Series of television plays written by six different authors. Each play is a lavish dramatization of the trials and tribulations surrounding Henry and his wives. Keith Michell ties the episodes together with his dignified and magnetic performance as the mighty monarch.
Unlike many other depictions of the life of the eponymous English King, this one actually features a great deal more meat on the bones of his first marriage to the long-suffering Catherine of Aragon (Annette Crosbie). Brought to England to marry his elder brother (Prince Arthur, who died young) she is kept hanging about, living in a form of palatial poverty unsure of her status with Henry VII and having no status at all in Spain. Will she be repudiated? Well Crosbie gives us a solid start as she portrays a woman of decency and piety who had no intention of going quietly upon the arrival of Anne Boleyn (Dorothy Tutin) who led the King (Keith Michell) a merry dance for a thousand days, before her only bearing a daughter (Elizabeth) proved insufficient for her not to end up on the block and replaced by the pallid Jane Seymour (Anne Stallybrass) who did manage the son (Edward) he craved, but didn't survive the week afterwards. Bereft, it's his lord chancellor Thomas Cromwell (Wolfe Morris) who convinces him that an alliance with the fellow Protestant Duke of Cleves would be a good idea. Holbein is despatched to provide a painting and a marriage is arranged. In comes Elvi Hale as his second Anne, but one he cannot bear to be with. She's no fool though and is equally determined to keep her head. A deal is struck with the King that leaves him free to chase after the child that is Catherine Howard (Angela Pleasence) - a neice of the ambitious Norfolk (Patrick Troughton) but one who's previous life made her days as numbered as the minutes of her hour. Now old, huge and curmudgeonly - and without virtually anyone whom he could trust, he alights on the independently minded Catherine Parr (Rosalie Crutchley) to see him out. The BBC were very good at these condensed period dramas with some splendid costumery and (occasionally wobbly) settings providing a bedrock for some well cast acting and solid writing. Michell made the part his own and, barring some over-applied make up at the end, serves well as the conduit for six characterful female performances spanning his reign. Crosbie excelled here, I felt, as did Elvi Hale proving her Queen every bit the intellectual match for a King unused to being outmanoeuvred. David Munrow was pretty expert at music for the Tudor period and his score accompanies well these stories of dynastic politics frequently disguised as lust, ambition, guile but very rarely as love. As starter level history of this turbulent period in the history of this Kingdom at a time of religious turmoil, it's a thorough and well produced grounding.