Well, I've just finished the last episode. An excellent series about the wives of Henry VIII, attempting to show the women as dynamic and 'real'. The series mixed dramatisation with fact, and although it would have been nice to clarify which was which, the whole concept worked well.. During the first two episodes Worsely seamlessly morphed from her usual self to a Tudor servant/lady in waiting in shot and this provided an interesting perspective. In the third episode she merely changed in the different sections and this flowed less well. There was very little new material but it was presented by Worsley in an appealing and vivacious way.
I thought nothing could beat the sight of Worsley sat in a campervan next to the portrait of Catherine of Aragon. The image of her eating chips on a ferry next to the portrait of Anne of Cleves proved me wrong.
The third episode starred Richard Ridings as the aging king and he was thoroughly convincing. Even though he is Daddy Pig from Peppa and this was more than a little distracting 🙂
Ok so the bad bits. There was a lot of preview and recap at the start and end of each episode. I would also question her conclusion that Elizabeth I secured the Tudor dynasty as she faced several plots to remove her, and she failed to provide an heir so the throne went to the Stuarts after her death.
Overall this series was FAB-U-LOUS. Well done to the BBC and Lucy Worsley.
