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| The Tudors Friday 05 October 9:00pm - 10:00pm BBC2 Historical drama series. After French treachery, angry young Henry VIII prepares for war while Cardinal Wolsey conspires for peace. However, affairs closer to home pose potential threats to the king. Subtitled, Widescreen, High definition, Audio-described Cast Jonathan Rhys Meyers,Sam Neil,Jeremy Northam,Maria Doyle Kennedy,Steven Waddington,Ruta Gedmintas Directed by: Charles McDougall |
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| From The Times September 15, 2007 Henry, before the fatsuit Tall, dark and handsome . . . this is Henry VIII as we’ve never seen him. Our critic meets a historian sexing up history Paul Hoggart Historical dramas always ruffle feathers. They sex up history ( Rome), romanticise it ( Braveheart), distort it ( The Patriot) or completely reinvent it ( U-571). Even those with honourable intentions provoke academic squawks by featuring the wrong mark of Spitfire or giving King Arthur anachronistic underpants. One way or another The Tudors, a glossy new import filmed in Ireland by America’s Showtime channel, promises to be a 24 carat, fox-in-a-hen-coop of a feather-ruffler. The Tudors is a ten-part life of the young Henry VIII, though as the creator and writer Michael Hirst admits, the title stakes a claim to long-term dynastic ambitions. Despite the challenging opening slogan, “You think you know a story, but you only know how it ends . . .” it has already been attacked by American historians, and it’s not even their history. Paradoxically, historical drama is meant to entertain and will abuse or ignore the known facts every which way to do so. Yet the special frisson of the genre comes from our belief that it is based on truth. Inevitably The Tudorstries to have it both ways, so when I met Hirst in Soho last month, I wanted to know how much of it was true, how much was complete fiction and how he justified taking liberties with history. As the writer of the Cate Blanchett film Elizabeth, Hirst is a veteran of such controversy. Hoping to avert the wrath of academic historians over that script, he contacted David Starkey. “I said I knew that historians are going to jump up and down, but I could lead him through the choices that I made and the logic behind them. I wrote to him and he wrote back about his new book and television series. Then he wrote a nasty article about the film. But on the back of it, his series was huge, because there was a huge appetite suddenly.” Ironically, Hirst comes across as more bookishly academic than the style-conscious showmen of TV history. Educated at Bradford Grammar School, Nottingham and Oxford, he was set to be an Eng Lit don in America when his friend the director Nick Roeg lured him into screenwriting. But his priorities here are simple. “My duty to Showtime was to get Americans to watch it,” he tells me. “If it makes people interested that’s wonderful. Then they can read Starkey if they want. It’s based on history, but it’s not history. It’s a show.” It is easy to see this as doublet-and-hose soap opera, but during planning an executive sent him “dozens of DVDs to watch: all of them The West Wing!” His main goal was to create a similar sense of pacy political intrigue, he says. There is also plenty of sex. Henry, played with hedonistic relish by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, picks off his wife’s tastier maids, and Cardinal Wolsey relieves the tensions of high office with his mistress. “These were sexy, violent times,” says Hirst. It’s the bowdlerised traditional version of history that is inaccurate, he argues. “I’ve probably read more books on the Tudors than anyone else alive, but I’m looking for different things than a historian – little anecdotes, quirks, anything that gives me a way into character.” The series is packed with examples. Henry tries to vault over a pond and ends up upside down in the water. Archbishop Cranmer gets secretly married in Germany and brings his wife home hidden in a box. “There’s a rule of thumb that the more extraordinary a scene is, the more it’s likely to be based on received historical fact,” he insists. “When the head of Showtime saw the pilot, he asked if any of it was true,” Hirst recalls. “I said as a joke that about 85 per cent of it was. In some ways the script is truer to the period than those wooden reenactments in historical documentaries.” So, according to Hirst, most of The Tudors is accurate, including some bits which seem completely implausible. But what really matters is whether it works as entertainment, and viewers won’t need a history degree to work that out. The Tudors starts on BBC Two, Oct 5, 9pm |
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| Tudor reign continues on BBC Two The second series of popular historical TV drama The Tudors will be shown next year, the BBC has confirmed. Created by Michael Hirst, writer of the film Elizabeth, the series was shot in Ireland over the summer with Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the young Henry VIII. Hirst promises "old and new conflicts, both at court and outside it". Launched earlier this month, The Tudors has been a ratings success for BBC Two with an average audience of 3.2 million viewers tuning in each week. The series also features Sam Neill as Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Jeremy Northam as Sir Thomas More and Maria Doyle Kennedy as Catherine of Aragon, Henry's first wife. 'Compulsory viewing' The second season sees veteran actor Peter O'Toole join the cast as Pope Paul III. "We are extremely pleased with our viewers' positive reactions to The Tudors," said George McGhee, controller of programme acquisitions. "Henry VIII and his six wives are still compulsory viewing in the 21st century as portrayed by this young and excellent cast." Executive producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner also produced Elizabeth and its forthcoming sequel Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Story from BBC NEWS: |