The superlatives came thick and fast even before broadcast. Is this the most eagerly anticipated BBC drama in years? All the augurs were good: two Booker-winning novels, a long hit run of a two-night play at the Globe and in the West End, and not forgetting much-loved predecessors covering similar territory ('The Six Wives of Henry VIII' etc.). Hype, however, is a double-edged sword, and the transformation of over a thousand pages of close, nuanced text into a compelling televisual feast was always going to be a challenge.
On the evidence of the first episode, fans of 'The Tudors' will be sorely disappointed. Other than the necessary bursts of tedious exposition ("The Emperor's men have taken the Pope! That's Queen Katherine's nephew and he'll never let the Pope grant a divorce!") this panders hardly at all to an audience in search of Henry-lite storytelling. The costumes do not flatter, the dialogue retains the sour wit of the original prose and Cromwell himself, though reconfigured from villainy, is too elusive to be a hero.
Broadly speaking, this follows the chronology of the novels, a teasing, pleasing structure that takes small hops forward and back like a courtly dance. We accompany Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance), son of a blacksmith, with a murky, violent past on his journey through the often sad, always brutal rise and fall of Anne Boleyn (Claire Foy). Rylance, for anyone who has yet to be convinced, is wonderful, his expression and demeanour conveying in stillness or mobility the man Cromwell, aware he is engaged in dangerous manoeuverings and beset by men who kill easily, take confession and eat with a hearty appetite afterwards.
It is, to be slightly pedantic, a bit clean. Floors are swept, draperies untouched by dust or grease, even in Cromwell's middling home. It's forgiveable though, when the sound is audible, the music unobtrusive and the filming in appropriate light such as fire and candlelight gives beautiful shade and depth to the scenes. This isn't history, it is Mantel's re-imagination of a man's life in Tudor England. We know relatively little about the figure with the steely gaze in Holbein's portrait, but this telling surely does him proud.
Daniel (Philip Glenister) tries to reconcile his wayward brother Robbo (Steven Mackintosh) with their dad Samuel (Bernard Hill) over a drink in a central Mancunian pub. Unfortunately for him, the truce fails and they are sitting feet away from the IRA bomb on the day it exploded in 1996. Nobody dies, of-course, but it proves a catalyst in all their lives. Before the end of the episode (one of three) Sam has had a stroke, Robbo has come up with not one but two insane plans to clear his debt and Daniel has begun an affair with the pub cleaner, whom he rescued from the wreckage.
This has nice moments but is mostly either predictable or unbelievable. The use of northern staples the Stone Roses and the Smiths on the soundtrack is lazy and responsible Daniel's sudden need to escape from his close (adoptive) family into the arms of a stranger just doesn't ring true. So far, this is largely a waste of a good cast, in-particularly Steven Mackintosh, who turns in an ill-advised imitation of the drug dealer in 'Withnail & I'. If you like Madchester, and these are typical residents, you may like it a little less after watching this.
A spy story! The murky world of government! The machinations of the shady and the powerful! Yes, here we go again, and clearly Mr Hare's actor friends bombarded his phone line(s) to be in it. Can we believe that the British PM would collude with American agents of torture? Sadly yes, we can, and we're unable to throw a TWNH at it.
You can count cliches: jazz-loving hero is unlikely magnet for women, has estranged daughter and ruthless (female) colleague; deceased honourable man who knew too much etc. You can recall countless other dramas with similar themes ('Defence of the Realm' was made around a quarter of a century ago and remains depressingly pertinent). What made this so watchable was David Hare's dialogue: sharp, lyrical, revealing the difficult mix of cynicism and hope that dogs Worricker, and presumably Hare. It's the cry of someone who wants a better world, where honour and loyalty have meaning, although as Rollo, an undercover agent, points out, nothing has changed: the world is still run by the same people, and they are Worricker's own class. Unlike his fellows, he will not adapt, chameleon-like, with the times.
"It's the 21st Century.... Why do people keep saying that, as though it justifies everything?" I paraphrase, but it's a timely reminder that it isn't only spies who don't know whom to trust.
