Henry's Back!
By Mick Farren
I will freely admit that, during the first season, I became wholly addicted to the Showtime series The Tudors. No expatriate Englishman could want for more – lavish 16th century sets and costumes, nasty executions, intricate intrigues in the courts of the crowned heads of Europe (as Henry VIII attempts to extricate England from the grip of the Catholic Church for no better reason than he wants a divorce), plus, of course extended sequences of historical shagging, especially between Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry and the adorable Natalie Dormer as Anne Boleyn. Sure it’s essentially an up-market U.S./Brit soap, but it’s a soap with class, a pedigree, and a massive budget, plus the radical departure of focusing on Henry XIII when he was young and hot but decidedly psychotic, rather than the overfed bloated bastard painted by Holbein, played by Charles Laughton on film, and hysterically described by Eddie Izzard in his Dressed To Kill stand-up routine. The second season of The Tudors promises to be far darker than the first, as Henry, having obtained what he wanted (Ann Boleyn) doesn’t want her anymore because she can’t bear him a son. Accordingly, he dispatches her to what promises to be the most lavishly nasty execution, and probably the season finale. Meanwhile, the cherry on this complex confection is the casting of the ancient but magnificent Peter O’Toole as Pope Paul III, the venerably venomous adversary of Henry’s ruthless testosterone.
Showtime, Suns. at 9 p.m.
Published: 03/26/2008
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