“He was such a muti-layered character ...... he had been in a Monastery for 16 or 17 years , but he was also a man of the world. He had killed, murdered, slain & that had left its mark on him, now he was in the business of healing. That dichotomy between the two, that combination was fascinating”
Derek Jacobi (Brother Cadfael)

” ….. and she just held my hand and she just sort of went ‘don’t let them make you too silly, dear, all right?’ and she just sort of walked off and I thought ‘don’t be too silly, don’t be too silly because Ellis Peters has said, so don’t go over the top “
Mark Charnock (Brother Oswin)

In this one off special for ITV3 we unlock the mysteries behind 'Cadfael', the ITV series from the early 1990's that was adapted from the novels of author, Ellis Peters.

Starring Sir Derek Jacobi, Cadfael was a breakout hit for ITV centring on the complex world of a retired crusader, now a monk and the herbalist in charge of the gardens of Shrewsbury Abbey. Brother Cadfael (Jacobi) is called on to solve murders and mediaeval mysteries in and around dark and dangerous 12th century Shrewsbury, in the border country where England meets Wales.

The programme traces the journey from the books to the radio plays and to the screen adaptation, which brought Ellis Peters’ mediaeval magic to life.

”Edith just exuded a type of wisdom that came from real life. Edith believed as I do that real wisdom comes from getting in there and living it and Cadfael had lived it”
Deborah Owen (Literary Agent)

“It’s always fun to play somebody who’s a bad tempered, tricky old bastard, and that’s what basically Prior Robert was … if I’d been playing yet another good monk it would have been very boring”
Michael Culver (Prior Robert)

"We were astonished to see an abbey it looked like a real abbey, it was extraordinary it was beautiful it was proper, you thought it was real … it was so authentic that you felt your job was done for you in a way, all you had to do was put the costume on say a few words and people would believe it because it looked so right”
Terrence Hardiman (Abbot Radulfus)

“She did explain to me how important she thought it was that all her facts were right and the kind of characters that she liked to place in her historical novels were often outsiders. Cadfael in many ways is an outsider, because he’s Welsh in an English foundation. He’s a soldier, he has a past, so in many ways he’s able to be both an outsider and an insider – this is of course a great place for any literary character to be!”
Margaret Lewis (Author Edith Pargeter : Ellis Peters)