Enola Holmes 3 (2026)

 "There are two paths you can take, Enola. Yours, or the path others choose for you."

This sequel, with the same ensemble cast and the same writer in oft-rumoured future Doctor Who showrunner Jack Thorne, is exactly what we might expect, from the rollicking adventure to the nicely plotted mystery to the in media res beginning. This is, of course, no bad thing. This film is bloody good, giving us exactly what we expect and exactly what we want as far as the characters are concerned, with a satisfying whodunit to provide the mystery.

Yes, the film is full of anachronistic social attitudes to things like colonialism, gender roles, marriage and social class, especially with regards to a happy ending that could never fly in the actual 1880s. But this, again, is no bad thing. There are films where one can legitimately be demanding in terms of historical accuracy, yes indeed. This is not one of them. A family friendly romp should not concern itself with (SPOILERS!) the impossibility of a peer disclaiming his peerage eighty years before Tony Benn, or the even greater impossibility of the concluding ceremony being accepted as any kind of marriage at the time. Such things do not matter- a modern audience, with modern (and much more enlightened) values, must be entertained.

This film is, quite simply, fun. The cast is magnificent, the feminine contingent especially. Sharon Duncan-Brewster is extraordinary as a Moriarty with a surprising amount of depth. Helena Bonham Carter is, well, Helena Bonham Carter. And Millie Bobby Brown, with her charisma and her delicious fourth wall moments, carries the whole thing. Little Miss Llamastrangler (who called the film "peak") give this film our thorough endorsement.

Enola Holmes 2 (2022)

 "You really are a nincompoop!"

It's been a while, but I've finally got round to seeing the sequel, in large part due to the pleasure of some truly exquisite company last night! And not only was it a thoroughly enjoyable experience, but I noticed in the credits that the writer was one Jack Thorne, whose distinguished career has included Adolescence among other things (must get round to that!) and who is, rather interestingly, rumoured as a possible new showrunner for Doctor Who... but we'll see.

The script is superb, working perfectly both as a murder mystery with twists and turns which all makes perfec sense at the end but also as a fun, watchable drama with a light touch, lots of fun and lots of wit. It's also, as last night's exquisite company remarked last night, based on the match girls' strike, a very real historical event, and the scandal with white phosphorus was a very real thing.

But Millie Bobby Brown yet again carries the whole thing with aplomb, a truly talented leading lady despite her youth, carrying the whole thing with wit, charisma and those delightfully quirky asides to the camera. To say that she carries the whole thing means a lot given the cast we have here- Henry Cavill as Sherlock Holmes and Helena Bonham Carter as their mother Eudoxia, in particular. I love the little Sherlockian moments, and it's clear from fairly early on that the film will end with Holmes meeting Watson.

In the end, then, a splendid film. A pedant may observe that the film is set in 1885, too late for Holmes meeting Watson and too early for the match girls' strike (Sarah Chapman is a historical figure), but I'm learning to be better with my pedantry. A hugely enjoyable film.

Enola Holmes (2020)

 “

This is, incredibly, the first and only film I’ve seen and blogged from the current decade. I suppose this isn’t really much of a surprise, with relatively few films being released in 2020. The times we’re living in remind me of the time of Shakespeare where plague closed the playhouses.

I enjoyed this little Netflix film, though. It’s an adaptation of a series of “Young Adult” novels by Nancy Springer, and it’s a revelation. Clever, fun, fourth wall-breaking to the point of our eponymous heroine frequently addressing the audience, this is a rather marvellous little film.

It helps that Millie Bobby Brown is such a charismatic and compelling lead- there's clearly a lot more to her than Eleven. Helena Bonham Cater s, inevitably, delightfully barmy. Henry Cavill is a bit wooden but you can't have everything, and it's good to see Burn Gorman as a solid baddie.

The conceit is bloody good; Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes have a much younger sister who is being raised in a solidly feminist way by their wonderfully radical mother- and there's a nice underlying subtext of electoral reform, including votes for women. The real-life Representation of the People Act of 1884 plays a big role in the plot. It's a shame Mycroft has to be retconned as the less clever sibling, and actively reactionary to boot, but you can see why this is necessary.

This is a yoyful, wonderful, metataxtual film which has much fun with the fourth wall, is enormously funy and has some rollicking adventure to boot. Superb stuff.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

“ Ding dong, the god is dead.”

 I'm struggling to think of any film I've ever seen that's worse than this two and a half hours of empty, cynical, pointless drivel. The only consolation is that I have this blog and at least I get to put thid film over my knee and give it a sound spanking. I pity those who had to see this film without such an outlet.

So why so execrably awful? Well, there’s the obvious things which have often been pointed out- unlike Marvel, who carefully nurtured all the main characters in their individual films before bringing them all together in The Avengers, DC saw fit to follow the flawed but ok Man of Steel with this- a continuity-heavy crossover with a Batman we haven’t properly met, no soul and a music video sensibility of scene following scene at a bewildering pace without slowing down so we can get to know and care about the characters.

