I have always been interested in the time of The French Revolution and have always found the story of The Scarlet Pimpernel to be awfully dramatic and romantic. The first episode aired in Australia in 2000 and I remember being glued to the television, something which was quite unusual for me at that time. Richard E. Grant is amazing in the Role of the dashing Scarlet Pimpernel and of course as the arrogant upper class Sir Percy Blakeney. His charm is very endearing indeed. He is exactly the right actor for the role!Give this mini-series a chance to charm the pants off you! I have been unhappy with the other comments on this page!GREAT MINI-SERIES!!!

I so thoroughly enjoyed this trio of vignettes by A&E with BBC that I went out & bought all three, unprecedented for me! (Egad, I'm rhyming like the Pimpernel!:) A long-time BBC/PBS aficionado, I've seen other Pimpernel versions but liked this trio the best. (One with Brit Leslie Howard was also good, but more formal/stylized & lacking modern film technology.) I looked up Richard E. Grant & Elizabeth McGovern's other films, too, after enjoying these so well. In the mood for courage with style? The Pimpernel is the original James Bond, from 1792.There's also a movie about the ahead-of-her-time female authoress, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, with a similar theme to Madame Marguerite/Lady Blakeny's traumatic childhood in those turbulent times of revolution in both America & Europe...so apparently her historical romantic action dramas had a touch of autobiography.

I'll confess, I've never read the books. I have however seen several productions of the play onstage and I prefer this beautiful miniseries by far. All of the productions I've seen before cast elderly men with cute lines but no charisma. The choice of Richard E. Grant for the Scarlet Pimpernel surprised me, but he did a wonderful job with it. I was very surprised by his performance, as I'd only ever known him as a supporting/character actor (like Twelfth Night and Gosford Park). As a life-long Elizabeth McGovern fan, I can't help but love her. She's a fantastic actress, but whoever did her hair should be guillotined. For a really beautiful woman, they hid it well under ten pounds of brown wig. It sadly resulted in her looking much older than she actually is, but fortunately this isn't the case for the entire movie (at least at the end she gets a haircut!) But her striking features still shine through and her beautiful performance far outweighs that hairstyle. She also manages her accent very well (she's originally from Illinois) But, well, I watched the whole miniseries just for her, so I can't help but think she's the real star. Ronan Vibert is another actor I've liked for a long time, and he did a fantastic job as Robespierre. Martin Shaw's Chauvelin got on my nerves a bit, but he's fine. The big surprise was sweet little Emilia Fox in the role of Minette. I'd never seen her play a villain before, and was pretty impressed by it. All in all, I really enjoyed this miniseries, and highly recommend it.

It could have been so much better! I've seen both versions (they DO seem to like sword fights between Percy and Chauvelin, don't they?) and the first was the better as an adaption, but I liked the actors in the latest one better. Sir Percy/the Scarlet Pimpernel was absolutely dashing but where the hell did Minette come from? Also, no one (except aristos) were supposed to die!