Claire Bloom discusses playing Lady Marchmain

Award-winning actress Claire Bloom has played some of history's most famous women, including Katherine of Aragon in Henry VIII, the Tsarina Alexandra in Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna and Queen Mary in The King's Speech, as well as appearing in adaptations of Richard III,  The Brothers Karamazov and acting opposite Charlie Chaplin. In 1981, she won critical acclaim for her fantastic and intelligent performance as Teresa Flyte, the Marchioness of Marchmain (above), in one of the most successful British television dramas - a twelve-part adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel, Brideshead Revisited.

 

Central to Brideshead's themes are its treatments of both the English aristocracy and the Catholic faith, with Bloom's Lady Marchmain operating as their greatest proponent. Trapped in a failing marriage to her estranged husband, who cavorts in Venice with his mistress while Lady Marchmain divides her time between their London townhouse and palatial seventeenth-century home at Brideshead Castle, the marchioness's devotion to her religion has led to her described as either the heroine or antagonist of the story. For some, Teresa's quiet elegance and charm masks her suffocating control over her children, that pushes at least two of them to the edge of a nervous breakdown. In the novel, she is unfailingly polite and dignified, leading her son Sebastian's unhappiness with her to baffle the novel's narrator, Charles, although he too eventually comes to regard her sumptuous charm with suspicion. In the 2008 movie version of the story, which saw Emma Thompson take up the role (left), Lady Marchmain was cast squarely as the root of all her children's problems, with Lord Marchmain actually referring to her "crucifying" their second son, Sebastian, with her controlling ways.

 

However, in her autobiography, Claire Bloom defends Lady Marchmain with, I think, a very fair personal take on the character she played.

 

"I still find it puzzling when I am told I played a manipulative and heartless woman; that is not how I saw her. Lady Marchmain is deeply religious, and her dilemma includes trying to raise a willful brood of children on her own, while instilling them with her rigid observance of the Catholic code. Sebastian is both an alcoholic and a homosexual, and from her point of view, he lives in a state of mortal sin. She has to fight for his soul by any means in her power, with the knowledge that her efforts may lead to his destruction. A born crusader, the Marchioness confronts her difficult choices head on; her rigidity of purpose, which I don't in any way share, is understandable in context. The aspect that rings most true is her sense of being an outsider, a Catholic in Protestant England. Not such a leap from being a Jew in Protestant England as one would imagine."

 

An article on "Popular"

Over on my other blog, actress Emerald Fennell (seen above in her role as 1930s aristocrat Lottie Mountstuart in the recent British television drama Any Human Heart), writes a very kind and very funny article about my novel Popular, which will be published in the UK and Ireland on July 7th this year, then in South Africa (August 1st), Canada (August 23rd) and Australia and New Zealand (August 29th.) 

Click here to read Emerald's full article and I hope you enjoy it!

"When Gareth gave me the first draft of Popular, I was in the middle of my university exams and supposed to be reading Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, a grim task that I had already been putting off for months. I told myself that I would quickly read the first chapter of Gareth’s book and then get down to some serious study. That serious study never happened. I was completely gripped, and read the whole thing in one sitting, laughing like a lunatic and compulsively turning the pages. My degree almost certainly suffered, but unfortunately Chaucer didn’t stand a chance in the fight against Meredith and her friends: they kicked him in the crotch, called him a smelly peasant and sent him hobbling back to the fourteenth century."

Defending Anne Boleyn

Part II in Claire Ridgway's on-line series criticising the popular misconceptions and stereotypes surrounding Henry VIII's six queens. Unsurprisingly, having defended Katherine of Aragon last week from the charge of being boring, Claire stridently addresses some of the nonsense which has attached itself to Anne Boleyn's reputation: -

"There’s no denying that Anne Boleyn is the most maligned and misunderstood of Henry VIII’s six wives. Even today, in an age where we have unprecedented access to primary sources and the likes of historians Eric Ives and Alison Weir spreading the message that Anne Boleyn was innocent and framed, Anne Boleyn is still misrepresented in fiction, non-fiction, TV programmes, movies, radio shows, podcasts and online. I am regularly asked why I feel the need to dedicate my time to researching and writing about an historical character who was a traitor to the crown and a homewrecker... Anne Boleyn is different things to different people and the puzzle of her story allows us to form her into what we want her to be and to love and admire her with a passion. Even today, she is causing arguments and heated debates, provoking strong reactions; and perhaps now, more than ever, inspiring people to write books and produce art and craft dedicated to her. She is like a modern day celebrity in that way, yet she lived over 450 years ago. Anne Boleyn is an icon."