Then there’s the direction from alleged pervert Zack Snyder- technically well done, competent, but devoid of any individual style or personality. But worse than any of this is the message of the film. We expect Hotham, and the world of the Batman, to have a certain darkness, although branding people is a bit much. Yes, it’s nice to have an older, veteran, perhaps cynical Batman from the start. But Superman should be a contrast yet he’s depicted as a self-doubting throwback to less cynical times, a throwback to liberal times who is stranded in that godawful year 2016. But that’s lazy; the character of Dioetman is essentially the optimistic creation of two idealistic Jewish youngsters in the far darker days of 1938. The character of Superman has seen off much bigger bastards than Trump and Brexit and I hate the implication that morality and liberalism are outmoded values in these right wing, nativist days- and yes, those placards held by the anti-Superman protesters outside Congress are very anti-immigrant- where the simple fact is that we liberals can, and will, smash their stupid faces in. To suggest otherwise is not only to misunderstand and disrespect the character of Superman but send a very cynical political message that nothing matters and there’s no point. “No one stays good in this world”, says Superman.

So, yeah, I hate what this film is saying. But that’s not all; it’s over-complicated, confusing fanwank where all the attempts to make you sympathise with the characters fail both because of the clinical style and the fact that we’ve yet to get to know these characters- the only character here who is actually likeable is Laurence Fishburne’s delightfully quotable Perry White. Oh, and Luthor. I love Jesse Eisenberg’s witty, fast-talking Luthor, an eccentric Nietzchean, er, “superman”. But the film is full of good actors who are either woefully miscast- Jeremy Irons and, yes, Ben Affleck- or playing shallow, badly written characters. It’s a terrible script, a terrible film and a terrible basis for a cinematic universe. Even Justice League is not quite so bad as this.

Man of Steel (2013)

"What are you smiling about, Captain?"

"Nothing, Sir. I just think he's kind of hot."

Usually I'd write a review based on the general premise of the film in question being good, bad, or indifferent. That's a rather challenging thing to do here. I mean, yes, ok, the film is good. It works. It's a solid start to the DC universe. But there are flaws, real flaws. The film gets away with it, in no small measure because of a solid script by the ever-dependable David S. Goyer and, interestingly, Christopher Nolan and the inspired casting of (thankfully moustache-free) Henry Cavill. But...

Here's the thing. Zack Snyder is technically a superb director. The whole thing is well shot in the extreme, even if it's CGI'd to death. It looks amazing. But it all feels (Russell Crowe as Jor-El aside, oddly) not quite persnal enough. There's just enough charm to get away with, but no more. And the direction: yes, it's clever. But at the expense of the storytelling- not enough to damage the film, but I'd say Snyder needed to watch it if not for the fact that #MeToo seems to make any such advice irrelevant.

There's a lot to praise, though. Traditionally dull Krypton is given CGI alien beasts of burden, an internal politics and a genetically caste-based culture against which Kal-El's birth is a rebellion in the name of freedom. I like that. I also like the characterisation of Zod here; he isn't a moustache-twirling baddie but a general, with his fanatical followers, who only wants to save Krypton. At the expense of our little human species, naturaally.

Lois Lane is presented well here, as a tenacious journalist who figures out who Clark is early on, saving us an awful lot of tiresomeness. Perry White is a bit more nuanced. Jimmy Olsen, er, isn't in the film. But it's a well-done and thoughtful approach to Superman's origins and the ideal first film for the new DC Cinematic Universe. They need to run  with it, so what next. Batman? The Dark Knight? No, those are both taken. So how about Batman: The Dark Knight? Yes. Colons are good. And the next film is in no way going to be a disaster. Right?

Justice League (2017)

“What are your superpowers again?”

“I’m rich.”

 I'd intended to start this blog with a quip about that notorious moustache. After all, I mentioned it to Mrs Llamastrangler and she was amused to find the CGI on Henry Cavill’s upper lip so very obvious. But sadly I can’t continue along those lines as this film is an utter mess. It’s a turf, a stinker, a mind-bogglingly bad film. What went wrong?

D.C. can make good films. I enjoyed Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman. But they simply have no Kevin Fiege. There no quality control, no consistency of tone, no building up the characters in their individual films first. So we get these big epic films about iterations we don’t really know of characters who have barely been introduced to us in this version of the D.C. Universe. The pacing is atrocious and the script is lacking in sparkle. And the odd wittty line, presumably late additions by Joss Whedon after Zack Snyder was sacked, just jars with the po-faced and dull tone. This is a film about superheroes that fails to be fun. That’s quite an achievement.

Oh, some of the cast are good. Henry Cavill is well cast, and Ezra Miller is an inspired choice as an awkward young Flash. But Ben Affleck is both bad and wrong as Batman, Jeremy Irons is good but miscast as Alfred, and Ciaran Hinds gives us a generic and forgettable villain. And Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, incredibly, gets most of the best lines. And the amount of exposition just beggars belief. And don’t get me started on the sheer quantity of poor CGI.

