DVD Review

Title: The Tudors: Complete Season One

Produced By: Showtime

Creator & Writer: Michael Hirst

Principal Actors: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Sam Neil, Jeremy Northam

Number Of Episodes: 10

DVD Released: November 20^th 2007

$74.99 CDN, $42.99 US

4 Stars

Reviewed By: Kindah Mardam Bey

Henry VIII was the original British bad boy. Move over David Bowie or Sid Vicious, you’ve got nothing saucy on King Henry VIII! At least so says the history books; a charming and head-strong King who defined a religious movement, burned Churches, beheaded wives, drank too much, philandered too much, died with no male heirs and a lethal case of syphilis. Of course the ever boundary pushing Showtime Channel wants to make a show about this man and his reign as Britain’s most infamous ruler! Although, a portion of irony sets in when one thinks that this is an Irish-Canadian co-production.

Penned by Henry VIII’s daughter’s present day champion, Michael Hirst who wrote the scripts for both Elizabeth and Elizabeth:The Golden Age films (with Cate Blanchett as the Virgin Queen) has brought his bed-chamber-royal-dalliances to the small screen after effectively deflowering the 16^th Century Queen’s good reputation on the big screen. So hypnotizing was the smartly titled The Tudors first season that almost immediately after its season finale, a box set was available for home purchase. Swiftly following was two Golden Globe nominations for Best Dramatic Series and Best Actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers as a young and impassioned Henry VIII.

The show starts towards the end of Henry’s first marriage with Catherine of Aragon. She has had a daughter by him and he avoids her bedchamber in favour of a string of midnight rendezvous with ladies-in-waiting. His power is being threatened by those within his court. His dedication to the papacy is still in tact. He is working towards an alliance with France and then everything seems to fall apart at the seams as his most notorious passion for Anne Boleyn enraptures a King above all else in his path. The Tudors is a saucy, biting and probably quite accurate portrayal of relationship manoeuvrings within Henry’s court. My biggest gripe with the production would be that the characters/historical figures all seemed to think very much as if they were of this century instead of their own. It felt like the present day was trying to force its way into the cracks of history, which lent itself to tedium at times.

However The Tudors is for the most part well-told, no matter how historically inaccurate it may be, and it has an amazing level of sizzle for the small screen. The ‘Uncut’ DVD version means they kept all the explicit sexual content in and I would have probably preferred a cut version as the raunchiness of Showtime’s ideas on intimacy seem a little too ‘get the job done’ for my romantic tastes. The relationship between Boleyn and Henry is wrought with sexual tension which wasn’t really played on as much as it could have been.

The casting is simply superb as Jonathan Rhys Meyer’s Henry seems just arrogant enough, punk enough and falling apart enough in equal portions to be an ideal interpretation of such a robust historical figure. You love and hate Meyer’s Henry most of the time and those uneasy mixed feelings is oddly an intriguing place to be as a viewer. Yet, it’s not simply Meyers who makes an impression, but the whole cast deserves high praise as it would appear that Showtime invested strongly in talent for every performance, from Canada, Ireland and England. Sam Neill puts in a complex and dynamic performance as Cardinal Wolsey, and Jeremy Northam as Henry’s other advisor Sir Thomas More showcases a man of good deeds with a dark undercurrent (it also appears Northam is great to have on set as he is a complete Ham between takes. See special features bloopers). The women in Henry’s life are primarily Queen Catherine Of Aragon played regally and definitively by Maria Doyle Kennedy, and Anne Boleyn played by the beautiful and talented Natalie Dormer; If Boleyn was half what Dormer portrays her as, it would be easy to see what ensnared a King in a net so large it changed the history of England.

The other woman in Henry’s life is his sister Princess Margaret (Gabrielle Anwar) who he farms off to wed in a peace treaty, but she ends up by falling in love with Charles Brandon (Henry Cavill) who is Henry’s best friend and has been charged with the obligation of getting Margaret to her wedding bed safely (well he did that in one way at least). I’ve always been a fan of this love story when I first learned about it in The Sword And The Rose. I don’t think I’ve ever disliked a Charles Brandon after seeing Richard Todd first claim the part in the 1953 aforementioned film. Cavill fits the bill amply, and then some. If young women are getting a little cooled from McDreamy and McSteamy, they may swoon over Cavill’s swaggering portrayal of Brandon which is rich with magnetism. The only performance that lacked lustre was 1990s film star beauty Gabrielle Anwar who was swept off her feet in Scent Of A Woman on the dance floor by Al Pacino but seemed painfully thin and weathered in The Tudors. Henry Czerny as Norfolk and Kristen Holden Reid bring an A-Game attitude to their performances as they represent the Canadian branch of talent on the set. James Frain as the ever doomed Cromwell brings just enough to the table for the audience to recognize his importance in season two.

Overall, The Tudors Season One seems to be a slam-dunk for Showtime, with a promising future for season two. Stay tuned to see what this original bad boy of history does next…