Henry VIII

This article was first published in the Age on March 27, 2004

It's tough for a TV show to compete with childhood memories, and that is the risk the ABC is taking with many viewers in screening it's two part series, Henry VIII tomorrow night (ABC, 8.30pm). The 6 part series on Henry VIII made in the Seventies starred Keith Michelle, an actor who played Henry as a man of great dignity and power. It was a show I loved as a teenager, introducing me to the notion that history could be exciting as well as worthy.

The star of this series is certainly exciting: Ray Winstone plays Henry as a cockney thug, albeit a vulnerable and boyish one. He is less a king and more a man of many flaws. I was left unconvinced by Winstone - who can be a wonderful actor - because Henry was not just a gangster politician, he was a patron of the arts, a lover of music and poetry, and, to state the obvious, extremely upper class. But there is no arguing with the energy of Winstone's performance, or the fact that it is both terrifying and tender.

Helen Bonham Carter's performance is more classical and she is compelling as Anne Boleyn. Refusing to be cowed by a king or reduced to a mistress, she is magnificent, but, like her husband, she is also appalling. Boleyn's contribution to history is enormous. Not only does she trigger and encourage the split between England and Rome and the founding of the Church of England, she is also responsible for one of the deepest ironies of Henry VIII's tale: that a man driven half mad by his desperation for a male heir, driven to kill those who did not produce sons and forced to endure the death of the one wife - Jane Seymour - who did; should father the greatest female leader in English history, Elizabeth I.

In interviews Winstone describes this Henry VIII as The Godfather and that is a good comparison, what with the sudden bursts of violence, the constant scheming in darkened corridors, and the full bodied hugs Henry bestows on those, like Robert Aske (Sean Bean) who he is about to torture and kill. It is not just the acting that makes the material feel so contemporary. The art direction and camera work has a dynamic quality you didn't get in more old fashioned productions. There is no doubt this version looks better and is truly cinematic, rather than theatrical, in quality.

Tomorrow night's episode is sustained by the fascination of the King's first two wives, Catherine of Arragon and Anne Boleyn, as well as the political repercussions of his first divorce. Next week's episode races to cover four wives and the final years of Henry's life. By this stage Henry is a broken man and the episode starts to feel like a series of weddings interspersed with beheadings. So, Henry VIII, like its subject, is inconsistent, but the myth and the man it springs from is commanding enough a story to stand up to its many retellings.

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