This is, hands down, the worst superhero film I’ve ever seen.

The Tudors: Season Four, Episode 10

"You won't die. I forbid it!"

This is it, then. The end. It's a heavy weight to bear, but we get a worthy finale in the end. Of course, the fact that we end with Henry VIII's death gives rise to the question of why the series is called The Tudors, a title that seems to promise us Bloody Mary and Good Queen Bess. But no matter. This is good stuff.

Henry is dying. The series is ending with him, so how best to end than with a warrant with the arrest for heresy of yet another Queen? Catherine Parr is intelligent, circumspect, and knows how to play the game, but she is in real danger here. There are signs of the next reign- Prince Edward is now old enough to speak some Latin, and Edward Seymour is a powerful man indeed- but Bishop Gardiner, for obvious reasons, prefers Mary. Whichever camp you look at, though, the vultures are circling the King.

The King is (finally!) much fatter. He`s quixotic, too, this time siding with the French against the Emperor, and proposing that mass be abolished (!) in both realms. He`s too late, though; Francis I is dying of syphilis. He still has power within his own houehold, though, and there is a sense of real danger as Henry tells Catherine that he knows nothing of any warrant for her arrest; is he playing his old games?

The Queen is, rightfully, scared, and determined to hide her thoughts. There is a power struggle at court between Gardiner and Edward Seymour and she, unlike the old, happily weary and sick of politics Duke of Suffolk, cannot simply remain neutral, confident of the King`s affection.

There is move and counter-move. Gardiner sets up an Inquisition; the Seymours use Gardiner`s embezzling ways to blackmail him. The Queen, questioned by Henry, gives a fiery defence of herself, and we know that the King wants to believe her. He hasn`t exactly gone soft in his old age, but even if you didn`t know the famous rhyme I think you`d know, by the rules of drama, that Catherine was utimately safe.

 

There is great uncertainty. Prince Edward`s education, a matter of vital importance to the kingdom`s future, finally comes under scrutiny as Gardiner begins to notice the religious inclinations of his tutors. The struggle between Gardiner and Edward Seymour soon leads to fisticuffs, and an extraordinary tour de force of acting from the great Simon Ward. His fall is brutally sudden; in the end, Henry sides with his Queen and the uncle of his son. Family trumps religious fanaticism in the end, ironically. But then, for this King, both of those things were always just playthings in his power games.

The dying Henry, like Canute, is not omnipotent and is powerless aainst the ravages of time and natue; he commands Charles Brandon not to die, but must nevertheless mourn his old friend, the only honest man at court. In scenes which must surely be meant to evoke I, Clavdivs he sees visions of his past wives making cameo appearances to rebuke him. Catherine of Aragon is furious at him for failing to marry off Mary, Anne Boleyn reminds him of Elizabeth`s cleverness and her own innocence ("Poor Catherine Howard!"), and Jane Seymour tells him sternly that he has killed Edward with his mollycoddling. There will be but one generation more of Tudors; the future of Henry`s realm lies not with the fruit of his loins.

Henry, at his own insistence, dies alone. Death creeps up slowly, and when he`s young again we know he`s dead. We end with an emotional montage, that Hans Holbein portrait, and some text to give us a potted history of the next three reigns. It's a fitting end to a magnificent series, the I, Clavdivs of our age.

The Tudors: Season Four, Episode 9

"The law is whatever his Majesty says it is!"

It's late 1545. Henry is getting close to death, but he remains deadly. At last we see the Earl of Surrey paying the ultimate price, and even Catherine Parr sails close to the wind. There is an increasing conflict over the King's legacy; Bishop Gardiner, and Henry himself, forcibly insist on Catholic doctrine under royal supremacy, with celibate priests and a people expected by their King to read the Bible in a English, yes, but not, Heaven forbid, to hold opinions about it. Yet the next generation, aside from the increasingly fanatical Mary, is in the grip of Catherine and Protestantism. Meanwhile Surrey, the last symbol of the England that was, predeceases the king who decimated the old noble families such as his.

Gardiner is pleased  at his protege Wriothesley (pronounced "Risley"!!!) appointment as Lord Chancellor, but on the other hand Catherine has managed to publish an openly Protestant tract by the clever means of dedicating it to Henry. Not everyone is so fortunate; Gardiner has a heretic by the name of Anne Askew arrested, "examined" and illegally tortured (Henry expresses impatience with due process as he orders this to be done), being horrifically torn asunder on the rack. She looks horribly mutilated when we next see her, shortly prior to her graphically depicted burning at the stake, leaving us in no doubt as to the unspeakable pain she endures. Henry's tyranny is not abating in these final months.

Surrey has buggered up in France due to an old-fashioned reliance on honour over tactics, having to flee the field in disgrace and stripped of his Order of the Garter. Henry, meanwhile, diplomatically arranges for Boulogne to be returned to France in right years' time, thereby rendering pointless the whole campaign with all it's costs on blood and treasure, and no one calls it treason.

