Where was The Musketeers BBC TV series filmed?
The main filming locations used for this action-packed period drama were situated in and around the Czech Republic capital of Prague. Shooting for the first BBC series took place during 2013, with season 2 continuing there in 2014 ahead of its 2015 airing.
Many of the scenes for The Musketeers television series are filmed in the small town of Doksany, which lies approximately 20 miles north-west of Prague. Prior to the start of production, sets were constructed at a former Doksany convent (pictured below), designed to recreate the streets of 17th-century Paris. This same area was also chosen to build the Musketeers’ garrison.
Part of the set in Doksany, Czech Republic – Photo by Horakvlado (Sourced via Wikimedia Commons)
Thanks in no small part to it suffering far less damage than many other Eastern European cities during the Second World War, much of Prague’s beautiful and historic architecture still exists today. With its large and varied selection of immaculately maintained, yet original-looking buildings, it’s easy to see why the show’s producers chose to film in and around Prague.
Fans of the series will no doubt agree that these picturesque buildings and landscapes provide a great backdrop to the show, making good use of the BBC’s HD broadcasting.
The show, which is set in France during the 1600s and based on Alexandre Dumas’s novel The Three Musketeers, is a joint production between BBC One and BBC America.
Explore the town of Doksany with Google Earth. Here you can see an aerial view of the Doksany Praemonsatensian Convent:
The first series of The Musketeers premiered in the UK on Sunday, the 19th of January 2014, while season 2 premiered on BBC One in early 2015. Since first hitting screens in the UK back in early 2014, The Musketeers and its British cast have gone on to become a huge TV hit, right around the world.
Peter Capaldi ‘Really Enjoying’ Cardinal Richelieu Role
The BBC have just released this short video interview with Peter Capaldi, in which he discusses his role as Cardinal Richelieu in the new BBC drama series, The Musketeers.
Image Credit: BBC Photographer: Larry Horricks
Talking about Richelieu’s relationship with the show’s title characters, Capaldi states, “He finds the high spirits and indiscipline of The Musketeers an irritant.”
When discussing how he finds playing the role of the baddie, the 55-year-old say,s “So I’m really enjoying it, it’s a wonderful, enjoyable, fun thing. You always think with the villain or the spy, that in a way it’ll be more straightforward to play, but it’s not, it’s kind of quite complex to try and give the audience what they want… and also give them an element of truth. But it’s wonderful.”
Going by the fact that Peter’s in full costume in the video, I assume this brief interview was conducted last year, during the show’s filming:
Series 1 of The Musketeers, which is set to run for 10 1-hour episodes, has gotten off to a strong start in 2014. With this in mind, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a season 2 commissioned sometime in the near future, perhaps even before the current series has finished.
This is, of course, assuming there’ll be no major deaths in the season 1 plot, which would make a return realistically impossible. Though even that didn’t stop Sherlock.