'Poldark' Popular on iPlayer in April

Photo: Mike Alsford

Poldark is at No.2 and 3 in the top 20 requested programmes on iplayer for April 2015!

The BBC figures show that episode 5 and 6 got 1,449,000 and 1,068,000 requests respectively. The only show to get more was Peter Kay's Car Share with 1,495,000.  Poldark's episode 7 was also in the top 20 at number 13 with 940,000 requests.

The figures for episode 5 of Poldark on iplayer beat those for episode 1 (1,192,000) although the BBC did not capture all the data in March. This may be accounted for by episode 5 being shown on Easter Sunday, as the consolidated viewing figures of 6.95m for the episode, showed a drop in viewing compared to the episodes in the weeks before and after. As one would expect, people who missed the drama on the Sunday, caught up on iplayer.

Here is the BBC iplayer Top 20. Please also see the following notes:

Source: BBC iStats

'Poldark' Preview Screenings in the US

A number of venues are holding preview screenings of Poldark prior to it airing on Masterpiece on 21 June.

Charleston: Digital Sky Theatre, 1 Clay Square. Thursday 11 June, RSVP here.  They also have posters to give away!

Nashville: Public Television, Franklin Theatre.  Thursday 11 June, 7pm  Free but booking required.  Book here

Worthington, Minnesota: Centre for Active Living, 211 11th Street, Thursday 11 June, 5pm for 5.45pm. Contact Nicole Zempel for more info.

Urbana, Illinois:  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Main Library, 1408 W Gregory Dr.  Friday 12 June at 6.30 pm CDT for 7.15 start. Book here

Pittston, PA: Sordoni High definition Theater ,WVIA Studios, 100 WVIA Way, Sunday 14 June, 3pm  Book here

Baton Rouge, Louisiana: LPB British Dramedy Society, Manship Theatre, 100 Lafayette St., Baton Rouge, LA70801. Tuesday 16 June, 7pm  Book here

Binghamton: WSKG screening, Wednesday 17 June, 6pm. RSVP

Seattle:  KCTS 9 , 401 Mercer Street.  Thursday 18 June, 6.30 pm for 7.30 pm  screening.  Free event but RSVP required. Book here.

Poldark Cast and Crew at Radio Times Festival

The Radio Times is holding its first ever TV Festival and members of the cast and crew from Poldark are set to attend!

The festival will be held at Hampton Court Palace in September and will give the public the chance to hear from the cast, writers and programme makers of shows ranging from The Archers through to Poldark, Wolf Hall and Doctor Who.  Some 70 events are planned for the four day festival which will run 24-27 September, 2015.

Festival tickets go on sale to Radio Times subscribers from 9 June and to the general public from 23 June, 2015. Tickets are available from www.radiotimesfestival.com

Pictures from Filming 'Poldark' at Botallack

Last summer when they were filming Poldark at Wheal Owles, Botallack (Wheal Leisure in the drama)  CP Antrobus caught some of the action on camera.  Here's a selection of the photos with Aidan Turner (Ross Poldark), Eleanor Tomlinson (Demelza),  Ed Browning (Paul Daniel), Matthew Wilson (Mark Daniel), Kyle Soller (Francis), Alexander Arnold (Jim Carter) and Phil Davis (Jud Paynter) More can be seen at Poldark 2015 Photo Gallery.

Ross with Mark and Paul Daniel

Demelza

Ross and Mark Daniel

Demelza

Ross Poldark

Francis

Jud Paynter

Jim Carter and Ross

Ross

Aidan Turner

'Poldark' to be Shown on Xfinity

Pic via PBS

PBS, the broadcaster airing Poldark in the U.S., have announced a new deal with Comcast which means Poldark will be shown on Xfinity on Demand. Episodes will be available shortly after being shown on PBS Masterpiece.

Other programmes in the deal include Wolf Hall, Call the Midwife, Downton Abbey and Grantchester reports Telecompaper.

'Poldark' on the Cover of Prevue

The US is gearing up to airing Poldark next month: here it is on the cover of KPS TV's programme guide Prevue.

Here's what they say inside:

Vote for 'Poldark' TV Choice Awards 2015

Vote for Poldark in the TV Choice Awards!

The TV Choice Awards give the public the chance to show their love for their favourite TV shows of the last year. 

Voting for 2015 is now open. You can vote for Poldark in the following categories:

• Best New Drama 
• Best Actor Aidan Turner
• Best Actress Eleanor Tomlinson 

Voting closes on 5 June and only one vote per person is allowed.  You can vote online or via the magazine. A shortlist of nominations will then be drawn up for voting from 30 June.

