EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT: Hot Tudors By Anna Pursglove For You Magazine Published: 12:01, 13 July 2024 | Updated: 12:01, 13 July 2024 e-mail View comments Good morrow! Check out my raiment. Er..
. Come on, what sayest thou? I assume there’s some sort of Tudor trend going on. Correct! This is a ‘hot Tudor summer’, says The Times.
I think The Time s will find that hasn’t been true since 1603. By my troth..
. Can we give the Tudor talk a rest? Exactly what the producers of My Lady Jane said. My Lady who? The new drama about Lady Jane Grey on Prime Video.
Is it an exploration of the Nine-Day Queen as the focus of Protestant identity in the mid-1550s? Jude Law (Henry VIII) and Alicia Vikander (Katherine Parr) in Firebrand Maybe that’s what the narrator meant when he said that Lady Jane was ‘a bit of a pain in the a**e’. So does it explore her challenge to the gendered power structures of Tudor England? Oh yes. Definitely.
How? Henry VIII is described as a ‘renowned sh**head’. Does this show make any attempt at historical accuracy? Depends on how you’re defining the term. Go on.
.. Lady Jane doesn’t make the throne.
Or die. And some of the characters can turn into animals. So, it’s basically Harry Potter.
Along with a side serving of Bridgerton . If it’s historical accuracy you’re after, you might prefer the King Henry VIII film Firebrand (in cinemas this September). How accurate are we talking? Jude Law (who plays an ailing Henry suffering with agonising leg ulcers) wore a special fragrance on set to make him smell ‘like he was actually rotting’.
Dior Homme Intense? Nothing to do with Dior. It seems director Karim Aïnouz wanted to give the actors ‘an ambience of truth ’. Dior channels Mary Queen of Scots Brave.
Speaking of which, talk me through your outfit. That is to do with Dior. I take it you saw last month’s Cruise 2025 Collection inspired by Mary, Queen of Scots? Must have missed that.
Puffed sleeves are a thing. Clearly I’m no expert, but your outfit doesn’t look like Dior. No, verily, ’tis Shein.
Moving on, what else is giving 16th-century vibes? A second series of the BBC’s Wolf Hall – adapted from Hilary Mantel’s book The Mirror and the Light – has recently finished filming. Thank god. I hope that no one says ‘boll***s’ or describes Tudor life as ‘a kick in the t*ts’.
You’ll be safe with Mantel – and with the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII’s Queens. Finally, some art that contemplates the period without slamming it into pop culture. On which note, I probably wouldn’t book to see the Tony award-winning musical Six , about Henry’s wives.
Why not? Who was your favourite wife? Anne of Cleves. The one who looked like Jeremy Clarkson? Definitely don’t go. I am not obsessed with beauty.
It’s not the look, it’s the content: Sample lyric sung by Anne: ‘No one tells me I need a rich man/Doin’ my thing in my palace in Richmond’. Tudor buffoonery abounds. Some readers of The Times story agreed with you, feeling a new historical obsession was overdue .
Such as? ‘We would be much better to be crazy for the Anglo-Saxons’, offered one. Great idea! What is? Bigging up the Anglo-Saxons on TV! Bring on Homes Under the Hammer: Wattle & Daub Special . Too ‘daytime’.
The Real Housewives of Mercia. I’m not feeling it. You want a show that paints a more detailed picture of figures from history and the worlds they inhabited? Exactly! At last you’re beginning to understand these things deserve context and nuance.
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