Wolf Hall (BBC2/PBS)

[dog-days]

Poor Anne. This was one of the more unsympathetic portrayals of her person, but her end was heart-wrenching all the same.

I'm feeling sorry for Cromwell in advance as well. His face in that last scene: "With friends like these..." In fact I'm considering whether to watch the second season at all. I'm not dissatisfied with the quality, quite the opposite, but I'm somewhat faint of heart and since Cromwell's tale ends the way we know it ends...

Yes. I haven't been able to say much about "Masters of Phantoms" but that's not because it wasn't good. It's been coming back to me for the last two days, on and off.

Claire Foy was fantastic throughout, but especially so in her scene on the scaffold.

I also watched the program on BBC4 afterwards with Rylance and Kominsky discussing the show next to where Cromwell and Anne are buried. When Rylance was asked about his inspirations for the role, I wasn't really expecting him to name Brad Pitt.

Thanks for mentioning that. I didn't know about it, but now I'll check it out. Love Rylance's ability to come out with the unexpected. :)

My only real criticism of the last episode is that the music in the final scene was much too heavy-handed and obvious.

[red snow]

A strong ending. We got to see Cromwell get his hands dirty at last too.

[Castel]

Am I the only one that didn't like this? It just felt...empty. I bounce between liking Rylance sometimes and finding him just too internal at others and the plot seemed to move from point to point not leaving time to grab unto much, personally. And Henry was tragically absent. And, I feel guilty holding the look of the show against it but I can't help it, it just looks...dull. The sets, the cinematography, everything.

For all the talk of hypersexual Showtime shows not being comparable to other, better shows set in the same time period (see: Borgia) I feel like this was a validation of their approach. The show was far less engaging and not smart enough to make up for it.

[Werthead]

The TV show really didn't have time to be anything more than a greatest hits collection of the high points of the books and the real history, not to mention the problem of over-lauding Cromwell. The timing was a big problem: three 6-8 episode seasons would have been a far better structure.

The male actors were mostly very good, but they both miscast and underwrote the female roles. Whilst the quality of writing, dialogue and direction was generally superior to that of The Tudors, I couldn't help feeling that The Tudors had a far superior female cast (Maria Doyle Kennedy and Natalie Dormer both knocked it out of the park as Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, and Joanne Whalley and Claire Foy did...not, to be kind) and also its structure and length was much more appropriate to the material. Also, Mark Rylance was excellent but didn't bring the required moral ambiguity until the end. James Frain somehow was an utter shit when Cromwell was being nasty (which was a hell of a lot more often than Wolf Hall depicted) but still made you feel sorry for him when Henry turned on him. Frain did a really good job with Cromwell's growing realisation and horror that all of the idealism the King espoused was just a cover for his own selfishness, and the feeling of betrayal was done very well. Wolf Hall seemed to go in a different direction with Cromwell not really being that bothered about religion at all, which seems to fly in the face of most of the history. Interesting to see how it goes in the second season when Cromwell has to get his hands much dirtier.

[dog-days]

I was brought up on slow moving Brit TV shows, such as Jewel in the Crown, Brideshead Revisited and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - to me the show was rather fast-paced in comparison, apart from the first episode's odd obsession with following Cromwell's back very slowly everywhere.

I liked the look of the show, but then I like George Orwell, brown bread and Shaker furniture, so naturally I would. Substitute spare/minimalist/naturalistic for "dull".

I don't think it captured the richness of Mantell's prose-style, which is what really make the books something special IMO. And so seen as an adaptation of her books, it wasn't that great. The Rsc plays managed it better - theatre finds it easier to ignore realism and linearity and go straight for the intense, the grotesque and the weird. TV, especially BBC TV, and especially BBC period drama, is for the most part still pretty conservative in that regard I think. But what the BBC did have is Rylance's performance, which I liked very much, and complicated emotional and intellectual relationships which were diverting to watch, and made the moments of real drama more meaningful. For me Anne Boleyn's last scenes are some of the most painful I've seen since Season 4 of The Wire.

I don't think the show is better or worse than sexy Showtime style stuff, but it does offer a different kind of experience, which I appreciate.

Interesting historical link: The Man Who Died With Cromwell

ETA: Haven't seen The Tudors, but I'm surprised that you, Wert, rate the Catherine/Anne actresses more highly. Were they really that good, or is it the show's characterization you prefer?