To read the full article over at The Anne Boleyn Files, click here.

For my article on why Anne continues to exert such fascination today, click here.

Above: English actress Natalie Dormer as Anne Boleyn in Series 1 of The Tudors.

"Any Human Heart" (2010)

I'm so excited to be able to post a link to Channel 4's new television series, Any Human Heart, an adaptation of the bestselling and award winning novel by William Boyd, which has one of my favourite people, Emerald Fennell, amongst its glitteringly delightful cast. Very exciting. 

Emerald and I first met at Oxford just before Christmas of 2006, when I was directing my second student play and she auditioned, as one of 83 girls competing for the three main roles in my favourite play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. We got to speak properly for the first time at the call-backs, when I accidentally scheduled the next auditionee an hour after Emerald's audition ended. So, we stayed and chatted for a while and I was heartily relieved that, at last, someone told me that my neurotic fear of flying was more than justified. It's not how often it happens, but how bad it will be when it happens. Even worse if the plane nose dives, then rights itself, and you're the person who wet yourself mid-plummet and have to live with that shame for the rest of the flight. True words. Perhaps some of my favourite memories of our time in Oxford include us, bedraggled and exhausted sitting, without shame, with various 18th century costumes and props slung over our arms as we waited for a post-rehearsal supper table to open up at the Chiang Mai restaurant. Good times. Less endearingly, on my part, there was an incident during a rehearsal for Dangerous Liaisons in a music room at Worcester College, when I - very tired and stressed with the dress rehearsal approaching - was interrupted by someone banging away on a defunct drum kit behind me. For some reason, I assumed it was my friend Johnny Rhodes, so I spun round in high fury and snapped, "Johnny, for f***'s sake! What are you doing?" Only to discover that it was Emerald on said drums; at which point, my demeanour changed entirely and I beamed, "Oh, it's you, Emmy. Well done." Johnny meanwhile, from the far corner of the room, glowered with seething fury from behind his 18th century valet's attire.

The novel Any Human Heart - published by Penguin - is written like a diary or a collection of papers and it follows the life of a fictitious author and art expert, Logan Montstuart, through his existence in the English upper-classes for most of the 20th century. Educated at Oxford in the years between the two world wars, Logan marries into the aristocracy - his wife Lottie (played by Emerald) is the daughter of an earl. However, life is not exactly plain sailing and the story of Any Human Heart chronicles Logan's misadventures across the British Empire as it enters its twilight, his interaction with the ex-King, Edward VIII and his social-climbing American wife, Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor (played by X Files and Bleak House alum, Gillian Anderson), and his life in America and France in the later half of the 20th century. 

It's a fantastic book with a wonderful cast for the adaptation, which was written by William Boyd. It will be broadcast later this year by Channel 4, in four 2-hour segments. So do look out for it! Amongst the cast are Oscar winner Jim Broadbent as the elderly Logan, with Pirates of the Caribbean 4's Sam Claflin and Pride and Prejudice's Matthew Macfadyen playing the younger versions; joining them, apart from Emerald, are Brideshead Revisited's Hayley Atwell, Sex and the City's Kim Cattrall, Tom Hollander as Edward VIII, Gillian Anderson and The West Wing's Richard Schiff. 

I'm obviously hugely excited about this, especially since it seems absolutely no time at all since I was directing Emerald in a student production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Dangerous Liaisons. And giving her the first three chapters of Popular which I had written, to see if she thought they were any good. I'm obviously incredibly grateful for the feedback I received right after she had finished reading them. Johnny, on the other hand, failed to read them at all and got away with saying, "Yeah, yeah, I loved the party in Chapter ...." And inserted any number he could think of. A clever strategy which worked until he accidentally hit upon the one chapter in the book sans party.

It's incredibly exciting that Any Human Heart is finished and I can't wait to see it.

The trailer for Any Human Heart can be watched here.

