Sharpe (TV Series)
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50 free Sharpe (TV Series) trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Sharpe ran on British television through the 1990s and turned a run of Napoleonic war novels into feature-length films, with two more made in the 2000s. It follows a soldier raised from the ranks, promoted for his courage and resented for his birth, through the Peninsular War and on to Waterloo. This quiz covers the whole run. There are questions on the scene that still sends people searching, in which Major Lennox pays with his life for another officer's blunder and the regiment loses its colours, and on the rogues, spies and aristocrats who try to break Sharpe. Others cover the battles and sieges, the weapons and uniforms, the women in his life, and the actors who passed through before they were famous. It is written for fans who have watched the films more than once, but every question comes with a short explanation, so newcomers will pick up the story as they play.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor plays Richard Sharpe, the soldier raised from the ranks, in every film of the TV series Sharpe?
Sean Bean
Sean Bean kept his own accent for the part, and Sharpe brought him his first mainstream success years before he played Boromir and Ned Stark.
Q 02Which actor was first cast as Richard Sharpe but had to withdraw after injuring his knee playing football?
Paul McGann
Paul McGann had to withdraw from Sharpe's Rifles, and his replacement was hired because he was the only suitable actor free at short notice.
Q 03Which actor played Obadiah Hakeswill, the thieving sergeant who torments Richard Sharpe in Sharpe's Company?
Pete Postlethwaite
Pete Postlethwaite's Hakeswill returns in Sharpe's Enemy at the head of a band of deserters, mortally wounds Sharpe's wife and ends the film in front of a firing squad.
Q 04Which traditional song, given new words for the TV series Sharpe, serves as the drama's theme?
Over the Hills and Far Away
Over the Hills and Far Away dates back to at least the late 17th century, and the Sharpe films fit fresh verses to the story of each episode.
Q 05Which actor, long before worldwide fame, played the bullying Lieutenant Berry in the second Sharpe film?
Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig played Berry, who shoots Sharpe from behind on a night patrol, more than a decade before he first appeared as 007.
Q 06Which actress played Lady Farthingdale, the hostage Richard Sharpe rescues from deserters in Sharpe's Enemy?
Elizabeth Hurley
Elizabeth Hurley's Lady Farthingdale is no stranger to her rescuer: the film reveals that she is a former lover of Sharpe's.
Q 07Which actor, later a celebrated screenwriter, plays both Major Dunnett and the Prince Regent in Sharpe?
Julian Fellowes
Julian Fellowes leads the doomed riflemen in Sharpe's Rifles and returns as royalty in Sharpe's Regiment, years before he created Downton Abbey.
Q 08The Spain and Portugal of the Sharpe TV films were mainly filmed in which distant location?
Crimea
Crimea stood in for the Iberian Peninsula through most of the 1990s run, with other films shot in Turkey, England, Portugal and Spain.
Q 09Which novelist, also the author of The Last Kingdom books, created the soldier Richard Sharpe?
Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell published the first Sharpe novels in 1981 and has said that he now hears the television actor's voice when he writes the character.
Q 10Sharpe's Challenge and Sharpe's Peril bring Richard Sharpe out of retirement to serve in which country?
India
India is where Sharpe's Challenge shows him serving as a sergeant back in 1803, and both films were shot there on location years after the original run ended.
Q 11Which actor plays Sergeant Patrick Harper, Richard Sharpe's best friend and right-hand man?
Daragh O'Malley
Daragh O'Malley was the first actor cast for the series, and he later founded a children's charity that carries the hero's name.
Q 12At which battle does Richard Sharpe win the trophy that makes him famous throughout Britain?
Talavera
Talavera is where Sharpe steadies a regiment whose own colonel has fled, then outflanks the wavering French column and sends it into a rout.
Q 13The dying Major Lennox asks Richard Sharpe to wash away the shame of the lost colours by capturing what?
An Imperial Eagle
Q 21Which future Hollywood star played the blundering Prince of Orange in Sharpe's Waterloo?
Paul Bettany
Paul Bettany's Prince throws away so many lives at Waterloo that Sharpe shoots him from a hidden spot; Bettany went on to make his film debut in Bent.
