This play was done in the BBC Shakespeare's first season (produced by Cedric Messina) and tried to be pleasant, realistic, and faithful—unlike the plays which precede it chronologically, done in the fifth season under Shaun Sutton, which were deliberately ugly (trying to look like "playground squabbles" but more like an abandoned lumber yard) and incompetently and trendily directed. This production was filmed competently on realistic locations with suitable costumes; the cinematography shows its age, though, on a high-resolution screen. The actors are all excellent, and Claire Bloom as Henry's (minor spoiler) divorced wife is magnificent. The play itself, though, is relatively weak; it was mostly written by John Fletcher, and Shakespeare's parts are weak, "sometimes downright careless in syntax," as the Pelican Shakespeare notes. It is full of Shakespeare's usual special pleading for history's winners—especially ironic for a play whose original title seems to have been "All is True." But parts of it are excellent, and the whole is well worth watching. If you're viewing the plays in the proper order, this one will come as a great relief after the botched Henry VI's and Richard III, and an excellent culmination to Shakespeare's double tetralogy. It shows what the BBC could have accomplished had it kept its original agreement with the series' sponsors to do authentic Shakespeare.
Review of Henry VIII
