Let me
try and explain why I came to The Devil’s
Whore. The always-excellent John
Simm. Michael Fassbender. Maxine Peake, who I loved as Veronica on Shameless. Dominic West.
Starting to get the idea?
This
miniseries takes the events leading up to Oliver Cromwell’s defeat of Charles I
and views them through the lens of Angelica Fanshawe, a fictional
noblewoman. We open on Angelica about to
marry her best friend since childhood; but though she celebrates her love and
good fortune, she soon sees that friends aren’t husbands, and the boy she once
knew isn’t the man she’s married.
Furthermore, while her husband is the king’s man entirely, Angelica
can’t help but feel sympathy towards those who face punishment and torture for
railing against unjust rule.
PC gets
in on the historical side of things, playing none other than King Charles
I. Of course, I already know how things
will turn out for him, but episode 1 shows a self-assured man who is willfully
deaf to his people’s voice. As his
country roils with upheaval, the indulgence and show of court life continues
unabated, and he captains a ship he refuses to admit is sinking.
The
main focus of The Devil’s Whore seems
to be on Angelica – the increasingly tumultuous relationship between Charles I
and his subjects could be a metaphor for her and her husband, and much time is
devoted to her growing interest in the rebels.
So, PC hasn’t had an enormous role so far, and I’ll always associate
Charles I with Stephen Fry’s riotous Blackadder
performance, but PC’s doing a nice job.
He plays the king with a slightly delicate prissiness, all softness and
vanity at first glance. And yet, he’s
fond of his absolute power, and he proves that he can go cold and hard when he
meets the least resistance. I’m
interested to see where he goes from here.
One
more actor to mention – Harry Lloyd appears in episode 1 as the king’s
nephew. Between this role, Son of Mine
on Who, Steerforth in David Copperfield, and Viserys Targaryen
on Game of Thrones, his go-to move
seems to be mixing different levels of arrogance, creepiness, insanity, and
moral bankruptcy. I have no idea how he
managed to get cast as the delightful Herbert Pocket in the recent BBC
miniseries of Great Expectations;
talk about casting against type!
Accent Watch
RP, I’d
say.
Recommend?
In
General
– I’m optimistic. Seems like a pretty
good historical drama, and the cast is stellar.
PC-wise – He hasn’t had too
much to do yet, but what I have seen makes me want to see more.
Warnings
A fair
amount of sexual content – some discussion, brief nudity, and multiple sex
scenes. There’s also some violence,
including battle scenes and bloody 17th-century punishments.
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