Matador is a Danish TV series produced and shown between 1978 and 1982. It is set in the fictional Danish town of Korsbæk between 1929 and 1947. It follows the lives of a range of characters from across the social spectrum, focusing specifically on the rivalry between the families of two businessmen: banker Hans Christian Varnæs, an established local worthy, and Mads (Andersen-)Skjern, who arrives in town as a travelling salesman as the series opens, and builds up a large business. The name Matador was taken from the localised edition of the boardgame Monopoly, also the series' tentative English title. In addition, in contemporary Danish a "matador" is often used to describe a business tycoon, in the series referring to the character of Mads Skjern and his craftiness as a self-made entrepreneur.
Directed by Danish film-maker Erik Balling, Matador was the idea of author Lise Nørgaard, who wrote the bulk of the episodes, along with Karen Smith, Jens Louis Petersen, and Paul Hammerich. The series is one of the most well-known and popular examples of Danish television and represents a then peak of longtime development of Danish TV drama by the public service channel Danmarks Radio.
The series has become part of the modern self-understanding of Danes, partly because of its successful mix of melodrama and a distinct warm Danish humour in the depiction of characters, which were portrayed by a wide range of the most popular Danish actors at the time; but also not least because of its accurate portrayal of a turbulent Denmark from around the start of the Great Depression and through Nazi Germany's occupation of Denmark in World War II.
The distinctive and in Denmark celebrated theme tune of the series was composed by Bent Fabricius-Bjerre.
Matador originally aired on DR between November 1978 and January 1982 and has enjoyed repeated successful reruns in 1984-85, 1989–90, 1997–98, 2006–07, 2012–13, 2017-2018 and most recently 2020, for the latter newly restored to High Definition. Individual episodes figure prominently in Denmark's top TV viewing figures of all time, led by episode 9's showing during the series' first rerun on 10 February 1985 with estimated 3,641,000 viewers, followed closely by 3,516,000 viewers watching the series finale during its original run on 2 January 1982; this in a country of some 5 million people at the time.
Additionally, the series has been released on VHS and in 2001 on region 2 DVD. This first edition of 12 separate DVDs with two episodes each has been one of the most sold in the country's history and surpassed a total of 1 million sold copies in 2005. A second 2006 13-DVD box set included English subtitles for a wider audience, with various DVD editions surpassing 3.6 million copies sold by 2013. The series was widely popular in neighbouring Norway, Sweden, and Germany, and it has been broadcast in more than 20 countries worldwide, one of which was Australia, here also widely popular when broadcast on Australian SBS TV in Danish with English subtitles. Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark, born in Tasmania, stated in a TV interview on Australian TV in 2004, that she watched Matador whilst learning Danish.
List and synopsis of Matador episodes
(The English episode titles are taken from the English subtitle track on the 2006 Region 0 DVD collection. Many of the original episode titles are based on Danish puns and expressions.)
Season 1 (1978)
Season 2 (1979)
Season 3 (1980–1981)
Season 4 (1981–1982)
List of characters
Characters alphabetically:
Important characters
The Skjern dynasty
Mads (Andersen)-Skjern — (1:24) Jørgen Buckhøj- (born 1897) Scion of the Skjern dynasty. Mads is a stranger who arrives in Korsbæk with his motherless son Daniel as a traveling salesman in 1929. Seeing that the local clothing shop caters only to the interests of the well-to-do, he decides to start his own business, Skjern's Magasin, to provide clothing for the common people. Personality: Industrious; almost ruthless businessman who does not "forgive and forget"; a stern and overbearing father who expects much of his son Daniel. As time goes by he becomes increasingly stern to his son, as he slowly realizes that he will never be ready to take over the family business. Instead he favors his adoptive daughter Ellen, who is doing well in school, unlike Daniel. Because of this, she can get away with almost everything. When he accidentally finds out about his son's homosexuality, he banishes him from his home. This action almost costs him his marriage to Ingeborg.