Surrey, ever arrogant, plots to seize Prince Edward so he can control the heir to the throne, but is caught and questioned. He defies his questioners, proud of his ancestry, and goes as far as almost to escape his cell. His defiance at his trial is a pivotal moment as he gives voice to an old England of law and aristocratic checks on royal power, to roars of approval from the people. It is a shame that David O'Hara's acting is not up to the purpose here; this episode gives the character a real chance to shine but, through no one's fault, but O'Hara's, it falls flat. The guilty verdict, against the court's wishes, is no surprise, but it is still a shock to hear that he will be hung, drawn and quartered as a commoner.

All of this gives a context to the real danger that the Queen is in. Gardiner orders three of her ladies to be "examined", including Catherine's own sister. This eventually leads to nothing, but more damaging is her falling out with Mary, who has heard the rumours as to her religious beliefs. When she finds herself speaking too frankly to the King she realises she has gone too far, and Gardiner asks the King to put her on trial. But he won't. When it comes to wives, at least, he's mellowed a bit.

The Tudors continued to wind down superbly, with a nuanced script superbly realised. One more to go...

The Tudors: Season Four, Episode 8

"I will burn as many heretics as I have to..."

It's now 1544. Henry continues to get no younger, and the war (a theatre of the deeply unpleasant 1542-46 Italian War) goes on while, at home, a gentle religious conflict erupts between Bishop Stephen Ward, hammer of the heretics, and the a Queen, who slyly arranged for both Elizabeth and Edward to receive a Protestant education, Elizabeth with Roger Ascham, no less.

The Queen is putting herself in real danger by doing this, but she manages the risks sensibly, with circumspection and ensuring that she is well liked, even by the increasingly fanatical Mary, whose heart is broken by the departure of her elderly father figure Chapuys.

Lord Surrey, meanwhile, scion of an ancient house that he is, dreams of being Sir Lancelot, but such things do not happen in this age of muskets and disease. Indeed, the death toll from dysentery is horrendous, yet Henry's grip on reality is slight enough for him to cruelly insist that the sick soldiers fight. On a much nicer note, Brandon falls touchingly in love with his young French belle. But this is a rare note of beauty in a very ugly war.

Henry ultimately takes Boulogne, but his disease-stricken army means he will be unable to March on Paris, as he promised to the Emperor that he would. We see, through following the war from the point of view of ordinary soldiers, that the human cost is incalculable for a war that is for little more than the glory of kings and popes and emperors. Ordinary life is indeed cheap.

Henry returns home, seeming older than ever. He isn't much longer for this world, however much the otherwise superb Jonathan Rhys Meyers may be appallingly lacking in the required level of obesity for this point of Henry's life. What is more, his exchequer is empty, he has earned the enmity of the Pope and he had betrayed the Emperor in failing to march on Paris, or would have done; Charles V has in fact abandoned him first. Such is sixteenth century diplomacy.

We end with Henry, alone, collapsing to the ground. He isn't well, and there is a profound sense of entropy and decline wherever we look...

The Tudors: Season Four, Episode 7

"This is a different war; a war of guns."

We see the King marry his sixth wife, and Catherine Parr continues to endear herself to both of her daughters, but soon we're off to war, a modern war of cannon and muskets that makes all the jousting of Henry's youth seem so old-fashioned. Moreover, wars with guns are egalitarian, leaving less space for nobility to seize glory by prancing about on their horses. A new age is dawning, sort of; the death of cavalry will be a long, drawn-out affair of centuries.

Henry looks old. There's certainly no question of his leading the fight; it is Brandon who leads the attack on Boulogne, Edward Seymour who is Admiral of the Fleet and the insufferable Earl of Surrey who is appointed Field Marshal. An impatient Henry neglects the preparations, naturally. Still, at least he's still quite good at all the Henry V speechifying. Throughout the preparations, though, it is Catherine who nurses him as his leg continues to plague him. This is not a passionate love affair but something much more pragmatic, and this Cathetine already seems much, much safer than her predecessor.

Bishop Gardiner is, by now, gearing up for a full-on purge against the Protestants, with even Elizabeth coming under suspicion. His suspicions extend also to the Queen but is unable to act, as she is Regent while Henry remains at his CGI siege of Boulogne across the Channel. She is able to appoint future martyr Hugh Latimer as her chaplain, but must be discreet. 

Meanwhile Brandon finds himself a yong French lover who calls Henry the "English Nero", and Lord Surrey is downed, but not killed, by friendly fire. Things are not going well for the English as an outbreak of dysentery threatens to make the expedition all for naught...

The Tudors: Season Four, Episode 6

"It was not a happy marriage, your Majesty."

"Do you believe that such a thing exists?"

"Yes! I believe that with all my heart and soul."

On to Henry's sixth and final marriage, then, in an episode themed around nuptials. Elizabeth declares that she will never marry, Charles Brandon's unhappy marriage collapses into it's own little entropic heat death, and Henry begins to pursue a soon-to-be-widow for his next and final wife. This relationship will not be defined by sex, though; the dirty old man is getting old.