Defending "The Tudors"

Over at The Anne Boleyn Files, Claire Ridgeway defends the recent television series, The Tudors, which chronicled the life of Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyer) from the half-way point of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon (Maria Doyle Kennedy) until his death after four years of marriage to Catherine Parr (Nip/Tuck's Joely Richardson.) Along the way, Rhys Meyers (whose performance was probably the most controversial in the series and, to my mind, the least convincing) was joined by the award-winning Sam Neill (Cardinal Wolsey) and Jeremy Notham (Sir Thomas More), as well as by pop star Joss Stone (Anne of Cleves), Pride and Prejudice's Tamzin Merchant (Catherine Howard), I Capture the Castle's Henry Cavill (pictured right as the Duke of Suffolk), the fantastic Natalie Dormer (Anne Boleyn), True Blood's James Frain (Thomas Cromwell), Rome's Allen Leech (Francis Dereham), The Exorcist star Max von Sydow (Cardinal von Walburg), Burn Notice's Gabrielle Anwar (Princess Margaret Tudor) and eight time Oscar-nominee, Peter O'Toole (Pope Paul III.)

Dr. David Starkey, author of The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities & Politics, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII, Elizabeth: Apprenticeship and Monarchy, was scathing in his criticisms of the show's many inaccuracies. In one radio interview, he acerbically remarked: “I’ve got no problem with getting history wrong for a purpose – Shakespeare often got things wrong for a reason. But it’s the randomised, arrogance of ignorance of The Tudors.”

However, Claire and The Anne Boleyn Files join Dr. Tracy Borman, author of Elizabeth's Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen, in defending the show. As Dr. Borman wrote: -

“Having been determined to loathe the hugely popular BBC series, with its unfeasibly beautiful actors, dodgy costumes and improbable storylines, I found myself becoming strangely addicted…I grew to appreciate The Tudors for its merits as an historical drama. Yes, the scriptwriters may have taken liberties with the facts, but they have also succeeded in recreating the drama and atmosphere of Henry VIII’s court, with its intrigues, scandals and betrayals... Television dramas, films and novels offer a way in to history and can inspire an abiding passion for the subject. Provided that they encourage people to find out what ‘really’ happened, rather than being treated as reliable historical sources in their own right, then they can and should be respected as a force to be reckoned with in the world of history.”

"L'évasion de Louis XVI" (2009)

Novelist Elena Maria Vidal reports on a French television drama based on the downfall of King Louis XVI, L'évasion de Louis XVI. Herself the author of the novel Trianon, a sympathetic account of King Louis's marriage to Marie-Antoinette of Austria, Miss Vidal praises the drama's attempts to show the doomed monarch in a more positive light. 

You can watch the trailer for L'évasion de Louis XVI here and read this blog's review of Miss Vidal's novel here.

Mortifying mistake on "Australia's Next Top Model"

From my other blog - an embarrassing mistake on the live finale of Australia's Next Top Model. 

"The Special Relationship" Trailer

Having already tackled his relationship with his successor, Gordon Brown, and the monarchy in The Deal (2003) and The Queen (2006), Stephen Frears has returned to the subject of Tony Blair's career as Prime Minister in HBO's amazing new movie, The Special Relationship, which tells the story of Blair's relationship with the then-President of the United States, Bill Clinton, at the time of the Northern Irish Peace Process.

President Clinton, played by Denis Quaid, is joined by Hope Davis as First Lady Hillary Clinton, with the amazing Michael Sheen reprising his role as Blair, with Helen McCrory returning as Cherie Blair and Mark Bazeley playing New Labour's spin doctor, Alistair Campbell, as he did in The Queen.

The trailer can be watched here.

Katharine Parr in the Movies

"Six wives. And the best of them's the worst." - The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933)

Everley Gregg was the first on-screen Katharine Parr in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), in which Henry's sixth and final wife was cast as a bossy but protective nursemaid during her husband's twilight years.

Deborah Kerr, perhaps best known for her role in The King and I, played an elegant and gracious Queen Katharine in the biopic Young Bess (1953), opposite Charles Laughton, Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons. With her red hair and alabaster skin, Kerr had a strong resemblance to the real Queen Katharine, although she was undoubtedly a more beautiful version of the original.

Real-life aristocrat, Sarah Beauchamp, daughter of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, played Queen Katharine in Hallmark's A Queen's Way (1953.)

The Sexualisation of Anne Boleyn

Claire Ridgway at The Anne Boleyn Files criticises the over-sexualisation of Anne Boleyn's story in the modern media.

You can read Claire's full article here.

