Mountains of the moon

In the 1850’s, two British officers, Captain Richard Burton and Lieutenant John Hanning Speke, set out on a spectacular adventure to discover the source of the Nile. As they pushed deeper and deeper into the hitherto unexplored regions of the African wilderness, they forged strong bonds of friendship in order to survive the great dangers which befell them. It was ironical then, that a friendship which had endured so much in Africa, was ultimately destroyed by the rigidity and competitiveness of Victorian England and its aristocracy. Burton, played by Patrick Bergin, is a larger than life character; a “maverick” geographer whose love affair and marriage to Isabelle, (Fiona Shaw), was “the stuff from which legends were made”. Speke, (Iain Glen), was the son of an aristocrat, bound by the strict conventions of his time. Together they embarked on one of the greatest explorations in history. Divided, their friendship in tatters, and their reputations in jeopardy, Speke ended his life tragically, and Burton quit England.