It's 1542. Both Mary and Elizabeth have been restored to the succession in a sign that their generation's time is fast in coming. European politics continues it's merry dance between the French, the Habsburgs and the Ottomans. There is a sense of decline and nostalgia. The King admits he has missed Brandon, a rare friend from his youth. 

Catherine Parr, wife of a dying associate of Robert Aske who is tainted with the hint of treason, is carefully selected by Edward Seymour as a suitable bride for our 51 year old Henry with his greying beard, gammy leg and suspicious lack of visible obesity. 

The awkward and arrogant Earl of Surrey, meanwhile, is sent to campaign in Scotland, capturing three of their nobles as James V dies his untimely death, leaving his newborn daughter Mary to be Queen of Scots. The sense of decline, and of an uncertain transfer to a new generation, persists. It is suddenly unmistakeable that these are the final episodes. Little wonder that the king, remembering the glories of Spurs on his younger days, should do something as old-fashioned as declare war on France.

Bishop Gardiner assumes a greater prominence, and his accelerating purges of Lutherans and Evangelicals is a definite sign that all religious reform had ceased; for Catholics, there is seemingly hope. For the King's musicians, forced to suffer "examination", there is none. This is still the court of Henry VIII, and it is still a dangerous place.

Catherine Parr is mature, nice and liked by everyone, but she is afraid to marry Henry, and with good reason. She values her head. But the episode ends with a proposal of marriage. The poor woman must make the best of things and tread carefully...

The Tudors: Season Four, Episode 5

"Catherine Howard, I have to tell you that you are going to die."

It all happens so quickly. The episode begins with Henry finding out about Catherine Howard`s colourful past from an anonymous letter and ends, after the most nightmarish judicial machinations possible and several tortuous executions, with the poor silly girl`s beheading. She was eighteen.

The interrogator is, of course, Richard Rich, and the likes of Francis Dereham and the disgusting Thomas Culpeper well and truly get their comeuppance, with Lady Rochford also doomed. Dereham has his fingers pulled out under torture, but is lucky to have his sentence commuted to beheading. The slimy Culpeper has no such luck, being hung, drawn and quartered in graphic detail, with much blood. Lady Rochford loses her sanity, but there is no escape from a vengeful king; horribly, Henry changes the law and has her executed anyway. The amount of gore is such that my then-fiancée made comparisons to the Saw films.

For poor, young, none-too-bright Catherine, the whole nightmare is simply beyond her limited comprehension. She is far too young for all this. She is told that she is no longer Queen and, in a bathetic yet pathetic scene, her desperate rush to speak to Henry and make things right is refused; this is the real, adult world, and it`s a cruel, cruel world.

The day before her death, Cathetine refuses all religious rites and chooses to die unshriven, admitting that she knows little of such matters. With a horrifying childlike innocence, she asks to spend her last night with the block so she can practice. Her last moments are less dignified but, perhaps, more tragic than those of Anne Boleyn, a much more adult, intelligent and worldly figure. Her last words are simply that "Life is very beautiful". She makes no reference to religion, caresses the block like a child, and dies. It all happened so quickly, much like her life.

With a hypocrisy and double standard that is by now hardly worth mentioning, Henry spends Catherine's final minutes cavorting with various girls. He likes them young, the dirty old man. By now we can hardly but regard him with utter contempt.

The Tudors: Season Four, Episode 4

"For God`s sake don`t spoil it. Not for us and not for her."

 The King is proceeding north for a wee chat with King James V, king of a smaller nation yet also head of a dynasty which is destined to replace his in but two generations` time. This means that once again we see Pontefract and Sir Ralph Whatsit, an Archbishop of York played by a former Master from Doctor Who, and the Duke of Suffolk feeling intense remorse about what he did. In a nicely Shakespearean touch he is even haunted by the ghost of Lord Darcy. Of course, Hamlet lies some sixty years in the future and represents future generations, not men of the past like Henry and Charles Brandon.

Henry enjoys his popularity; Cromwell is dead and the future of religious reform is uncertain. Yet it is clear that Mary is more popular than her father. War between France and the Habsurgs also beckons, as usual. All of this is above Catherine Howard`s pretty little head, but this doesn`t stop Henry from seizing her for some vigorous sex. There`s life in the old dog yet.

 The Earl of Surrey continues to be an interesting character, badly acted- he`s arrogant, well-read, philosophical, Martial-quoting mysterious, laddish and snobbish as only someone posher than the King can be. Disdaining the "new men" with whom the King has surrounded himself, he skirts with treason in stating, to Suffolk, that Richard II (a deposed king!) died from trusting "lesser men". This has parallels with the later comparisons of Elizabeth I to Richard II by the Earl of Essex during his ill-fated rebellion of 1601.

