CBC, BBC "ought to be ashamed of its Tudor drama series," says British historian
Dan Say
Maev Kennedy The Guardian, Friday October 17 2008 Article history
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/17/bbc-television
[ Photo The Tudors: Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry VIII and Natalie Dormer as
Anne Boleyn. Photograph: BBC ]
The historian David Starkey has lambasted the BBC over the swashbuckling
dramatisation The Tudors, saying the corporation should be ashamed of the
series, which features the increasingly bloated Henry VIII played by the
lissom Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers, usually half naked and tumbling into
bed with some woman auditioning to become one of the six wives.
"The Tudors is terrible history with no point," Starkey said at the Cheltenham
literature festival. "It's wrong for no purpose. I've got no problem with
getting history wrong for a purpose - Shakespeare often got things wrong for a
reason. But it's the randomised arrogance of ignorance of The Tudors. Shame on
the BBC for producing it."
In fact, the BBC did not produce the series but bought it in. A spokeswoman
said yesterday: "The Tudors is not a drama-documentary, which has always been
made clear, but a highly authored and entertaining interpretation of events in
a period in history."
The second series has just ended on the BBC, with Henry halfway through the
wives, having got rid of Anne Boleyn. Historically, the king should be in his
40s and already putting on the enormous bulk of his later life, but the actor
playing him is still slender as a blade of grass, reportedly to increase the
box office appeal of the series.
The drama has attracted a steady audience of about 2.3 million viewers -
rather less than some of Starkey's own documentaries, including Henry and His
Wives, and another on the history of the monarchy whose ratings thrashed the
then hit soap opera Ally McBeal. The first series attracted 3.2 million
viewers.
The Tudors is an independent co-production between Peace Arch, Showtime and
Working Title, and is filmed in Ireland. Starkey, though a serious academic,
has also cheerfully described himself as "an all-purpose media tart", and
relishes controversy.
When he was described as "the rudest man in Britain" for his acid tongue on
Radio 4's The Moral Maze, he gleefully calculated that the title added at
least £100,000 a year to his earnings.
Dan Say
The Tudors, Mayerthorpe win Geminis
Alex Strachan , Canwest News Service
Published: Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Mayerthorpe, CTV's tightly wound docudrama about the 2005 murder of four RCMP
officers on an Alberta farm, won the 2008 Gemini Award for best TV movie
Wednesday in Toronto.
Andrew Wreggitt, who wrote the movie, also won a Gemini for best writing in a
dramatic program or miniseries.
The Tudors, CBC and Showtime's costume epic about the reign of King Henry
VIII, won a field-leading four Geminis.
In all, The Tudors won Geminis for supporting actress (Kennedy),
cinematography, production design and visual effects
... [ more ]
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The winners of the 2008 Gemini Drama, Variety and Comedy Awards are
Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Supporting Role in a Dramatic
Series
Maria Doyle Kennedy - The Tudors - Episode 105/Episode 108
Best Photography in a Dramatic Program or Series
Ousama Rawi - The Tudors - Episode 106
Best Production Design or Art Direction in a Fiction Program or Series
Tom Conroy, Eliza Solesbury - The Tudors - Episode 106
Best Visual Effects
Bob Munroe, Terry Bradley, Lisa Carr-Harris, Bret Culp, Bill Halliday, Warren
Leathem, Bo Mosley - The Tudors - Episode 110