The awards ceremony will be at The Hilton Hotel, London on 7 September, 2015.

Happy Birthday Eleanor Tomlinson!

Photo: The Times

Happy Birthday Eleanor Tomlinson!  Eleanor, who plays Demelza in Poldark, is 23 today.

Eleanor is the daughter of singer Judith Hibbert and actor Malcolm Tomlinson. She was born in London but was brought up in Beverley, Yorkshire. As a child she dreamed of becoming a vet but one day, after watching her father on the set of The Bill she says,“I looked around and saw my dad having a great time and how much fun he could have experimenting with his character and everything that went into it. I just fell in love with it.”

Eleanor plays Isabelle in Jack and the Giant Slayer and Isabel Neville in The White Queen. Since season one of Poldark wrapped she has appeared in Alleycats, a film about illegal bike-racing, and Loving Vincent in which Aidan Turner is also cast.

Eleanor at BAFTA 2015

'Poldark' to Ease the Pain

Photo: Daily Post

Patients who don't require a general anaesthetic for their operations at Spire Yale Hospital may turn to Poldark for their pain relief.

The Wrexham private hospital is supplying ipads and earphones to patients to distract them during surgery reports the Daily Post.

Consultant Neil Agnew said: “We’ve only been trialling this for a few weeks but it’s going really well so far. We had one lady engrossed in the Antiques Roadshow, another hooked on the last episode of Poldark and another chap watching the rugby.

“They have their headphones on and don’t worry about what we’re doing and can’t hear the occasional noises.

“We need them to stay relatively calm and still so it’s perfect for us. Then once we’re finished they are up and about straight away so the recovery time is far less than with a general and it’s a far more pleasant experience for the patient.”

Many thanks to @elsatsartsidou  for alerting us to this story

Preview Screening of 'Poldark' in Nashville

BBC

A preview screening of Poldark is to be shown in Nashville, US, ten days before it airs on Nashville Public Television Masterpiece.

The screening will be at the Franklin Theatre on Thursday 11 June at 7pm. Entrance is free but seats should be booked in advance. Booking opens on May 20th at 8 am.

Poldark airs on Masterpiece in seven episodes starting 21 June, 2015.  The finale on 2 August will be a two hour long double episode from 9-11 pm ET.

Poldark is set in Cornwall in the late eighteenth century, where battle scarred Ross Poldark returns home from war to find his country facing hard times and the life he once knew, gone forever. The original series with Robin Ellis, was a big hit on Masterpiece in the 1970s. The new series stars Aidan Turner (The Hobbit) as Ross Poldark and Eleanor Tomlinson(The White Queen) as Demelza and is adapted from the books by Winston Graham.

Filming Poldark's Court Scene

Photo: Nick Kenyon

Aidan Turner and Robin Ellis
Photo: Nick Kenyon

A year ago they were filming the court scene in Poldark (episode 3) where Jim Carter is on trial. In the scene the new and the original Ross Poldark  (Aidan Turner and Robin Ellis) go head to head over Jim's sentence with Robin Ellis playing the Reverend Halse and Aidan Turner, Ross.

Robin wrote about the scene in his blog saying: 'When we wrapped at 5pm, the director, Ed Balzelgette, made a sweet remark to the assembly (many extras on hand) about the unusual circumstance of having two “Ross Poldarks” in the same room!

Everyone clapped–which was touching!

Aidan Turner (aka Ross Poldark) and I–all smiles–relieved we’d done it and happy we were smiling about it, shook hands warmly and vigorously.'

 BBC Breakfast  spoke to Aidan and Robin about filming Poldark. In this clip Aidan tells of Robin giving him the 'thumbs up' when the scene was over (at 40 sec)

 

Here are some pictures from the day.  All photos by Nick Kenyon

Photo: Nick Kenyon

Photo: Nick Kenyon

Masterpiece Trailer for 'Poldark'

Here's the new PBS Masterpiece trailer for Poldark starring Aidan Turner as Ross Poldark and Eleanor Tomlinson as Demelza.

Poldark airs on Masterpiece in the US on June 21, 2015 at 9pm.




Thanks to Aidan Turner Forever for finding this video on BBC Fangirl channel

Sarah Greene: Aidan's Fans are Really Loyal

Sarah and Aidan at Subtitle Film Festival. Photo Pat Moore

Actor Sarah Greene's career is going from strength to strength with the feature film Noble being released in the US this week, the drama Penny Dreadful on TV and the Bradley Cooper movie Adam Jones coming out later this year.

