An Astérix-Kaamelott connection almost goes without saying. Near the end of Livre 2, Arthur has his hair cut in the Roman style ("La Coupe Romaine")--so that Astier, the actor, can play a Roman soldier in the film Astérix aux jeux olympiques (2008). Astier has also discussed the importance of Astérix as a model for the Kaamelott comic books; see this online interview. In the second episode of Livre 1, "La Table de Breccan," the artisan who is building the Round Table remarks to Arthur that he has “just delivered 400 dolmens to Winchester,” echoing Obélix's vocation as “menhir deliveryman”... and when, later in the season, Arthur stops by the tavern, he asks for a glass of goat's milk, a beverage which Astérix is known to enjoy (e.g. in Le Tour de Gaule).
archive.today
Astier's vision of Arthur as a dux bellorum is however close to the insight into the history of Britain which Marlow proposes at the beginning of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness: "I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago -- the other day. . . . Light came out of this river since -- you say Knights? Yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker -- may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. Imagine the feelings of a commander of a fine -- what d'ye call 'em? -- trireme in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenly to the north; run overland across the Gauls in a hurry; put in charge of one of these craft the legionaries -- a wonderful lot of handy men they must have been, too -- used to build, apparently by the hundred, in a month or two, if we may believe what we read. Imagine him here -- the very end of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina -- and going up this river with stores, or orders, or what you like. Sand-banks, marshes, forests, savages, -- precious little to eat fit for a civilized man, nothing but Thames water to drink. No Falernian wine here, no going ashore. Here and there a military camp lost in a wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay -- cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death -- death skulking in the air, in the water, in the bush."
dailymotion.com
In a TV interview on Dec. 1, 2008, Astier sums up his vision of Kaamelott as "Le médieval fantastique en comédie." ("comedy medieval fantasy") See Dailymotion video to present a new "realistic epic"
A new DVD issue of all seasons is proposed, to begin in 2009. According to the previews of the jacket, this series will have English subtitles for all the Livres, as well as new artwork and logos. This edition will consist of single disks each containing about an hour's worth of material; thus Livre 1 will have 6 separate DVD “chapters.” Information about this edition, to be sold in news kiosques—presumably, a different disk each week or month—was released to the Kaamelott fan forum On En A Gros, where versions of the proposed jackets for Livre 1 are displayed (NB. Chapter 2 has two different designs shown).
See the M6 website for the specification of the 5th century M6 Season 1. This is the traditional period for Arthur's rise to power, though Kaamelott makes his reign a bit early--in the episode "Le Dernier Empereur" (Livre1) the Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus, who ruled in 476, is mentioned as a contemporary.
Two comments on the “British” humor of Seasons 1 and 2: “‘nonsense’ typiquement British,” Véronique Groussard “Alexandre Astier, le turlupin de la Table ronde,” in Le Nouvel Observateur (Télé obs), 14 April 2005; “L’humour British, décalé….” Odile Tessier, “Le phénomène “Kaamelott,’” Le Point, 10 November 2005; both online linked from the CALT website, http://www.robinandco.com/fr/icalt/programme.php?ID=797.769Archived 2008-10-09 at the Wayback Machine.
Two comments on the “British” humor of Seasons 1 and 2: “‘nonsense’ typiquement British,” Véronique Groussard “Alexandre Astier, le turlupin de la Table ronde,” in Le Nouvel Observateur (Télé obs), 14 April 2005; “L’humour British, décalé….” Odile Tessier, “Le phénomène “Kaamelott,’” Le Point, 10 November 2005; both online linked from the CALT website, http://www.robinandco.com/fr/icalt/programme.php?ID=797.769Archived 2008-10-09 at the Wayback Machine.