Cromwell not really being that bothered about religion at all,

But he is. In one of his first scenes, he's seen talking to his girls about the Bible in English. He's called a Lutheran, and most of the cast appear to know that this is where his sympathies lie. More threatens to search his house for forbidden books. Cromwell intervenes to save his Protestant friend. He's just also very careful and circumspect and doesn't want to die. For which reason he isn't going to spend time making speeches about the Evils of Popery the Whore of Babylon. I think the adaptation was quite good about that - unless you have the instincts of the Vicar of Bray (and even the Vicar of Bray might have found it a challenge to keep up with Henry) the safest approach is to say as little as possible - sticking to Vivat Henricus Rex Fidei Defensor atque <insert Conjunx here>

[Castel]

The TV show really didn't have time to be anything more than a greatest hits collection of the high points of the books and the real history, not to mention the problem of over-lauding Cromwell. The timing was a big problem: three 6-8 episode seasons would have been a far better structure.

It definitely had a bit of that White Queen feel.

It's at a bit of disadvantage in that we're comparing it to a show that had a healthy, unrestricted run. But even comparing season-to-season it still needed more time.

The male actors were mostly very good, but they both miscast and underwrote the female roles. Whilst the quality of writing, dialogue and direction was generally superior to that of The Tudors, I couldn't help feeling that The Tudors had a far superior female cast (Maria Doyle Kennedy and Natalie Dormer both knocked it out of the park as Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, and Joanne Whalley and Claire Foy did...not, to be kind) and also its structure and length was much more appropriate to the material. Also, Mark Rylance was excellent but didn't bring the required moral ambiguity until the end. James Frain somehow was an utter shit when Cromwell was being nasty (which was a hell of a lot more often than Wolf Hall depicted) but still made you feel sorry for him when Henry turned on him. Frain did a really good job with Cromwell's growing realisation and horror that all of the idealism the King espoused was just a cover for his own selfishness, and the feeling of betrayal was done very well. Wolf Hall seemed to go in a different direction with Cromwell not really being that bothered about religion at all, which seems to fly in the face of most of the history. Interesting to see how it goes in the second season when Cromwell has to get his hands much dirtier.

I liked this show's Anne Boleyn, but I'm coming into this partly blind -I haven't read the books nor am I a big Tudor enthusiast. She was more malicious than Dormer's Anne but I enjoyed it.

I don't think the show is better or worse than sexy Showtime style stuff, but it does offer a different kind of experience, which I appreciate.

I'm grateful for the variety. I just wished that I had liked the product more.

Besides, the things I would say the Showtime show did better have less to do with bewbies and more to do with just a sense of narrative....cohesion and weight? I never felt unmoored like I did with The White Queen or slightly apathetic as things flashed by here. It'd be one thing if this was a result of eschewing cheap drama for a truly deep look into the culture of the time (refusing to draw easy parallels to keep modern audiences entertained) but...it wasn't

[Werthead]

I liked this show's Anne Boleyn, but I'm coming into this partly blind -I haven't read the books nor am I a big Tudor enthusiast. She was more malicious than Dormer's Anne but I enjoyed it.

The thing about Anne Boleyn was that was actually very clever, very cultured, very charming and had an air of mystery that kept Henry enthralled for seven years before they got married. Dormer sold that very well as well as the later ruthlessness and viciousness. Foy - who is quite a good actress in other things - wasn't given that material, though. She was just given the vicious, ruthless and very obvious stuff to play with instead which is a fairly superficial reading of the character. Again, the timing was a problem.

ETA: Haven't seen The Tudors, but I'm surprised that you, Wert, rate the Catherine/Anne actresses more highly. Were they really that good, or is it the show's characterization you prefer?

The Tudors was a broader look at the history of the time rather than just one character (or even two or three), so they all got more material, more screen time and more depth. But Maria Doyle Kennedy was excellent as Catherine of Aragon, really nailing the frustration and anguish of the character. She's a really good actress who's been in tons of stuff without ever quite hitting the big time, but The Tudors did it for her and was a big influence on her getting her current role on Orphan Black (where she is also excellent, one of the few actors to stand out alongside Tatiana Maslany). Anne Boleyn was the making of Dormer's career and pretty much got her the gig on Game of Thrones. She was great in it.

[red snow]

I'd still say Wolf Hall was better but I guess the show did require you to be quite familiar with the time period as it did jump around a lot and left lots of things off-screen. I've since brushed up on the history of the period a bit more but have to admit "the tudors" probably made "wolf hall" easier for me to follow.

The narrative in Tudors is always going to have an edge in terms of what's covered as it had 24-26 episodes to cover the same ground that the BBC show did. A bit like Kirk Douglas "Spartacus" vs Starz "spartacus"

[kairparavel]

This starts next Sunday night! Pretty excited.