Make Way for The King! Calling All Tudorphiles!

Here's the thing I've read many books about Henry and co. fiction and non. And I do like him. I even have symphathy for him in his boneheaded , stubborn quest for a son. But his father DRILLED it into him that a male heir was the only way to carry on the Tudor name. I guess he never dreamed in a million years Elizabeth would be one of the greatest monarchs of all time. He did many horrible things but also many great enlightened things. And the thing I keep reading about Elizabeth and Henry was their great sense of fun and humor. So I just wish they would touch on that. He had many loyal friends that loved him Charles Brandon being one. So he could not have been a spoiled petulant brat all the time.

I didn't think Natalie was very good at all in the first season, but she did a great job in Season 2. Someone on the official Showtime boards suggested that she come back to play Catherine Howard who was a cousin of Anne's.

Some Tudor news: It looks like Jonathan Rhys Myers will be back for Season 4. However, that will be the show's last season so my guess is that the show will end with the death of Henry.

Since JRM will be returning, I wonder how they plan to age him.

Some fun facts:

According to Joss Stone, she originally wanted to play Jane Seymour, but she couldn't fit it into her schedule.

Speaking of Jane Seymour, the new actress playing her is Richard Harris' niece.

Oh and another example of parallel scenes.

In the final episode of Season 1, we had Cardinal Wolsey telling God that he wanted to pray for mercy but that he couldn't because he knew he didn't deserve it. In the final episode of Season 2, we see Cromwell go into the chapel to pray most likely for forgiveness since he knows that he has sent innocent people to their deaths. But he just ends up crying.

Thanks for the news update Badger! Wonder if JRM was just holding out for more greenbacks.... I am glad he will be back though. He is fun to watch...I hope they do add at least a paunch for the end.

Actually, I think it may have been a misunderstanding. He said basically that after the next season, he wasn't going to be doing the show any more and the truth is there will be no show for him to do since it's scheduled to end then. (By next season, I mean Season 4).

Speaking of Jonathan, I saw the movie August Rush over the weekend which he starred in along with Robin Williams. It was okay but you know JRM has a really nice singing voice, sort of Chris Martinish. Did he do his own singing when he played Elvis?

The thing about Henry is that physically he deteriorated a great deal from the time he was the handsome boy king to the time of his death. In a way, it paralleled his reign which started with such great promise and ended with such disillusion. Anyway, even if they don't make him obese, I hope they at least don't do the "Hollywood leading man aging" thing where it's just a couple of discreet wrinkles and touch of distinguished gray at the temples or maybe a thick mop of white hair. They should go whole hog and aim for a Cryptkeeper look!

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They should go whole hog and aim for a Cryptkeeper look!

I agree! They should dramatize how the deterioration process showed externally after living the life of debauchery, selfishness, and cruelty that he lived. All that usually does catch up with people in how they age.

If they don't, I'm gonna start wondering if they don't have a portrait up in the attic somewhere!

Meh I was kinda hoping they would recast. I am not overly thrilled with his interpetation of Henry. But I'm glad the series will go on.

Yes, I think they could have done better than JRM-but, he is pulling it off and at least not ruining the series.

When will the new season start up again, January?

The last two seasons have started in March/April so that's what I'm expecting for next season.

I guess he's not a fan

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Dr David Starkey, a specialist in the Tudor period, described the BBC Two series as "gratuitously awful", saying it was riddled with errors and inaccuracies.

Characters wear costumes from the Elizabethan era and travel in Victorian carriages, suggesting that the modes of transport in the series were bought "lock, stock and barrel" from a "Jane Austen leftover".
Made by Showtime, a US cable network, at a cost of £17 million for the first series alone, the drama stars Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry VIII.
Dr Starkey said it was a disgrace that the BBC had "squandered" public money on a historical drama which he claimed had been deliberately "dumbed down" to appeal to an American audience.

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Dr Starkey said it was a disgrace that the BBC had "squandered" public money on a historical drama which he claimed had been deliberately "dumbed down" to appeal to an American audience.

Did'nt know it was a BBC production... I'd like to get Adrift's take on this since she seemed to think it was quite well done.

I do think they definitely sexed it up for the American audience...that is a given. We sure are a sex obessed society, no doubt about it.

It's not a BBC production, it's a Showtime production. The show airs (or aired) on the BBC2 in England but it wasn't made by the BBC.

I don't think he's talking about the sexual content. Frankly, British and European television has always been a lot more permissive about that sort of thing than Americans. I think he's talking about things like taking Henry's two sisters, Princesses Margaret and Mary, and making them one person because supposedly we would be too confused with two Princess Marys and the other historical inaccuracies.

You know some years ago there was a British movie called The Madness of King George which was about the last years of George III. Anyway, it was based on a play called The Madness of George III, but they changed the title because they afraid American audiences would think it was a sequel to a horror movie.

horselaydee wrote:

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Dr Starkey said it was a disgrace that the BBC had "squandered" public money on a historical drama which he claimed had been deliberately "dumbed down" to appeal to an American audience.

Did'nt know it was a BBC production... I'd like to get Adrift's take on this since she seemed to think it was quite well done.

