carol-morley

Made it through the first half hour, noting both the excellent ideas included by experienced actors and academic experts. Dates, filled-out careers of the early ("pre-Shakespearean") poets, variety of venues and successful plays, which could have provided a much clearer and richer context for Shakespeare's emerging success, are clumsily bodged in and worked around to the show's overall lack of credibility. Both Peele's Edward I and Greene's James IV need a nod before trying to imply that Shakespeare invented post-Armada English chronicle history crowd-pleasers out of thin air. Also, to show Marlowe's death as a back-alley mugging before cutting to a much better-informed speaker referring to contradictory, documented facts is farcical incompetence. I'll come back, in small doses, to hear what the expert contributors have to say, but I think fast-forwarding through the schlocky reenactments will be the way to go. Wasted opportunity to make the best of a fascinating subject.

Halfway through s.1 and getting funnier by the episode. Just when you think this is cheerfully broad clowning, and all the better for being Catherine Tate leading the circus, the snappy one-liners kick in and keep on coming. Royal caricatures destruct-tested in an unlikely Aussie parallel universe. The unfinished koala joke from episode 1 is capped by the traumatic kangaroo event of ep.2 (which, shamefully was even funnier). Before the end of this first series, will there be a regal cock-up with the prawns at a Palace Barbie? An unspecified Vegemite Scandal by Royal Appointment? Will - and already I wouldn't put it past Her Australian Majesty - we see her Christmas Speech on the beach? More please.

With which headline, welcome to the bonkers world of Austenland. If you loved Lost in Austen, it's just as much fun, but not at all the same. If you loved Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, well, at least you get a ninja here, and a stuffed peacock (how many times can YOU spot it?). The glorious Jennifer Coolidge magnificently indulges the widespread American belief that all English accents are either dead posh or strangulated cockney. Jennifer rules, with her riotous headwear a close second. Chuck in some cheeky Mellorsish-meets-Jane Eyreish with a Bridget Jones punch-up at some point. Actors, eh? Front and centre though, a heartsick, disillusioned hero does meet a lovelorn and idealistic heroine and this viewer was left wishing for an extended visit to Miss Charming's theme park, for further fun, possible peacock sightings and definitely teatime whenever.