Wolf Hall

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.

White Heat

TV producers, and presumably viewers, have a longstanding preoccupation with the love lives of groups of friends, a la 'Cold Feet' and 'This Life'.  Seemingly we love to see people form deep friendships and betray each other.  'White Heat' takes this format and adds a 'Big Chill' opening (the death of one of the group) and a big dose of social history straight from 'Our Friends in the North'.


First episodes are often awkward, bearing the burden of introducing everyone and generally setting the scene.  The scene looks prop-perfect and the performances are as good as anyone would expect from a classy cast, which provides a gloss over the unsubtleties.  It's an ok ride so far, but a slow one, with only marginally engaging characters.  The six flatmates are very PC for 1965: gender balance; the men a gay Asian, a Caribbean, and a Northener; the women an arty blonde, a brainy brunette and a poor overweight Catholic.  There are three initial attractions pointing to pairings that will of-course rearrange over time.  And just in case you forget which time they're all in, there's plenty of television and radio reminding you of events, and a soundtrack almost as intrusive as that of 'Heartbeat'.  Nothing by The Who and no mention of an ailing Churchill, however, can detract from anachronisms like telling a girl to take out her aggression in the gym.  Boxing gym?  She'd be waiting a long time for a Fitness First.


Comparisons to 'Our Friends...' are inevitable, and not discouraged by the BBC, but this may prove to be a double-edged sword.

Upstairs Downstairs

Having blogged about the goings-on at Downton Abbey, we had to comment on those at 165 Eaton Place.


It was rumoured that Eileen Atkins, one of the original creators who played Lady Holland in the Christmas 2010 episodes, had fallen out with the production team over the script, and Jean Marsh has apparently suffered health problems and appears in this series less than she intended.  A shame on both counts, because both have presence and passion for this drama of domestic life above and below stairs in a bygone era.  The 1970s series needs no introduction, but as we've said elsewhere, it covered the ground of 'Downton...' and  did it better.


So why has the reincarnation fared less well than the ITV upstart?  (The original 'Upstairs...' was ironically broadcast on ITV too).  Oddly, it may be the thing that should have given it a head start: the fact that it's a sequel.  Only the character of Rose and the nominal address link the viewer to the well-loved original, so there is little for nostalgics to wallow in, and while there were still households with servants in the late 1930s, it was no longer a way of life for the majority.  The grand era that it encapsulates was already past, and more-or-less ended in the years covered in the original, and in 'Downton Abbey'.


Heidi Thomas also scripted the 8.30pm programme, 'Call the Midwife', but with the guidance of the original memoirs.  The difference here is that the characters lack life.  With Eileen Atkins' departure, Lady Holland has apparently died, while Rose is in hospital, so we have a new 'Aunt' and a new maid.  For viewers who can't work out who is who, who is what to whom and how the War to End All Wars didn't quite come off, there are handy simple explanations in the dialogue: "She's your aunt!"  "We have two small children."  "We fought for our country!"  Unfair?  Maybe, but allied to the preponderance of sandbags, barrage balloons, blackout curtains and gas masks in 1938, and the out-of-nowhere smacker between Hallam Holland and his wayward sister-in-law (whom he'd hated in the previous episodes) this strained for dramatic impact without achieving it.  The monkey had a lucky escape....


P.S. We hear that a young JFK puts in an appearance in the next episode, along with his dad.  Why wouldn't Joe take Joe Jnr along, rather than the (at the time) also-ran John?  Because John became President!  We didn't think we'd be praising 'Downton...' but so far it has happily avoided flying visits from young Winston or Bertie Windsor.

The Night Watch (spoilers!)

Aha!  Just as we get mired in cops and more cops, along comes this.  More historical lesbian shenanigans courtesy of Sarah Waters.  I know how un-PC that sounds, but... frankly it’s what distinguishes it from several other dramas about historical shenanigans.  This time it’s WWII and ‘anything goes’ and, judging from this, frequently went, without giving a damn.  First, we like the setting, we like the cast.

We won't discuss merits relative to the original novel, except to say that without literary and descriptive prose, and squeezed into 90 minutes, this is ultimately little more than a sexual merry-go-round told in semi-backwards fashion, a la Pinter's 'Betrayal'.  Kay, played by Anna Maxwell Martin, helpfully bookends as narrator, telling us we're joining partway through.

So, leaving sexual orientation out altogether, and taken chronologically, character A leaves character B for character C, who then leaves character A for character B.  With me so far?  Character B then turfs character C.  Meanwhile, a colleague of character C - character D - has a brother - character E - who is in love with character F, who, of-course, falls for character D. 

To reiterate, the cast are very good.  Anna Maxwell Martin, Claire Foy, Jodie Whittaker, Harry Treadaway, JJ Feild, Claudie Blakley, Kenneth Cranham, Liam Garrigan and Anna Wilson-Jones are all on fine form as frail, shell-shocked human beings, coping or not coping in their own way.  The costumes and sets are finely detailed, down to visible plumes of breath in cold wartime bedrooms.  However, it didn't really need the badly mocked-up shots of London burning, or St. Pauls by night, to set the scene.  Also, the music was distracting.  It sounded very weepy-melodrama and intruded on scenes unnecessarily (so they're unhappy: we get it).  And did we really need the rewind device to drag us back in time?  It did take us back - straight to the 80s and all that messing about with the VCR.

No TWNHs but one cliched moment when Kay, retrieving dead children after a bombing raid, stares at a pile of rubble with a rag doll on top.  To paraphrase a scene in 'The Wire' where they're watching war footage: "Oh no, not the doll again.  Can't he leave it out?  There's always the damn doll...."

Has it made us want to read the book?  Not really, despite having read and enjoyed others of her novels (Ali).  Perhaps that's the acid test for an adaptation?