Catherine is sailing ever closer to the wind; she oversleeps because she slept wth Thomas Culpeper, and the tendency of old acquaintances to blackmail her for favours reaches new deaths with Francis Dereham- lecherous, a former lover, and indiscreet. Catherine has no relationship to speak of with any of Henry`s children (it is Elizabeth, his older sister, whom we see being close to little Edward), and she even starts to alienate Culpeper with dangerous talk of "a store of other lovers".

All this is in the context of things not going well for Henry; James V fails to turn up and has his armies raid the marches, and Edward is dangerously ill. Edward soon recovers, but a letter is waiting for the King. This is gripping stuff.

The Tudors: Season Four, Episode 2

"I have formed a sinister opinion that most of you are liars and flatterers...!"

And the King was in such a good mood last episode...

Anne of Cleves may be divorced from Henry but she still dines regularly with the King's two daughters and, oddly, gets on well with Mary in spite of their religious differences. She is innocent, nice, discreet and possesses all the qualities needed to help her to keep her head. This is a good thing; Henry is in a foul mood. Cromwell's execution means that there is no longer a chief minister and he has to actually do some work for a change. 

The Scots are getting restive as James V, who hasn't yet stepped in front of that cannon, plans to invade. Henry has problems, so it's good for the kingdom, I suppose, that he gets to release tension in some very hard sex with Catherine. Unfortunately for Catherine, her past sexual escapades are slowly coming back to bite her, and she isn't anywhere near bright enough to know how to handle this. Meanwhile, there are hints that the Duke of Surrey may be a secret Protestant. All this intrigue reminds me of the first season.

It's New Year 1541 and Anne of Cleves, incredibly, is invited to court and even embraced by the King, much to the dislike of his spoiled and hubristic new wife. Everyone else likes her, however. It's clear that Catherine is not actually liked by anyone but the King, and is largely seen, in rather misogynistic terms, as a whore.

The King, though, is not well; his old would from five years ago has turned gangrenous. This doesn't help his moods as Catherine and Mary clash, with Mary furiously leaving court without permission.

At least the campaign against the Scots has been successful. But storm clouds are gathering. Plots arise for the horrible Culpeper to bed Catherine, while Henry's would gets worse and worse, leading to questions over his survival that infuriate him and lead to a furious outburst before his ministers. He is beginning to regret to executions of competent ministers such as Wolsey, More and Cromwell.

Culpeper's ludt for Cathetrine is cruelly manipulated by Lady Rochford, surely plotting the death of this poor, thick young girl. This is an episode of plot threads being put into position before storm clouds furiously break. The air is charged with tension...

The Tudors: Season Four, Episode 1

"Sex... great medicine!"

It's a new season; the previous chief minister is dead and we have various new characters, plus Sarah Bolger's promotion to the opening titles. It's August 1540, and a voiceover narration from a much older looking Chapuys (why isn't he in the opening titles?) brings up to speed; a load of "heretics", meaning Lutherans and Roman Catholics, are being executed.

One of the new characters is a fairly lowly soldier, Thomas. Another is the Earl of Surrey, who is extremely blue-blooded, intelligent, arrogant, Stoic in a true sense and rather badly acted by David O'Hara. Charles Brandon is looking old. Thomas Boleyn (remember him?) has died off-screen. There is a new French ambassador.

Henry is now married to Catherine; Surrey is at court because he's her uncle.  She doesn't get on well with Mary, to put it mildly, and complains about get to her royal husband, and she's beginning to be slightly blackmailed by her dodgy old friend Joan Bulmer, who knows a thing or two about her not-exactly-virginal past.

She is immature, silly, naive and will probably get herself beheaded within months. Poor girl.

Catherine's young cousin, Lord Dacres, has been arrested for killing himself while drunk; a rare case of an apolitical arrest in The Tudors. He faces being hanged at Tyburn. But Henry is more interested in the upcoming war with France; he wants one. Wars with France make him feel young and vigorous and remind him of Spurs all those years ago. He's getting nostalgic in his middle age and it's been too long since the last war.

All may not be well, however. We receive hints that the 17 year old Catherine may have larger sexual appetites than the 49 year old Henry. It's just a matter of when she cheats on him. Let's hope it's not with Culpeper, a rapist, murderer and thoroughly unpleasant individual.

Still, Henry is in a good mood so all will be well, I'm sure...

The Tudors: Season Three, Episode 8

"I think she looks fit for a king..."

Poor Cromwell. He`s a bastard, but nobody deservs that.

This is a dramatic episode, in which Cromwell suffers his gruesome death, Anne of Cleves gets both promoted to the opening credits and divorced, and the King meets the young Catherine Howard. It`s quite a finale.

We start with the King desperate to get out of his marriage; Cromwell is under a lot of pressure. We also have the bizarre prospect of a budding romance between the uber-Catholic Princess Mary and Anne`s equally Lutheran cousin, Philip of Bavaria. She begins to fall in love with him, and then the King sends him away; his association with his cousin makes him persona non grata. It`s begining to look as though poor Mary will die a frustrated spinster.

