain passes in the world to truly follow in the Footsteps of Alexander the Great.

EPISODES

EP 1 SON OF GOD. Alexander sets off from his native on a war of revenge against the Persian empire. He crosses the Dardenelles into Turkey, where he was welcomed as a liberator by the Greek cities along the coast. At Issus, Alexander defeats the Persian king, Darius and turned south, through Lebanon, Israel and Gaza to reach Egypt. There, the oracle of Siwa declared him Son of God.

EP 2 LORD OF ASIA. Alexander invades Persia – todays Iran. Michael Wood traces his route through the Zagros mountains to Persepolis. He hears from storytellers that this defeat is still remembered today by the Zoroastrian community. The programme ends at the Caspian Sea, the edge of the world for Alexander.

Ep 3 ACROSS THE HINDU KUSH Following Alexander’s route Michael Wood treks over the Khawak pass in Afghanistan, crosses the Oxus river and follows the golden road to Samarkand. He continues to Alexandria the Farthermost – Khodzent in Takjikistan – retraces Alexander’s famous vistory at the Sogdian rock, and visits the ruins of the ancient city of Balkh with the help of an Afghan war lord.

Ep 4 TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH Alexander turns towards India, heading for what he believed would be the end of the earth. Michael Wood traces Alexander’s route through the northwest frontier region of Pakistan, the plains of the Punjab, down the Indus river, and by camel across the Makran desert back to Babylon – where Alexander died, aged 32.

CREW, TRANSMISSION AND AVAILABILITY

4 X 60 mins for BBC 2/PBS. Director: David Wallace  Producer: Rebecca Dobbs Camera: Peter Harvey

BBC2 July 1998.

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ABOUT

Michael Wood tells the story of King Alfred the Great and his children and grandson, arguing that they were the most important rulers in the history of England –shaping the nation itself, founding cities, establishing law and government and reviving the language and literature that still define the English today. And all this was achieved while waging a life and death struggle against the Vikings.

COMMISSION, CREW, TX AND AVAILABILITY

3 X 60 mins for BBC 4. Director/Producer: Rebecca Dobbs

BBC4 August 2013. Video download available from Amazon and iTunes

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EPISODES

Ep 1 Alfred of Wessex

Alfred fights a desperate guerrilla war in the marshes of Somerset – burning the cakes on the way- before his decisive victory at Edington. Creating towns, trade and coinage, reviving learning and literacy, Alfred then laid the foundations of a single kingdom of ‘all the English’. Filmed on location from Reading to Rome, using original texts read in Old English, and interviews with leading scholars, Michael Wood describes a man who was ‘not just the greatest Briton, but one of the greatest rulers of any time or place’.

Ep 2 The Lady of the Mercians

Alfred’s children continue the family plan to create a kingdom of all the English. The tale begins with a savage Civil War in a bleak decade of snow and famine, culminating in an epic victory over the Vikings near Wolverhampton in 910. The key figure in this episode is Alfred’s daughter Aethelflaed, the ruler of Mercia. Michael Wood recovers her story from a copy of a lost chronicle written in Mercia in her lifetime which in the film we hear read in Old English. One of the great forgotten figures in British history, Aethelflaed led armies, built fortresses, campaigned against the Vikings and was a brilliant diplomat. Her fame spread across the British Isles, beloved by her warriors and her people she was known simply as “the Lady of the Mercians’. Without her, concludes Michael Wood, ‘ England might never have happened’.

Ep 3 Aethelstan: The First King of England

Alfred’s grandson Aethelstan fulfils the family plan and creates a kingdom of all England. Michael Wood tells the tale of Aethelstan’s wars, his learning and his lawmaking. The film shows how he created a national coinage and traces the origin of the English Parliament to the king’s new assembly politics. But there’s also a dark side, with later legends that the king had his brother drowned at sea. In his last desperate struggle, Aethelstan defeated a huge invasion of Vikings and Scots in what became known as the Anglo-Saxon ‘Great War’. Michael Wood argues, Aethelstan was one of the greatest English monarchs, and with his grandfather Alfred, his father Edward and his aunt Aethelflaed, a member of our most remarkable royal family, and ‘even more than the Tudors, the most gifted and influential rulers in British history’.

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A series exploring the United Kingdom’s remarkable past from the  perspective of the ordinary people. From the Roman’s to the present day, Land’s End to John of Groats, Michael Wood harnesses local communities to rediscover their history. Series looking at history through the eyes of ordinary people. Rulers and royals, lords and ladies have all had their say down the centuries, what were the last 1,600 years like for everyday Britons?

COMMISSION AND CREW

BBC2 8 x 1hr Director/Producer: Rebecca Dobbs, Camera: Peter Harvey, Jeremy Jeffs, Editor: Gerry Branigan, Aleksandar Nikolic. Producer: Sally Thomas

TRANSMISSION AND AVAILABILITY

First broadcast 25th May 2012. Series available on DVD.

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ABOUT

Michael Wood tells the story of one place, the Leicestershire village of Kibworth, throughout the whole of English history.

What the press said:

‘Living history is a very difficult thing to make work, especially when it comes to blending scholarship and jollity’.

COMMISSION AND CREW

6 x 1 hour BBC4. Series Producer and Director: Rebecca Dobbs Producer: Sally Thomas Camera: Wayne Derrick and Peter Harvey. Editor: Gerry Branigan. Composer: Howard Davidson

You will never, I venture, see it done as well as it was here. Daily Telegraph

TRANSMISSION AND AVAILABILITY

First Broadcast on BBC4 Sept 2010. Available on DVD.

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Story of England is the best thing I have seen on TV for a long time. British Museum