The White Queen

Another Philippa Gregorisation of history, this time the Wars of the Roses.  Lots of pretty costumes, clunky armour, pretty actors and clunky dialogue, not necessarily in that order.  On a scale of the actual past to 'The Tudors', this ranks roughly halfway, so the liberties are a bit more subtle than a late-life Henry VIII played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers clad in something more Calvin Klein than codpiece.

The first hour was a rollicking romance with boy-band-alike Edward IV falling in lust with Lizzie Woodville to the point of proposing to her rather than the politically astute match of a French princess.  That's about it for plot.  There's a lot of the requisite exposition to characters who already know what's going on of the "You do remember he killed your husband, don't you?" variety and some Merlinesque witchery which has Lizzie with second sight, but otherwise it's Sunday night fun with plenty of filth except where it should be, i.e. on the people, whose costumes have clearly enjoyed a non-biological 30 degree wash and a ceramic-plate iron.

Mrs. Biggs

Britain in 1957 was so unutterably grim that dowdy bullion office worker Charmian Powell (Sheridan Smith) falls for cheeky chappy Ronnie Biggs (Daniel Mays) after a brief encounter on a train.  She learns he's a convicted criminal, works as a carpenter and lives with another woman, but still agrees to steal from her employer and run away with him.  He hits her, but still she stays.  Her dad is a bully and a bore, but the words 'frying pan' and 'fire' spring to mind.

The performances are as good as expected and the writing by Jeff Pope is competent enough but... an 80-minute episode slipped by before we even got to the so-called Great Train Robbery, and there are another four episodes, presumably of 50 minutes, to go.  We already know what happened, but do we care?  They weren't Robin Hoods, just thieves; not folk heroes, just criminals.  The drama doesn't appear to have anything interesting to say, probably because there's nothing more to be said.