From TES issue 61 (January 2010)

Series (1)/2/3/4. Level 2/3.
MOGDRED
Mogdred is one of my favourite characters, and I have always found John Woodnutt’s portrayal of him to be very chilling and suitably scary. I do feel, however, that Mogdred is a tragically underused character – his unnerving sense of implacability does a lot to strengthen his eerie nature, but I can’t help feeling that appearances in only eleven episodes (over four series totalling fifty-six possible episodes) do not really do Mogdred justice.

I think it’s a shame that Mogdred didn’t manage to turn up in series 1 – even though no team reached far enough in level three to meet him, he could have made a quick appearance in level two, but he didn’t. Having said that, I personally have no doubt that had Richard taken the horn instead of the dagger in the level three clue room, Mogdred would have appeared on the far side of the crumbled Wall of Jericho and threatened the team with imminent death, necessitating the use of the spell OPPOSITE to change him into Merlin; that would have been the final challenge and the team would have won.

Series 2 is undoubtedly the best series for Mogdred in terms of the number of appearances made, although it does not – in my opinion – contain his best appearance. Mogdred can be seen and heard haunting levels two and three on many occasions during this series, creating a very nice bit of atmosphere and generally unnerving the teams as only he is able. Despite the fact that he never really does anything to threaten the quest directly, Mogdred is always great to watch, particularly his very chilling appearance at the end of Tony’s quest, when he pronounces death for the team in no uncertain terms, although this is purely because of a previous mistake and actually has nothing to do with Mogdred himself: ”Welcome to one of Mogdred’s little playpens, dungeoneer. Play awhile – play forever!” – Mogdred.

Sadly, Mogdred’s appearances in series 3 and 4 are few and far between. After a fairly nice series 3 appearance menacing Leo in level three, Mogdred is seen disguised as a monk in the Bridged Vale (when he trades insults with McGrew and then turns him into a toad) before he disappears from the series altogether – yes, there’s no sign of him for the entire second half of series 3! Thanks to the ineptitude of three teams, Merlin takes four episodes off during the third quarter of this series, but then he makes up for this absence by appearing in all of the last four episodes. Mogdred, however, does not resurface, which I think is a shame.

Mogdred’s first appearance in series 4 goes some way towards making up for this absence, as it is undoubtedly his finest hour. Not only does he appear in level three to menace Helen and her promising team of Geordies, he cruelly snuffs out their quest with a haunted sword in one of the greatest death scenes ever! The team’s death is entirely due to their own mistakes, of course, and they could have defeated Mogdred if they’d cast the spell BUT instead of trying to cast the much longer (but apparently more powerful) TRANSFORMATION, but this takes nothing away from the brilliance of the scene, and what a great moment it is for Mogdred – he deserved more scenes like this!

Unfortunately, Mogdred then disappears until the very last episode of the series, seemingly having lost his power in level three to Malice for a brief period. His final appearance is fitting enough, mocking Giles’s efforts and threatening him in no uncertain terms, but I would’ve liked to have seen a lot more of him during the first four series!

login to vote

From TES issue 1 (December 1995)

SERIES 1-4 : LEVEL 1/2/3 : MOGDRED

Here he is, surely the most frightening character ever to haunt the dungeon. Played by John 'Merlin' Woodnut, Mogdred appeared to epitomise the general atmosphere of Knightmare's early years. Occasionally you would find him capturing maidens in level one, but Mogdred was far more at home scaring the wits out of dungeoneers foolish enough to encounter him in the lower levels.

There are endless examples of quests clearly thrown off course simply by an eerie, echoing and thoroughly evil cackle from this man. Yet, for all of his threats, taunts, and sneers - Mogdred rarely chose to kill dungeoneers himself, though he did often hurry dungeoneers into a fatal error. In fact, this was the very reason for Mogdred's exsistence. Children are easily frightened, and this man did so comfortably. Just one problem - the hat spoils the image !

FEAR FACTOR: 10 Literally terrifying!
HUMOUR RATING: 6 A certain sick humour I suppose!
KILLER INSTINCT: 4 All mouth ?
OSCAR STANDARD: 9 Evil personified

Written by and submitted with the kind permission of Paul McIntosh.

login to vote

The username of a member of the Knightmare.com Forum who joined in June 2003 and posted from the following month onwards. Mogdred, real name Andrew Morrice, once provided a link on the forum to a cartoon he'd drawn of Treguard working as a driving instructor. More of his cartoons can be seen on his Granitoons DeviantArt page.

Other forum members commemorate Mogdred in their usenames too, though less accurately in some cases.

mogred joined in June 2003, making a fourth and final post in the same month.

Moggydredlock also registered in June of 2003 and made four posts.

In February 2014, eyeofmogdred started posting on the forum, followed by Mogdred2k14 in March of the same year.

Mogdrebowen has made 3 forum posts since joining in May 2014.

merlinmogdred joined the forum in December 2017.

Mogdredisback joined the forum in February 2018, making a first post (about Series 5 spell GHOST) in the same month.

[Earlier versions: 2017-01-07 15:01:48, 2014-03-29 12:52:35, 2014-02-26 21:52:04, 2006-12-03 18:34:21, 2005-11-22 18:36:14]

login to vote

Mogdred was the original enemy in Knightmare, and was Merlin's alto-ego. He lasted from series 1 to Series 4, although he never appeared in series 1 due to only one team reaching level 3 (though his name appears in the credits). Mogdred tended to appear to the dungeoneer as an image rather than been phyisically in the same room as the dungeoneer.

"Welcome to one of Mogdred's little play pens, play a while ...play forever!"

login to vote