Off With His Wazzock!

By Television Hermione Eyre

Historical accuracy makes way for bare chests and lipgloss in thenew mega-budget Irish-American production ‘The Tudors’

The Tudors BBC2

The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle BBC2

The Flight of the Conchords BBC4

The Peter Serafinowicz Show BBC2

Ihad high hopes for The Tudors. I fantasised that it might have a resonant American voiceover: “Meet The Toodors, United Kingdom’s original dysfunctional dynasty. She’s grumpy, she’s frumpy, she’s Catherine of Aragon. He’s raunchy, he’s not paunchy (not yet anyway) he’s Henry Eight!” Disappointingly there is no such voiceover, though The Tudors is bad in its own special way.

It’s a bit like one of those huge murals you find in out-of-the- way European train stations: slightly histrionic with patchy handiwork (that’s not the Palace of Westminster, that’s a computer- generated blob!). Yet still, you can’t help but be pleased it’s there. Its sheer scale and ambition is elating, and you’re happy to lose yourself in it, at least until the buffet opens.

The budget for this joint Irish-American production was $29m. A second series is already in post-production and the first has won two Emmys, for costume and, rather improbably given the title tune is an ear rotting combo of folksy fiddle-de-jig and modern synth- beat, musical score. It’s a juggernaut of a show, pitched to an international market, and it’s clearly the US network Showtime’s attempt to emulate HBO’s hit drama Rome. It cleaves to all of the key rules of History, HBO-style:

1) Characters shall speak as if they were alive today. Just as you could never be certain, when watching Rome, that Cleopatra wasn’t about to shout “You wazzock!” at Antony, modern slang is all over The Tudors. “We’re fashionably late,” says a nobleman, arriving at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in the manner of an It Girl arriving at a party. While “I saved my master’s arse!” are words we never thought to hear from Cardinal Wolsey. Linguistic anachronisms abound – apart from the odd occasion when a character is given a cod- historical line to sayeth.

2) Costumes shall be historically accurate, but make-up shall most definitely not be. My Lady Hot Totty will wear a kirtle, a fashionable farthingale, a richly embroidered bodice, possibly even on a very authentic day a rather unflattering gable – all set off with lashings of lipgloss, mascara, and fake tanning products.

4) Historical content shall be deeper and more substantial than anyone expected. It shall be imparted casually, via indirect speech. The viewer shall not be made to feel spoon-fed. Fork-fed, perhaps. Care must be taken that no off-putting or scholarly terminology is included. Henry VIII’s claim to French territory is discussed with admirable clarity but there is a studied avoidance of words like “matrilineal”, “primogeniture” and “Salic Law” – fun-killers, every one of ‘em.

5) There shall be spectacle. Linguistic impoverishment shall give way to visual riches. Every episode includes a coup de theatre, a stunning historical tableau. See, in episode two, the precious moment when the Dauphin is presented with a prank pie. Or, in episode three, the court masque. For a few seconds, it’s heaven. Then someone speaks.

The Tudors lacks Rome’s redeeming wit. Its younger cast members are blandly pulchritudinous; the older ones are too frequently playing on one note. Jeremy Northam, so far, has nothing to declare but Sir Thomas More’s saintliness. (Do we detect in this Irish- American production a certain sensitivity to the Papal perspective? The Pilgrimage of Grace will be the indicator. If it’s a pious vigil, yes. If it’s a hungry riot, probably not.) Jonathan Rhys Meyers, so perfect as the malevolent Chiron in Julie Taymor’s Titus, is miscast here as Henry VIII. As Antonia Fraser remarked to the Radio Times, he should really have red hair. “Not only was he famous for it, but so was his daughter Elizabeth, whose acceptance on the throne owed a lot to her being ‘Great Harry’s Girl’, as she put it. And her red hair was a living, visible symbol of that link.” But as she also observed, Rhys Meyers has “a very watchable chest”. Distractingly so. This king is not only better looking than anyone in his court, but also in his kingdom. It doesn’t just stretch credulity – it’s also a jolly lazy way of establishing regal charisma.

Watching Showtime’s take on English history is disorientating – like touring the mini-United Kingdom in the Epcot Centre, Florida. In some ways the series feels fresh: less baggage, less self- consicousness about the Merrie England cliche. In other ways it feels fundamentally ersatz. You sets your Sky Planner and you makes your mind up.

The nights are getting darker, but funnier. Sometimes more darkly funny. There is a whole slew of new comedy programming, but blackest of all is Jennifer Saunders’ satire about a bottom-feeding daytime TV host, called The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle – inspired, wouldn’t you know, by Jeremy Kyle. His exploitative talk show (recently condemned by a judge as “bear-baiting”) is so beyond satire that in a sense, shuffling the letters around is all Saunders can do. She does it very entertainingly, of course, but there’s a deadening obviousness which the frequently over-the-top delivery only highlights. Saunders is superlative as ever, but Miranda Richardson, as her coke-craven producer, has moments of naturalistic brilliance, and others of cringey caricature.

The target this show hits most effectively is the power-hungry middle-aged woman: in denial about motherhood or reproduction, affecting teenager street slang and desperately girlish in her leggings and pumps. As the butt of a comedy, this woman is more depressing than hilarious.

The moralising is also a little heavy-handed (“I think that if what you do is take people apart in public without giving them anything to replace it with, it’s only a matter of time before someone punches you,” hectors Vyle’s shrink). But for all these flaws, I’m definitely going back for more.

The Flight of the Conchords is a sitcom with songs. The sitcom is so-so but the songs are genius. Prince’s “Could You Be/ The Most Beautiful Girl in the World?” is loosely reinterpreted as “Could You Be/ The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room?” (“Ooh, you could be a part time model”). Their sung spoofs are dreamy, apparently vacant, and utterly deadly.

It’s a golden autumn for spoofs, in fact. The Peter Serafinowicz show is a runaway triumph, with only one dud sketch in 30 packed out mins. I’d love to see his take on “The Toodors”.

need to know

Thomas More was born in 1478, son of a prominent London judge. He had a career as a barrister, monk, politician and diplomat before he refused to recognise England’s break with Rome and was beheaded for treason in 1535. He coined the word “Utopia”, and was canonised 400 years after his death. Favourably portrayed in the play ‘Sir Thomas More’, possibly by Shakespeare, he was also the subject of Robert Bolt’s play ‘A Man for All Seasons’. The actor Paul Scofield made his name in the role, both in the West End and in Fred Zinnemann’s multi-award winning 1967 film.

This week Hermione Eyre has been mudlarking in the Thames, a hobby re-inspired by Peter Ackroyd’s biography Thames: Sacred River: ‘Found lots of old clay pipes but I’m still looking for an auroch’s antler’

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