The Hollow Crown - The Wars of the Roses

I agree, but when its done well it can be a thrilling bloodfest.

If only HBO had done this series

For me, it is very much a mixed bag.

I thought the restructuring of the script worked really well. Part 1 recast as the Tragedy of Duke Humphrey made real sense of the material.

The design and filming were pretty spot on (though the rose garden scene just looked too fake and I wasn't convinced by Margaret's see-through pointy hat)

There are some casting decisions that did take me out of action. Why does Cecily get to be played by 2 actors but Margaret only one?

Sophie Okonedo is a fine actor - but she is just too old to convince as Part 1 Margaret (who should be late teens/early 20s at this point in the narrative) - on stage, she might well have got away with it, but in TV HD close-up, she is just too mature. Not her fault, but if they can split Cecily without confusing the audience, they could have done the same with Margaret.

I have seen online comment from people who objected to casting an actor of colour as Margaret, that didn't bother me in the slightest. I just felt the character was not best served by being played in Part 1 by an actor 30 years older than the part. Having Okonedo take over for parts 2 and 3 would have been preferable. At least to me!

The 1960s version was a stage-to-screen adaptation using an existing theatrical version - and audiences were far more accepting of things then. (Plus you couldn't use Google to look up salient details as you went along)

Okonedo could well be a very successful stage Margaret - I don't doubt the quality of her acting. It is just in the 'realistic' setting that the TV adaptations are striving for, she stands out as looking too mature for her role.

I guess it is the inconsistency of approach between Margaret and Cecily that I find frustrating. If audiences are going to cope with one changing actor between parts, I am sure they could cope with two.

Oh I've not clicked to that before, I am going to say because he's Aumerle in Richard II and I forget that by Henry V he's succeeded to the title. I didn't enjoy this as much as the original three but I fancy it might be a grower for me and the plays are quite bitty in parts so probably harder to pull them all together as a cohesive whole than the later plays perhaps. As before it's a bit of a who's who or casting which is always nice though as mentioned above it's a shame when you lose lots of someone like Talbot leaving a strong actor with little to do but on the whole it seems to have gone done well which is good I think, my mother said she could only watch about 50% as she was worried about blood shed but since she started off by saying she couldn't watch any of them due to the shape of Benedict's Cumberbatch's nose it did quite well to win her over!

Sophie Okenedo is impressive. This is one hell of a part for her or any actress. She will have ( hope it hasn't been edited out) one of the best speeches in all of Shakespeare. And what about that Anton Lesser, eh? He adorns with sheer skill any scene he is in and I loved the way the director used his face to be a kind of silent commentary on the action. These were Shakespeare's first plays as far as we know and were v successful.

On a whole I enjoyed it (historical inaccuracies aside) but I have to say that I'm not terribly keen on Tom Sturridge as Henry VI (I wanted to like him, I really did) or Adrian Dunbar as Richard, Duke of York.

Was just doing catch up on Undercover and there was a bit which made me think 'oh she's going to be great when she gets to real violence, fury, anguish parts of Margaret, but she was very good george22 mostly pre that in first episode.

Yep!

peggs, your comments are priceless, keep us posted! )) Personally extremely pleased to see Geoffrey Streatfeild in this (you might say I have a soft spot for him) - he hardly does any decent TV or film.. More pleasure to catch him in theare

Is she a Spooks fan? I remember tuning in for the last series (and not having a clue what was going on!) because Streatfeild joined the cast.

That's the Machiavellian anti-hero drawing you in there

After writing three plays of endless carnage and deaths, Shakespeare has taken a leaf out of Marlowe's book and created a character that repulses and delights you at the same time. Just that alone marks the difference in quality between Henry VI and Richard III.

I don't recall any other character speaking directly to the camera up until now in these two episodes. You can almost sense Shakespeare suddenly upping his game as Cumberbatch turns to the camera for the first time, as if to say "now the real sh*t can start, motherf**ckers"

And I must say I've only liked Cumberbatch's work up until now, but just the last 15 minutes of him up close has me quaking for more. Just his facial work alone looks deformed and villainous