UnderRated: The Costume Drama

I'm a sucker for them. The really well done period piece. Where the attention to detail in terms of clothes and acting or sometimes just one of those golden moments of televisual history can even overcome my irritation at some of the bigger historical inaccuracies or just total literary fabrications. Andrew Davies and Michael Hurst have been responsible for a fair few of these. But, in doing so, they have brought literature and history to the masses in a way that some of the drier, more factual incarnations never could have. As a result, our finest thespians are queueing up to take part in their adaptations.

The famous BBC production of 'Pride and Prejudice' was castigated for the superfluous pond-dipping by Mr Darcy but was beloved by the nation's women purely for Colin Firth's reappearance in his wet shirt and breeches. Ably supported by a cast of some of our theatre's finest character actors, his sheer broody arrogance held us entranced for weeks on end until Jennifer Ehle's clipped Elizabeth Bennett finally got her man.



The Shakhur Kapur film 'Elizabeth' in 1998 had several glaring historical faux pas and yet it was totally redeemed by the incredibly erotic and turbulent relationship forged at a time of total terror by two prisoners in the Tower of London. Cate Blanchett's Elizabeth and Robert Dudley, played by Joseph Fiennes have an amazing screen chemistry but, at the end of the day, she loved her country more and married England.

But then, it's hardly surprising really that she wasn't prepared to cede her will and her independence to any man after what happened to her Mother, Anne Boleyn, at the hands of her father, King Henry VIII.





Being an aficionado of the period, the current Season 2 of Showtime's 'The Tudors' should have had me spitting feathers of inarticulate rage at some of the bigger liberties taken over dates and personnel but I found it impossible not to be completely overwhelmed by the sheer gorgeousness of the sets and wardrobes and the passion spilling out all over my living room carpet. The story of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn is well documented but has so many twists and turns that may or may not be true, depending on which historian you speak to, because of the depth of feeling that their relationship evoked not only at the time but for decades afterwards. So I forgave Michael Hurst his worst calumnies and allowed myself to be sucked in and enthralled. Fantastic stuff!