Sexual frustration is not something a king has to put up with, and so he duly gets Sir Francis Bryan to scour his mother`s aristocratic orphanage for a bit of posh totty. They come up with the pretty, rather dim and disturbingly young Catherine Howard who is "a little wild". Lucky girl. The King is, unmistakeably,  a dirty old man. Scenes of their "courtship" are juxtaposed with the rather more meaningful courtship between Mary and Philip. Inevitably, naked bodies intertwine. How, er, romantic.

 We first realise that Cromwell is doomed when the King gives him a vote of confidence. Shortly thereafter the King is told by Brandon (with whom he is close these days) that the French want him removed. At the following council meeting the friendless Cromwell is arrested for treason, and there follows nothing but horror. Even the slimy Richard Rich turns against him.

His lack of popularity comes back to bite him as Brandon and Edward Seymour conspire to get his executioner drunk the night before. His execution takes place before a braying crowd, in humiliating scenes which are juxtaposed with scenes of Anne of Cleves being told her marriage is annulled. We then see Cromwell`s botched and tortuous execution as the dissolute Henry emptily shags his teenage lover in a huge folly of a palace...

The Tudors: Season Three, Episode 7

"My country is not a brothel, and my sister is not a whore."

We are once again reminded of England`s, and Henry`s, low status on the European stage, as invasion is feared from both France and the Habsburg lands. Preparations are made for the kingdom`s defence; even Scotland seems set to join in. However, a bloke with a spyglass (many decades before Galileo...) reports that the armada in the channel seems to be heading for Spain. Phew.

The crisis is over. Chapuys is back at court. Francis still hates Charles V, to the point of allying with the Ottomans against him. England is a second rate power, a piggy in the middle. Its diplomatic ambitions, handled by an increasingly desperate Cromwell, are limited to finding a pretty wife for the king from mighty Cleves, a tiny little speck on a map of the Holy Roman Empire. Maps of the Holy Roman Empire are terrifying things. Cleves is not, and its Duke William is portrayed as a comedy character, indeed the only real comic relief in an ominous episode.

 Sir Francis Bryan is continuing his counter-espionage against Cardinal Pole, whie Charles Brandon and Edward Seymour (now Earl of Hertford) attempt a rapprochement; can their mutual loathing for Cromwell draw them together? Both are keen for the marriage to go wrong,

Anne of Cleves reaches Calais, and has a perceptive comment: "I do not know what to make of the King. He burns one Lutheran, and then marries another?" She is, for the moment, veiled, to maximise suspense. Brandon is teaching her how to play piquet as we once again get a look at those sixteenth century playing cards. The King, meanwhile, is feeling the sexual excitement of being about to possess utterly a complete stranger.

And then we see Anne`s face, and she`s Joss Stone. As with many singers turned actors she does a good job with the part, although it must have been insulting to be asked to play the ugly one. Especially as the King`s first words after her unveiling are "I like her not". He goes on to say that she looks like "a horse, a Flanders mare". For the record, I think Joss Stone is quite pretty.

Henry is disappointed, and soon rounds on Cromwell. It`s going to get worse, too; he isn`t getting any sex. The final scene is of Henry masturbatingn bed while his humiliated wife lies silently beside him.

The Tudors: Season Three, Episode 6

"We have both lost our youth, and there is nothing in the world that can return it to us."

 No predominant plot thread this week, just lots of pieces being moved, all over the board, so that they`re in place for the season finale in a couple of episodes` time. That probably isn`t good news for Cromwell.

We begin with Henry appointing Brandon as chief minister in preference to Cromwell, a signnot only of Cromwell`s slow fall but an indication that the king, now in his late forties, is putting his trust in old friends of his own generation. He isn`t getting any younger and that leg of his bleeding well hurts. He is forced to have a painful operation to remove the ulcer, but there is only so much that can be done; Henry is shown parading the young Edward before adoring crowds, but his limp is as pronounced as ever.

 It`s not a good episode to be a close family member of Cardinal Reginald Pole, all of whom are arrested for treason by Sir Francis Bryan. Including the small boy. Such is justice for those who threaten the king by having the effrontery to have a stronger claim to the throne than he does. Pole`s brother, Lord Montague, is interrogated by Edward Seymour, and things don`t look good; he is, after all,described as "the last of the Plantagenets, the last of the White Rose". Most disturbingly, Henry, not in the best of moods because of his leg, fulminates against little boy Pole. That`s the thing with aritrary, authoritarian rule; coming to the attention of the ruler while said ruler is in a bad mood can be fatal. We end with Lady Salisbury`s cruelly sudden execution ("Have you not been praying, Lady? Your head is going to be cut off now"). She dies scared, pleading. Her little grandson`s fate is unertain.

In what should in theory be happier news, the King is looking for bride number four, and Cromwellis anxious that it should be to someone from the Protestant League, which consists of a million German microstates only theoretical allegiance to their Catholic, Habsburg Emperor. The only serious Catholic candidate, the Duchess of Milan, comes subject to Charles V`s veto, which can only end on way. The Catholic route is closed, so Cromwell suggests one of the Cleves sisters...

