Tutankamón

There are a lot of bad reviews for this programme and I feel I have to say something. I actually joined IMDb to post this review. It is a TV dramatisation, not a reenactment. Not every detail will be accurate, because they want to make it accessible to the main stream public who are not experts in the story and who want to be entertained as much as educated. I'm not an expert, just an ordinary member of the public, and perhaps if I was an Egyptologist I would be disappointed by this version of the Howard Carter story, but as an ordinary member of the public, I absolutely love it! It is atmospheric, beautiful, intriguing, and gripping. I love the actors, I love the scenery I love the costumes and of course the storyline. Who wouldn't love a story set in a vibrant and colourful part of the world, at an exciting time period, about a treasure hunt? And it makes me want to find out more and educate myself about the real story, which surely should be the aim of any good drama about a real historical event.

I am actually a relative of Dr Howard Carter as he is my great, great, great uncle. I loved this show and really enjoyed the added excitement of the affair.

A lot of critics say that the affair is annoying and did not happen but really know one knows if it did or did not happen so disregard this as a critic of the show. Also, the fact that the sand or stone is not the right colour is just silly as this would have been extremely hard to replicate and is such as minor detail.

Overall, the show was amazing and captivating to the audience. It really showed the hardships Carter went through and why it was such an brilliant find.

Despite the inaccuracies, this miniseries is still watchable fascinating and well made. The story of the greatest discovery is so good that it makes up for the faults. The discovery itself is quite thrilling and one can really feel the joy.

One of the best points is the detail shown. There are lots of details about the financial, political difficulties regarding the dig. It does give some historical context to the time of the discovery. The question over what Egypt gets to keep and what the discoverer gets as a reward is interesting. It's not right that foreigners take away the historical treasures of any country yet the discoverer needs some compensation for their expenses.

Dealing with the faults: It wasn't filmed in Egypt and the sand and valley are darker and don't look like Egypt. It would have been tough to film in Egypt with all the instability since 2011 anyway. The romances with a Met Museum woman and Lady Evelyn Herbert are a little distracting but I guess if they didn't blow these up it would have been kind of like a documentary. There are some bad American accents of a few characters. Also Max Irons is too young looking at the time of the discovery - bit like Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the Tudors. But so what - he is watchable and actually is quite good here if you ignore the age thing - I can't think of another young actor who could have done a better job.

A little more of the factual elements of the curse could have been shown besides Lord Carnarvon's death. Some strange things did happen. Better than showing the romances.

If you enjoyed this - highly recommend a 1980 TV movie "The Curse of King Tut's Tomb", an excellent and exciting movie about the discovery and the curse. Forget about the more recent one with Casper Van Dien.

Quite a pleasure to watch despite it's faults.

I would like to address the review by "lukemanning from London" who probably thinks every American accent is a valley girl accent. As a Canadian, our accent is very close to the American accent, so I feel pretty qualified to say that Catherine Steadman's American accent was very good, I didn't realize she wasn't American. Very good for a modern American accent that is, I wouldn't know whether this was accurate for early 20th-century America.

I am originally Egyptian (Egyptian who grew up in Canada) and I have been looking into the actors of the Egyptian characters in Tutankhamun and I have been quite disappointed. Only one of them (Selim) seems to have Egyptian origins, but even he is actually ethnically mixed and doesn't look completely Egyptian, and his Arabic accent wasn't great. The rest didn't seem to be Egyptian. Egyptian cinema is booming, there is no shortage of Egyptian actors, and all Egyptians learn English in school, so there really is no reason why they couldn't have used Egyptian actors rather than British actors who look like they could pass for Egyptians. The Egyptian economy definitely needs all the help it can get right now, so it feels a little bit of an affront that they would make a movie set in Egypt and benefit off Egyptian history, and yet choose the filming and the Egyptian characters to have nothing at all to do with Egypt, thereby avoiding benefiting Egypt in any way.

I am enjoying the show and find it entertaining, but I am disappointed with how it was not Egyptian in any way. I hope that this show at least makes people more interested in visiting Egypt and brings back some of the tourism that has died in the last few years.

Lots of the other reviews here are quite critical of this show for some of its liberties with the details to the point of one criticising the colour of the stone!!

Not being someone who intimately knows about this subject I wont pretend to question their reasons for so much hate but I will say that I found it both interesting and entertaining as did my 10 year old son who is very excited to see the final episode when it airs.

I found the acting acceptable, but not exceptional, I have certainly seen far worse in some other recent prime time shows. I think the show hit the balance between the history lesson and entertainment so that all ages could be drawn into the story and learn something in the process.

Isn't that the sign of a good show? No hate here, I thoroughly enjoyed watching this.