The Lord of the Rings- The Rings of Power: Elven Kings Under the Sky

 "If, as you say, these rings have so quickly turned elf against elf, it would seem he has succeeded".

The first season of The Rings of Power was not always perfect- episodes were overlong, which is a worry here (77 minutes???!), and the season dragged at poinrs. Yet I enjoyed it overall and feel the critics were somewhat harsh. While Amazon Prime dropping three episodes at once(!), just as with The Boys, again plays havoc with my schedule, I'm glad it's back.

And this is an intriguing start. One subplot involves Nuri and the Stranger on their travels, as it becomes clear that the Stranger is indeed a wizard ("But perhaps wizards are not always fair") of some kind, memories or at least impressions beginning to return. I'm sure we shall learn more as the season goes on. Gandalf? Perhaps too obvious. A young, uncorrupted Saruman? We shall see.

We also have the beginning of what promises to be a protracted power struggle between Adar and the being he knows not to be Sauron... yet Sauron, despite his apparent humbling, is ever weaving his webs, from Mordor to the halls of the elves. For we see conflict between Gil-Galad, Galadriel and Elrond, none of whom are quite in harmony. And we see, of course, the three elven rings being finally worn- including, as we would later see in the films, by Galadriel. And, if we did not already know that rings mean temptation, we see a scene in which it literally proves impossible for even the wisest of elves to destroy them....

This episode is superb, visually gorgeous... and deeply ominous. Things are beginning to move towards a Second Age of which we have heard glimpses...

The Crown: Season 3, Episode 10- Cri de Coeur

 "War is our love..."

It's an interesting choice to end the season on such a downbeat note. This is a Margaret episode and a desperately unhappy one, yes, in which she makes a thankfully unsuccessful suicide attempt, yes, but everything seems to be falling apart. The country seems to be at rock bottom, leading the Queen to question exactly what it is she's supposed to have achieved as she faces her Silver Jubilee. It appears, perhaps, as though there's no future, and England's dreaming.

With a bit of sleight of hand this episode covers three and a bit years, from Harold Wilson becoming PM again in the wake of the February 1974 election to the Jubilee itself. There's a lovely little valedictory scene as Wilson resigns, calmly teling the Queen of his Alzheimers diagnosis which, after sixty years of public duty, it now poised to rob him of his retirement like the bastard it is. It's lovely to see how close they've become over the years, in that very British way, with him confessing he's always seen her as a "leftie at heart" and her accepting an invitation to dine at Downing Street, an honour only previously given to Churchill.

But, for Margaret, there is true despair. Her marriage is failing, but worse than that. Tony is humiliating her, again and again, with affair after affair while simultaneously managing to charm everyone- the Queen Mum, Philip, even the Queen who shows him obvious affection- into forgiving his little dalliances. Yet when Margaret has her own little fling with an obliging toy boy she faces tabloid humiliation and appalling double standards as her own affair- just the one, after years of being cuckqueaned- faces consequences very different from those faced by her husband. At least Tony is now faced with having to potentially marry his latest fling.

It’s a fascinating way to end a superb season. Roll on Season Four in a couple of days...

The Crown: Season 3, Episode 3- Aberfan

 "Put on a show? The Crown doesn't do that?"

This is, it's fair to say, not at all a typical episode. It is also, I suspect, the one with the least dialogue. The Aberfan tragedy in all its visceral yet man-made horror is made fully manifest to us, from the early scenes of ordinary family life in this South Wales pit village, as the slag hill looms threateningly above, to the scenes of the devastation and its human cost that makes up much of the episode. We see, and hear, the reactions of Lord Snowdon, Prince Philip and finally the Queen, but the unspeakable horror is there for us to see- although, as a father, I found Tony's reaction the most quietly devastating. 

But this episode, as well as being entirely about the tragedy and respectfully allowing the people of Aberfan to take centre stage. Cynically, yet inevitably, there's the potential political fallout, as Harold Wilson swiftly sees. Safety standards were blatantly failed, and had been for years. So was this the fault of the current Labour ministry or the previos Conservative one? The political blame game is as inevitable as it is tasteless. Marcia Williams (I suspect we shall see more of her) is all for sticking it to the Tories, and the Queen too if there's political advantage in doing so. Yet, while this can be seen as cynicism, it is born of a passionate belief in the Labour "movement" and its ability to do good.

And then there's Elizabeth, who spends a week refusing increasingly strong entreaties to visit, insisting that is not the role of the Crown. She is only shamed into doing so by the danger of forces within Labour attacking her seeming heartlessness in public- and has to pretend to wipe away a non-existent tear.

Her concluding scene with Wilson- supposedly the prime minister whom, in reality, the Queen had the best rapport- is superb, as the admits her inability to cry, and her undemonstrative nature. It is, rightly, left unsaid (as it would be in 1966) whether we are supposed to see her as being on the neurodiversity spectrum but, as it is a spectrum, aren't we all? And Wilson's response is brilliant: we need calmness from a head of state, not hysteria. And we all have parts to play, not least the privileged, cigar smoking former Oxford don playing the part of a man of the people.

This is genuinely sublime, and on quite another level. Jason Watkins is excellent but Olivia Colman is truly incredible.

The Crown: Season 3, Episode 2- Margaretology

 "There was a young lady from Dallas, who used a dynamite stick as a phallus. They found her vagina in North Carolina, and her arsehole in Buckingham Palace."

It’s surprising, I suppose, that The Crown has focused so relatively heavily on Margaret. And yet it can’t be denied that they keep finding new and interesting angles to take on Bertie’s second born. This episode manages to be fascinating as a study not only of Margaret but of the contrast and rivalry between the two sisters.