Cromwell, following last episode`s epiphany that the rather high church Henry is not exactly his kindred spirit in matters of religion, is in a spot of bother; his friend John Lambert is refusing to sign the Six Articles of which we heard last week,and faces being burnt as a heretic. We see him being burnt at the stake ina typically graphic execution scene.

Cromwell now faces, by association, scrutiny of his own beliefs. He even finds himself interrogated by the King; his position is looking increasingly precarious.

The Tudors: Season Three, Episode 4

"I have a son?"

It`s fast-moving, this season. It`s quickly becoming apparent that the "one wife per season" limit is going to be breached, and things seem to be speeding up.

The rebellion plotline comes to an end in a predictably bloody manner; Sir Ralph Ellerker sells out his mates and gets to live. Aske, having integrity, is executed and dies bewildered. He begs Cromwell's pardon before he dies so his family will not be hurt- at this point the entire viewership is waiting for Cromwell to get his comeuppance. Aske's death is shown graphically and in slow motion.

Even worse than this, though, is the massacre of the legions of humbler rebels. Brandon observes the slaughter of women and children, slaughter that he himself has ordered on Henry's behalf, and is utterly shattered by it. It's hard not to sympathise; he has a wife and son. He had no choice but to obey the tyrant. Yet his pregnant wife is disgusted with him.

Still, they really are out to get Henry. Reginald Pole is trying to convince Francis I to go on a crusade against England, which is a crime in anyone's book. Sir Francis Bryan, returning to his old spying ways; tend to think of spying as more of an Elizabethan thing, with Walsingham and Marlowe and that, but it must of course be amongst the oldest of professions.

Henry may have no time for the Pope, and he may have swung towards Protestantism when it suited him, but kings are fickle creatures and he now wishes to stamp out "evangelical excesses". To this end he is demanding articles of faith. The very Protestant Cromwell is on thinner ice than ever before: Henry tells Edward Seymour that "It was the rebels who demanded Mr Cromwell's head. And, by doing so, they saved it."

We are therefore introduced to the decidedly non-Protestant Bishop Stephen Gardiner, hammer of the heretics, played by no less a figure than Simon Ward. The pendulum appears to be swinging back.

Jane Seymour, pregnant with (at last!) a son for the king, is realistic enough to urge Ursula Missenden to "be a comfort" to the king. She wants Mary, with whom she is close, to be with her during what will be a difficult birth. A caesarean is required, and in those days such interventions were invariably fatal for the mother. Jane's death, so early in the season, is as shocking for us as it as it is for Henry. Henry is devastated; he genuinely loved Jane, although a cynic would say he just hadn't had enough time to get bored of her.

Still, Henry has his son now...

The Tudors: Season Three, Episode 3

"For some very good reasons, I am determined to save you."

1537 begins, and it promises to be a bloody year. Programmes like The Tudors, of necessity, tack to a "Great Man" philosophy of history; we see little of ordinary people beyond the world of the court. Here, with the rebellion in Yorkshire, we get a rare glimpse of life for ordinary people, and it's not nice at all. People have their welfare safety net ripped away, and all the old familiar things, and when they protest they are tortuously executed by the hordes. This reminds us that, fun though psychopathic tyrants may be, there is a human cost to them.

We begin with Henry's more amusing little quirks; he forgives Hans Holbein his trespasses as he is a genius, much as Pope Clement VII did with Michelangelo last season. The rebels do not receive such leniency, being less exalted. And even Mary's old governess, the Countess of Salisbury, faces an uncertain future as the mother of the traitor Reginald Pole.

Sir Francis Bryan, interestingly, is sleeping with Edward Seymour's wife, cowgirl style ("That was entertaining!"). Seymour deserves his cuckoldry, not bothering to inform his royal sister of their father's death for a whole week. More innocently, Mary is beloved of the people and especially of Robert Aske and the rebels. She, for the moment, is in favour and cannot be accused of treason. Few others can claim this luxury.

Henry, with Jane`s full knowledge, is having an affair with Ursula Missenden that woud be treason if it were she doing it and not he. This has the side-effect of the priapic Bryan not being able to have his wicked way with her. Henry is less stable than he was, dismising Cromwell because of his "low birth". This won`t last.

Another rising takes plac in the north, and it is obvious from the start that the only possible end to it is bloodshed and heads on pikes. It is the Duke of Suffolk who is made to dip his hands into the blood, as the underlings of tyrants must, ordering death and torture, breaking earlier promises to the rebels and deeply traumatising himself by doing so. A red hot poker is shoved up an arse. 74 summary hangings are judged "too lenient". Cromwell clashes with his prisoner Lord Darcy, who predicts the former`s imminent beheading. Oddly, though, Cromwell wants to save Aske, for reasons of his own.

Ashe may be spared, but otherwise there is nothing but death and suffering. And yet Henry sees only what he wants to see, as only a tyrant can.