Royal Sex: 'The Tudors' brings history to life
Many people found history a boring subject at school. All those figures and names and dates to remember and kings and queens starting wars. Certain screen history epics have been successful over the years but they were expensive to produce and had to have big names attached. It has been noticed that history works well on television. The one that is getting the most attention is The Tudors. Viewers have been held spellbound by the gorgeous production.
The first series of The Tudors won an Emmy. It really was a risk taking project. The makers of the series had no idea if viewers would bite or not. But The Tudors is anything but boring. They were the rulers of both England and Wales during the years 1485 to 1603. The most famous of all the Tudors is King Henry VIII. This character is played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers. This is a surprise to those of us who know that King Henry VIII was a fat man with gout. The thirty one year old Rhys Meyers is young and in excellent shape. He has a sensuality that comes from power and ego. His character makes full use of his immense power to get whatever he wants. He is so self-indulgent he actually takes over a religion to get his bit on the side.
Viewers eagerly follow the doings of the Tudors as King Henry 8th plays ‘roulette’ with his kingdom for the age old reason of lust. But only amplified because the man is the king, and in the second series he connives to make himself ‘el Supremo’ when he grabs the church as well. He doesn’t simply take the church in order to get a younger more beautiful wife. He uses the royal court to implement bribery, murder, blackmail, threats and plots. It is rather fascinating to think that the present day royalty has this as part of their personal heritage. Somehow your family skeleton rattling around in the cupboard doesn’t seem quite so bad after all.
Peter O’ Toole plays the character of the Pope. But Meyers did say that the series cannot be used as a ‘history lesson’ because the period has been reduced by ten years. In real life Henry was only fourteen years old when he became king. He became involved with Anne Boleyn in his thirties but in The Tudors it takes place in his twenties. However, the series is based on the personalities of those characters and some of the facts have been embellished for the sake of a good story. This has not diminished the series’ popularity with viewers. It does show there was really no difference between the methods used by King Henry VIII and the Pope.
Natalie Dormer plays Ann Boleyn. She is the woman who made herself beautiful. In The Tudors she had quite a hold over the king, but then disappoints him by not producing a son. This is of course seen as her fault. Viewers are waiting with bated breath to see if she is able to keep the king ensnared with her sexual savvy. Watch The Tudors on Fridays at 9 p.m on BBC Two.