Well I have to say that I don't think the BBC squandered the license payers money - I'm sure there are many other shows on the BBC that ARE a waste (of money & time!!)
I really don't care if someone was wearing the wrong frock or in the wrong buggy - I wouldn't know the difference, oh except maybe if Henry had gone hunting on a quadbike.The show went out here on a Friday evening at 9pm - er isn't that a sort of "entertainment time"? & thats what I found the show to be - highly entertaining.If I had wanted the facts - I could watch the History Channel - or even some of Dr Starkeys programmes

As the spokesman replied to Dr Starkey's comments
A BBC spokesman said: "The Tudors is not a a drama documentary, which has always been made claear. It is a highly authored and entertaining interpretation of events during a period of history."

Well it is is historically inaccurate. SOME things however are correct. But I surely would not learn my history based on a tv program. Like I said before this show is all about the sexy. If you want history there are TONS of books abour The Tudors, I know because when i became so interested in English History I was amazed at all I could find. It's endless. The tudors is eye candy. Period. BTW My interest is so great I am thinking of taking a college course In English history.

Adrift said: I really don't care if someone was wearing the wrong frock or in the wrong buggy - I wouldn't know the difference, oh except maybe if Henry had gone hunting on a quadbike.The show went out here on a Friday evening at 9pm - er isn't that a sort of "entertainment time"? & thats what I found the show to be - highly entertaining.If I had wanted the facts - I could watch the History Channel - or even some of Dr Starkeys programmes

As the spokesman replied to Dr Starkey's comments
A BBC spokesman said: "The Tudors is not a a drama documentary, which has always been made claear. It is a highly authored and entertaining interpretation of events during a period of history."


For some reason I can't get quote to work this morning... I know I am with Adrift in that I am not looking for complete historical accuracy in a Cable made for TV drama, and I doubt the average person watching TV is either. If I want complete historical accuracy I would just watch the history channel. I am looking to be entertained, and the sex does'nt bother me in the least. In fact, I like it!


I hope you do take the college course Aerwin! Would love to hear some of the interesting things you learn about this period.

The thing is "The Tudors" is hardly the first show based on real historical characters where they play somewhat fast and loose with some of the facts. I think just about every version of the life of Mary, Queen of Scots shows her meeting with Queen Elizabeth I even though the two never met. Or in "Anastasia" where they have her meeting with the Dowager Empress which also never really happened either.

ITA about carriages and whatnot. Most people who aren't experts in that sort of thing aren't going to notice.

Take that, David Starkey

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Which brings us back to the introduction. Starkey paints a picture of himself among his academic friends, laughing at references to the 'groom of the stool', while eating 'home-made lemon cake with a gooey icing'. What fun indeed! They were research fellows under the renowned historian Geoffrey Elton who, according to Starkey in a recent interview, was so pompous, so old-fashioned in his take on the Tudors that he published a 'dreary' little essay called 'Cromwell Redivivus'.

Starkey claims that he leapt from beneath Elton's shadow to become a modern historian: talking to modern people, humanising his subjects - even going on TV to bring history alive for the masses. But what he fails to realise is that what was true of Elton back in the Seventies is equally true of him now. We are all caught out by time. His is no longer a fresh voice. He is no longer at the cutting edge. His TV series are stuck in the late Sixties - he talks to camera like a Cambridge don and allows stiff, wooden re-enactments which he calls 'truth'. David Starkey isn't a bad historian. He just isn't as good as he thinks.

The second season of The Tudors is now airing in Canada. Here's an interview creator Michael Hirst did earlier this month for the CBC which is the network airing the show:

Michael Hirst interview

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How accurate did you feel you had to be in writing about this time period? With regards to balance between research and imagination, how much license did you feel you had?

I’ll answer that, partly, with a story. In 1588 the painter Veronese was dragged before the Inquisition to answer questions about his great painting of the Last Supper. They asked him why, instead of just Christ and his apostles, there were dozens of figures in the painting? Veronese said the canvas was very large and he had to fill it!…Then what is the meaning, they asked, of the dwarf whose nose is bleeding, or the German soldiers? Veronese replied: “Here I must say something: we painters, like fools and poets, claim license…” Well, I claim some license too. Art is different from life. It has to have form. What I always say is that I’ve written a soap opera based on historical material!

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What I always say is that I’ve written a soap opera based on historical material!

What an accurate and humble description of what the Tudors is all about.

History for a mass audience...that has some taste. Notice I said "some'!

aerwin wrote:

I still want Sean Bean. And I wrote Showtime and told them so. Nothing against JRM but he never was exactly as I wanted him to be. He never lightened up.Henry was supposed to some fun. I just hope they continue with this series . It's been done before certainly.

Sharpe's Peril is gonna be televised here tomorrow Aerwin..I think I'll record it.I'm pleased to see Daragh O'Malley is in it too (played Patrick Harper)

Monarchy :The Royal Family At Work is on PBS at 8 EST. I cannot wait.

Tonight? Too bad- I don't think I get PBS on Direct TV without subscribing.

PBS is Public Broadcasting. You should get it. We get and we just have basic cable.

We get it too with basic. In fact when we lived in Carol Stream we got it and we didn't even have cable. PBS has always been our local channel 11. All my life - before there ever was cable!

Firecracker wrote:

We get it too with basic. In fact when we lived in Carol Stream we got it and we didn't even have cable. PBS has always been our local channel 11. All my life - before there ever was cable!

Oh Yeah and when was that? the 1800s. My son CANNOT BELIEVE we did not have cable.

Tell him it was when we were little and played with the dinosaurs Excuse me while I go find my cane!