Sarah and Aidan at The Hobbit premiere 2012.
Photo Evie Bowman/Poldarked

Sarah is, of course, Aidan Turner's girlfriend and, when being interviewed, she often gets questioned about Aidan. In a recent interview with  Like Magazine she was asked if all the new fans Aidan was winning in his role as Ross Poldark was any cause for concern. Sarah just laughed and said, 'Aidan's fans are really loyal, they have been with him since the get go. I'm just delighted for him, and the second season is going ahead, so it's very exciting.'

We are, of course, big fans of Sarah's too!

You can read more of Sarah's interview with Like Magazine here.

Fowey Festival's Poldark Panel

Fowey Festival hosted a Poldark Panel today with guests Debbie Horsfield (screen writer), Karen Thrussell (executive producer) and Andrew Graham, author Winston Graham's son. Here are some of the tweets about it.

Insightful panel discussion in #Cornwall @PoldarkTV @KarenThrussell1 @mammothscreen #DebbieHorsfield & #AndrewGraham pic.twitter.com/qCPTazdX2C

— Genevieve Raghu (@GenevieveRaghu) May 9, 2015

'What's not to #love about Ross Poldark? He's all our literary heroes roled into one.' Says @KarenThrussell1 @mammothscreen #poldark2015

— Genevieve Raghu (@GenevieveRaghu) May 9, 2015

Limited funds.... Compromises.....NO budget increase for series 2 @PoldarkTV is sad. But no compromise on emotional truth #culturalvalue

— Genevieve Raghu (@GenevieveRaghu) May 9, 2015

Audience member says @RobinPoldark will always be 'my' #Poldark but I like the softer #Poldark @AidanTurner presents. Reflection of our era?

— Genevieve Raghu (@GenevieveRaghu) May 9, 2015

@TeresaMcnorton @Poldarked @PoldarkTV couldn't agree more! Just a little sad to hear budgets are 'tight' & that determines what they can do.

— Genevieve Raghu (@GenevieveRaghu) May 9, 2015

Re #poldark hve to say ws v good but a lot of unnecess sniping about use of Chavenage, cfs w the 70s version & belly aching re low budget

— Kate Church (@crunchie64) May 10, 2015

A Cornish guy at the end tho spoke for us fans & made some great comments @FoweyFestival1 #poldark and lots of us clapped. Good event.

— Kate Church (@crunchie64) May 10, 2015

Poldark Finale is BBC1's Top Show of the Week

The UK season finale of Poldark was the most watched programme on BBC 1 in the week ending 26 April, 2015.  Poldark drew an audience of 5.9 million on the night but the consolidated viewing figures for the week, according to Barb, take it to almost 7.4 m . These figures exclude iplayer, as only the iplayer requests for March are currently publicly available.

In Australia, episode 4 of Poldark on ABC drew an audience of 585,000 on the night in the five city metro area, up from last week's figure of 567,000 and making it No. 10 in the daily top 20 TV programmes says TVTonight.

Poldark premiered on Prime TV in New Zealand on 22 April, 2015 to an audience of  40,170, which made it No. 4 in the daily top 20 according to Throng. The Big Bang Theory was No.1 with 54,040 viewers.

'Poldark' DVD Available for Pre-order

Poldark is Number 2 in Amazon's Best Sellers in TV dvd list and it hasn't even been released yet!

The three disc dvd includes the eight episodes along with over 60 minutes of additional material which, assuming it's the same as the Blu-ray to be released in the US, will include:

• Audio Commentary of Episode 1
• Interviews with main cast, directors, writer and producer
• Behind the Scenes
• Poldark - The Man, The Icon
• Poldark - The Woman Behind the Man
• Footage from various scenes on set

Poldark can be pre- ordered through Amazon  The dvd is due for release in the UK on 11 May, 2015

Update 4 May 2015:  Poldark dvd now available for pre-order in Australia for release on 3 June 2015
https://shop.abc.net.au/products/poldark-dvd?WT.ac=Commercial_Shop-ShopOnline%7Cabcshop%7Ciview-dto-poldark-series-1-ep-4

Granny Turner Talks About Aidan

RTE Radio1 Liveline spoke to Aidan Turner's grandmother Bridget Turner at the RTE All Ireland Drama Festival on 1 May, 2015.

Click on the link to listen  RTE Radio 1 Liveline   The interview starts about 5.30 minutes.

Bridget Turner with Joe Duffy Photo Joe Duffy