Importantly, the episode begins and ends with a coda, a flashback in 1943, where Tommy Lascelles starts to prepare young Elizabeth for a role for which the more outgoing Margaret would seem to be more suited. Yet Elizabeth is very firmly told, in spite of the fact that both sisters are happy for Margaret to be queen, that that’s not how it works.

In the present day, we are introduced to a fun little turn from an excellent Clancy Brown, who may not resemble LBJ but manages to be damned convincing as the old Texan arm-twister. And the whole episode centres on the UK being in the desperate position of needing an economic ball out from the USA-but we are not LBJ’s favourite country because Wilson won’t touch Vietnam, quite rightly, with a bargepole.

Enter Margaret, to save the day with charm, emotional intelligence, bawdiness and limericks. Helena Bonham Carter is superb here, as Margaret achieves things the Queen could never achieve, in an episode constantly seething with sibling rivalry.

We also see the cracks in Margaret’s marriage getting deeper, and Elizabeth getting fonder of Wilson. But it all ends, nicely, with Philip channelling a theory of Lascelles from when they got drunk together last season- there are the dull Windsor’s and the dazzling ones, and they always come in pairs. For every Bertie there’s a David, for every Elizabeth, a Margaret.

It’s a masterfully crafted and paced piece of telly. I’m not sure it’s particularly deep but the craftsmanship is superb.

The Crown: Season 3, Episode 1- Olding

 “What you see is what you get..."

A new season and... well, let’s face the elephant in the room, a new cast. I like the opening, introducing us to Olivia Colman’s new Queen and I must admit, although Claire Foy was magnificent, that she’s won me over. Helena Bonham Carter is superb as Margaret, of course. But Tobias Menzies, as a suddenly charisma-free Prince Philip, is certainly no Matt Smith, and on the face of this episode the character is set to become a lot less nuanced.

Fortunately we have a nicely nuanced performance from Jason Watkins as the deceptively straightforward Harold Wilson, alongside a superb turn from Samuel West as the vile traitor Anthony Blunt. And through the episode runs a lice line of misdirection. It’s out with the old, as the Tories are out and Elizabeth faces the first Labour Government of her reign just as the much-missed Winston Churchill (still the wonderful John Lithgow) is dying... and we hear constant rumours that Wilson is a Soviet spy until we discover the true culprit, who ends the episode threatening to blackmail Philip. I loved the Queen’s double-edged speech with Blunt, who seems to go unpunished.

And yet... this episode doesn’t have the depths of earlier seasons, in spite of its clever conceit. Perhaps it’s just the need to introduce a new status quo and a new cast. I hope so. Let’s hope that turns out to be the case.

Richard III (Dominic Cooke, 2016)

"So wise so young, they say, do never live long..."

And so the BBC's Hollow Crown series comes to an end with Benedict Cumberbatch excelling as our antihero in Richard III. Much emphasis is placed on the direct continuation of the Henry VI plays; we begin with a "Previously" montage and the cast is the same, adding a certain richness; Sophie Okonedo in particular has been magnificent as Margaret from Henry VI's young bride to the embittered young woman we see here. But the stand-out performance is obviously Cumberbatch, from the very beginning.

This, unlike the previous two instalments, is based on a play I know well, so I will not be treading over the same ground here as I did in uni essays many years ago. Suffice to say that this play, though still an early one, is deliciously addictive tale of the pursuit of power, and its central billion is one of the greatest in all drama. But it feels very different seen in sequence, with Richard and many other characters familiar from earlier plays.

Visually, this is a claustrophobic production of the play, with Richard often seen in a dark room with a chessboard (symbolism much?), and even the climactic battle scenes shot closely and claustrophobically, giving us a vivid impression of the fear, violence and chaos. There's a lot of visual storytelling here, helping with the abridging of the play.

This, and the whole second series of The Hollow Crown, has been a triumph. Now, if only they'd filmed Cumberbatch's Hamlet...

 

Henry VI, Part 2 (Dominic Cooke, 2016)

"O tiget's heart wrapped in a woman's hide!"

The cast also includes Stanley Townsend, Sam Troughton and Jason Watkins and is a superb assemblage of actors not all of whom, alas, can be tagged. This is a superb array of performances.

Anyway, the BBC continue their Season of Shakespeare's Henry VI plays plus Richard III under the Hollow Crown imprimatur, and it's awesome. Here, despite the title, we have the very end of Part 2 and all of Part 3, much abridged. I've seen and read a lot of Shakespeare but these television plays are my first experience of the Henry VI plays.

These plays are early; Shakespeare was much younger when writing them than he was for his more acclaimed plays, so the theme of kingship is not dealt with in the subtlety of the plays he would later write for the decades prior to Henry VI's accession. The dialogue and characterisation are sublime, though; Queen Margaret is delicious, and it's so fascinating to see the young Richard of Gloucester, slowly forming into the Machiavel he will eventually become. Benedict Cumberbatch stands out, obviously, but Sophie Okonedo gives the most memorable performance as z superb Margaret, and Stankey Townsend's Warwick deserves mention too, as does Adrian Dunbar's Richard of York.

It's a gloriously bloody play, with Richard of York's sadistic dispatching at Margaret's hands as its centrepiece. Henry, again, is shown to be a peaceful, harmless wet blanket- something which, for a King, paradoxically engenders civil war, death and untold misery, as Henry sees at his defeat by Edward IV, with father killing son and vice versa. No wonder he goes mad. And in allowing his armies to be commanded by a woman ("The Queen has more success when you are absent"), he fails at what a King was expected to do.

It's a superb production of a gripping play, one I'm glad I've seen. And the end- with Richard plotting his own way to the throne- makes me excited for the next instalment, one much more familiar...