But first: proof that we have in fact been working on the house instead of sitting around with our thumbs up our arses and just not posting anything of real merit on purpose. There are holes in the front of the cottage where cracks and damp rot used to be; always a good sign. The Lovely R is outside profaning and sawing furiously as I type this testament to his fantastically inexpensive expertise. And I woke up the other morning to a this (below), the dreadful aftermath of a poodle concierge service failure. Why on earth didn't I get out of bed immediately, cook breakfast, lay out his day toys and empty a tin of live guinea pigs onto the living room floor? What was I thinking? How is he supposed to react? Can he please live?? I'd rip all the stuffing out of my second-best bed in a fit of pique too. |
Oh don't listen to me; it was good enough. Not overlit, which is one of our screaming pet hates in regard to period pieces. There was a refreshing lack of visible genitalia. They cast some actual Holbein-looking mofos instead of stuffing 16th C England with porn boobs and overplucking twinks and let Damien Lewis be as ginger as a tyre fire viewed through a handful of prawn shells. The BBC did great things with what looked like two darn rugs (I have a beady eye for migrating props- see if you can spot the one I'm talking about) and a modest quantity of recycled stoat.
Despite its noble tilt at the fluff and cheese that passes for adult viewing these days, sobriety isn't synonymous with beyond reproach. The uneven dialogue doth poke one in the taint from time to time. It is sometimes boringly repetitive. And still with the chicks being tragic frockstuffing and/or nutty cockwallets, despite an historical record that indicates their rather extensive political engagement and brilliant interpersonal machinations in a system designed to atomise them at the drop of a few choice words. I agree with Schama (for once, lol) that Cromwell was much more of a snaky prick than is represented therein because we are what we do, his deeds were recorded by a wide variety of sources and lo, they be fucked, by and large.
Do we know too much and is that the problem? The endless dissection of Henry 8's shiz can't leave much room for an actor to impose their own interpretation- no argument there. Why then, with all this spoiler documentation, do I still feel the lack of anything like a definitive portrayal of this bugger? Don't even get me started on poor Anne B. Reading between the lines there's little question she could be a godawful cunt in her native capacity, but why, while Henry is allowed ambiguity, is her wider exculpatory context so often curtailed in favour of an insistence on her personal shortcomings? |
Anne is the boss golem of internalised misogyny.
But you know she'd bust some sick moves to this shit here.