Q 22Which actor played Colonel Brand, the decorated hero unmasked as a French spy in Sharpe's Mission?
Mark Strong
Mark Strong's Brand wins his men's devotion with a staged rescue under French fire, an early villain for an actor who later menaced Sherlock Holmes.
Q 23Which actor, a Bond villain in Die Another Day, played the turncoat officer Dodd in Sharpe's Challenge?
Toby Stephens
An Imperial Eagle was the standard Napoleon gave his regiments to carry at their head, and Sharpe plants the one he captures on the grave of the man who asked for it.
Q 14In Sharpe, which colonel sends Major Lennox across a bridge, where he dies and the colours are lost?
Sir Henry Simmerson
Sir Henry Simmerson then panics and blows the bridge with his own men still across it, yet he keeps turning up to plague Sharpe as late as the last film.
Q 15Which Spanish guerrilla leader, played by Assumpta Serna, becomes Richard Sharpe's first wife?
Teresa Moreno
Teresa Moreno first meets Sharpe when her guerrillas break up his fistfight with Harper, and she goes on fighting the French after their daughter is born.
Q 16Which woman marries Richard Sharpe, then takes his fortune to London and becomes Lord Rossendale's lover?
Jane Gibbons
Jane Gibbons is given power of attorney over Sharpe's 10,000 guineas before a battle, and runs off to spend them when he breaks a promise by fighting a duel.
Q 17After the wars, the TV hero Richard Sharpe retires to farm in which region of France?
Normandy
Normandy is home to Lucille, the French widow who wounds Sharpe by mistake when they first meet and falls for him while he recovers.
Q 18Which well-read rifleman was invented for the TV series Sharpe, inspired by a real soldier's published memoirs?
Harris
Harris was added because the producers wanted a clever one; the real soldier behind him could not read or write, yet dictated his recollections of the war.
Q 19Which folk musician played the rifleman Daniel Hagman in Sharpe and co-wrote the music for the series?
John Tams
John Tams also wrote the new words sung over the theme tune, and in 1996 he and Dominic Muldowney released an album of music from the films.
Q 20Whose life does Sergeant Richard Sharpe save from three French cavalrymen, earning a battlefield commission?
Sir Arthur Wellesley
Sir Arthur Wellesley rewards the rescue on the spot by making Sharpe a lieutenant, then keeps handing him the army's most dangerous errands.
Toby Stephens plays Dodd, who slaughters a garrison for its payroll while a young Sharpe survives by playing dead, and who is finally killed by Sharpe.
Q 24Which model, later a long-running American TV host, played the scheming regent Madhuvanthi in Sharpe's Challenge?
Padma Lakshmi
Padma Lakshmi played the late rajah's favourite concubine in the same year she began hosting Top Chef, a job she kept until 2023.
Q 25Which actress played Richard Sharpe's second wife and then married the actor who played Sharpe in real life?
Abigail Cruttenden
Abigail Cruttenden met her co-star during filming, and they married in 1997, the year the original run of films came to an end.
Q 26Which Scottish actor, later Logan Roy in Succession, played the spymaster Major Hogan in Sharpe?
Brian Cox
Brian Cox gave Sharpe his first missions as the army's intelligence chief, then left after two films and was replaced by a different spymaster.
Q 27In Sharpe's Rifles, the missing banker carrying a loan to pay the army belongs to which famous family?
Rothschild
Rothschild turns out to be hiding in plain sight: the banker has been travelling with Sharpe all along, disguised as a missionary's wife.
Q 28In Sharpe's Rifles, Major Vivar's guarded chest holds a banner of which saint, said to appear and defend Spain?
St James
St James, Santiago to the Spanish, is said to appear when the flag flies over a chapel, and Sharpe dismisses the legend until he is ordered to help raise it.
Q 29Which Spanish fortress town, where Sharpe's baby daughter is hidden, do the British storm in Sharpe's Company?
Badajoz
Badajoz is breached but the first assault falters; Sharpe rallies the men, leads them into the town and wins back his captaincy.
Q 30In Sharpe's Enemy, Richard Sharpe slips into the deserters' village to free the hostages on which night?
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve is picked because the deserters will be drunk and distracted, and Sharpe gets in with help from one of their own number.