Byron

Byron (2003) Director: Julian Farino. Cast: Jonny Lee Miller, Vanessa Redgrave, Philip Glenister.

In this moving and entertaining BBC Television drama about the “mad, bad and dangerous to know” poet, Malta and Gozo doubled for several locations in Italy and Greece.

In the opening few minutes of the first episode, set in Greece in 1811, Byron (Jonny Lee Miller) and his valet (Philip Glenister) ride along spectacular cliffs in a scene filmed at on private land at Mtahleb.

Bryon then meets a high-ranking representative of the Turkish Sultan to plead for a woman’s life and the fortified rooftop on which they meet is part of Cittadella, the magnificent 17th-century citadel on Gozo, with the city of Rabat stretching out below in the background.

In the second episode, when Bryon is meant to be in a Venice palazzo, the scenes were filmed at Villa Bulebin in Zebbug and when the poet is staying with his married lover, the Contessa Teresa, the action is meant to take place in Ravena, Italy, but the elegant marble halls and manicured gardens on screen are in fact at Palazzo Parisio in Naxxar.

Later on, when Byron is staying with his friend, the poet Shelley, Villa Bologna was used to represent the Casa Lanfranci in Pisa, and the moving scene in which Bryon sets up a funeral pyre for Shelley’s body after he has drowned in a shipwreck was filmed on the tranquil golden sands of Ramla Bay, Gozo.

The climax of the drama comes in 1824, when Byron falls fatally ill while running a training camp for Greek soldiers at Missolonghi. These scenes were filmed at Ghajn Znuber on the outskirts of Mellieha.

Bryon was broadcast on BBC1 in the UK in September 2003.