I was very sad to learn this week that Nicol Williamson, the actor who played Merlin in Excalibur, had passed away. Okay, so he was 75 years old and, unlike Merlin, not immortal... But it is still a sorry shame. Excalibur is a favourite of mine, and Williamson's Merlin a madcap magician with *the* most 'mazing tonal range of any film character *ever*. I don't know what the hell accent it was, but it seemed wondrous to my young Welsh self who'd never heard anything of the like. Merlin's poetic style of speaking also had an effect; as he says of Excalibur, it was
"Forged when the world was young,
and bird and beast and flower were one with man,
and bird and beast and flower were one with man,
and death was but a dream!"
Anyway, for all you Excalibur fans, here's the trailer for the film, re-made, as it should have been at the start. Enjoy!
