It’s still International Talk Like a Pirate Day in some parts of the world me hearties and so it’s still entirely fitting that I post this wonderful tribute to this most unique of days (a high holiday for adherents of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster I’m told) from the makers of Strarz new swashbuckling adventure drama, Black Sails, which launches in January 2014.
While it’s highly debatable whether a single classical pirate ever uttered a single “Arrrr” in their plundering life, and it’s generally agreed its use originated not with the pirates of the West Country of England but with Lionel Barrymore in the 1934 adaptation of Treasure Island (it was further popularised in the 1940 novel Adam Penfeather, Buccaneer by Jeffrey Farnol and Disney’s much loved take on the book in 1950), the evocatively guttural phrase has come to represent pirate-speak the world over.
Quite whether the pirates of Black Sails, which follows the tales of Captain Flint (Toby Stephens) and his man and is styled as a prequel to Treasure Island, taking place 20 years before the events detailed in Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel, will ever use “Arrr” or any other flamboyant piratical phrasing in their daily speech is something we likely won’t find out till the 10 episode series debuts early next year.
It does seem though like the creators of the show, Jon Steinberg and Robert Levine, are going to great lengths to craft a gritty, action-oriented drama with few of the standard pirate tropes but you never know what might creep in.
After all those piratical mannerisms, not to mention the odd squawking parrot, are rather hard to avoid.
Don’t that be the truth me hearties?
Now if you’ll excuse me I have a DVR to program – well I will have once we get an actual premiere date – a bottle of rum to drink, a wooden leg to attach and oh yes, a plank to walk …
(source of piratical knowledge: wikipedia.com)