David Tennant | The Romantics

January 2006 saw David take on the role of French philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for the BBC2 dramatisation The Romantics. The series written and presented by acclaimed novelist and biographer Peter Ackroyd explored the English poets from Keats, Byron and Shelley to Wordsworth, Coleridge and Blake.

David appeared in Liberty, an episode concentrating on the effects of the French Revoluion back in England.

The 18th century was a time of opulence and privilege. Europe was dominated by the twin authority of Church and King – but this absolute rule was soon to be overturned.
The French philosopher Denis Diderot, played by Jason Watkins, insisted that men must reason for themselves. His friend, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, played by David Tennant, said that civilisation had corrupted mankind – to free themselves, men must listen to their emotions.

Rousseau’s writings gave birth to a fresh hope for a new world of liberty, equality and fraternity.These ideas would fuel the greatest social upheaval in history – the French Revolution.
In Britain, these “Romantic” ideals would burst into the public arena in art and in poetry. William Blake’s engravings and poetry were howls of revolutionary anger: Blake, played by Dudley Sutton, made the liberation of the human spirit his life’s work.
William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote one of the most powerful revolutionary works of the time: the Lyrical Ballads.This volume of poetry was considered so dangerous that, even as they composed,Wordsworth and Coleridge were being followed by Government spies.
This was the greatest period of sustained creativity in English literature – a time of revolutionary changes in which poets had the power to remake the world in their own image.

Notes: This is a three part series.

Episode 1, Liberty

Episode 2, Nature

Episode 3, Eternity

To find out more about The Romantics click here.

Extras