This BBC miniseries series told the story of Charles Darwin’s five-year scientific expedition to South America in HMS Beagle.
After rejecting his father’s wish for him to become a physician or theologian, Darwin makes acquaintance with Professor Henslow (Keith Smith), who recognises his talent for geology and biology and helps him join the travels of Captain Robert FitzRoy (Andrew Burt) for mapping the coasts of South America.
Darwin – with his inquiring scientific mind – and Captain FitzRoy – with his conservative establishment religious views and his propensity for “austere silences” and sudden fits of temper – did not see eye to eye and quarrelled often. Darwin collected specimens, carefully observed everything he encountered, and slowly concluded that the strict biblical view of the origin of the species couldn’t account for the amazing adaptations and specialisations in the natural world.
FitzRoy saw, in Darwin’s theories, a threat to his own religious convictions and his unshakeable belief in the literal truth of the Old Testament.
In an accomplished cast, Iain Cuthbertson’s Dr Robert Darwin, David Ashton’s Lieutenant Wickham and George Cole’s typically unassuming but effective Josiah Wedgwood were especially worthy of mention.
Director Martyn Friend and producer Christopher Ralling delivered a detailed and leisurely dramatisation, painstakingly researched, meticulously reproduced, and filmed over a period of nearly a year.
Charles Darwin
Malcolm Stoddard Captain Robert FitzRoy
Andrew Burt Lieutenant Sullivan
Peter Settelen Lieutenant Wickham
David Ashton Covington
Andrew Dunford Emma Wedgwood
Cherith Mellor Augustus Earle
Tony Calvin Josiah Wedgwood
George Cole Dr Robert Darwin
Iain Cuthbertson Catherine Darwin
Jenny Quayle Lieutenant Bynoe
Paul Ridley Professor Henslow
Keith Smith Jeremy Button
Edgardo Castro Fuegia Basket
Inez Gali
Episodes
I Was Considered a Very Ordinary Boy | My Mind Was a Chaos of Delight | How Wide Was the Distance Between Savage and Civilised Man? | Can Any Mountains, Any Continent, Withstand Such Waste? | I Felt Myself Brought Within Reach of That Great Fact – That Mystery of Mysteries | Suppose That All Animals and All Plants Are Represented by the Branches of a Tree – The Tree of Life | In the Distant Future, Light Will Be Thrown Upon the Origin of Man, and His History