"It angers me that nearly 500 years on she is still being presented as the woman who tempted Henry away from his wife and beloved church, and a woman who even considered incest to keep her man and crown. Even some Anne Boleyn fans are presenting her as some kind of trophy wife, like a modern day footballer’s wife or celebrity. Others present her as a tragic heroine, a victim of a husband who sought revenge after being bewitched by her. Sometimes it seems that we haven’t moved on from the views of the likes of Chapuys, who called Anne “the Concubine” ... Why oh why do some authors and directors have to make it so that her rise to Queen was based solely on Henry’s sexual infatuation with her and her dangling her virginity as bait? It’s almost akin to people slurring a woman company director by saying that she only got to that position because she slept with influential people or because she’s sexy. Anne Boleyn is not the only victim. Elizabeth Woodville is often portrayed as a woman who used her descent from the mythical Melusine and her knowledge of witchcraft to trap Edward IV and to further her family. Marie Antoinette is depicted as a woman with a voracious appetite for both sexes. Eleanor of Aquitaine was so hot-blooded that she left her frigid husband, Louis VI, for Henry II, and had previously had an affair with her uncle... Alexandra, a member of the History Police group, summed up my feelings on this issue well when she commented on Boudicca, saying, “I think Boudicca was sexy because she was powerful, not powerful because she was sexy”. We are doing historical characters a grave injustice when we credit their success and power to sex and their sex appeal."

Anne of Cleves in the Movies

"If I do not please the King... will he kill me?" - Anne of Cleves in The Tudors (2009)

Elsa Lanchester was the first on-screen Anne of Cleves in the Oscar-winning The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933). Shown here opposite Anne's fictitious lover, played by John Loder, Anne was shown as being clever and wily, deliberately making herself unattractive so as to extricate herself from marriage to the dangerous King Henry. In reality, Elsa Lanchester was married to Charles Laughton, who starred opposite her as Henry VIII.

In this still from the BBC series The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970), Elvi Hale is shown as Anne of Cleves, opposite Keith Michell as Henry VIII. Hale's performance and the script, written by Jean Morris, was the most historically accurate portrayals of Henry's fourth queen.

Natalie Dormer to play another Queen of England

Two former on-screen Anne Boleyns are set to once again "compete," as they play the same Queen of England in movies to be released next year.

Helena Bonham-Carter, who played Anne Boleyn in the 2003 British television drama Henry VIII, and Natalie Dormer, who played Anne (above) across 21 episodes of the Showtime series, The Tudors, will both be playing the late Queen Mother, Elizabeth, who passed away at the age of 101 in 2002.

May 17th, 1536: The Deaths on Tower Hill

"Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the sea; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal."

- William Penn (1644 - 1718), "More Fruits of Solitude"

Thousands upon thousands gathered on the balmy spring morning of May 17th, 1536 to see the five men accused of having cuckolded the King of England meet their fates on a tall scaffold on Tower Hill in London. The writer, Crispin de Milherve, waiting in the crowd near the scaffold was not alone when he later recalled, secretly, that all five “suffered a death they did not deserve.” From the Bell Tower within the nearby fortress, Sir Thomas Wyatt who might have been joining his former friends and colleagues upon the scaffold had things gone differently, watched on in horror as his childhood playmates and drinking partners were scythed down for a crime that he and half of England knew they had not committed. Elsewhere in the same tower, or perhaps in the nearby Byward Tower, the Queen of England also watched. 

For some years, there has been confusion about whether or not Anne did actually witness the executions as romantic legend states – the Constable's letters do not mention it, but there are gaps in the narrative thanks to the 1731 fire at the Cottonian Library, where the papers were held. It is clear that she could not have seen the hill from her present rooms in the Tower, but the Spanish ambassador was quite insistent that she saw the five men die and he had an interview with one of the Queen's compansions, Lady Kingston,  in the days immediately after the executions. What cannot be right is the story that the Queen was forced to witness the butchery of her brother and her friends – to have coerced her across the Tower from her rooms to the Byward or the Bell Tower would have required significant force and created a scene that neither Cromwell nor Kingston wanted. It therefore seems clear that Anne wanted to watch – or, perhaps more accurately, felt that she should watch. Nothing in her life had prepared her for what she was about to witness.

Executed in order of rank, it was the Queen’s brother, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, who died first – the handsome, arrogant, charming Adonis of the Tudor court. Far from the sobbing, blubbering wreck we see in The Other Boleyn Girl, George Boleyn addressed crowd in a loud, clear, confident voice that carried across the crowd for the duration of his fairly lengthy speech. Like his co-accused, he hedged around the issue of his own guilt, for to rage against the injustice now would only bring further dishonour on his family and possibly further government repercussions. It also showed a lack of Christian resignation in the face of death and George’s mind was very much on religion that morning. “Christian men,” he began, “I am born under the law, and judged under the law, and die under the law, and the law has condemned me.” The law then, not his own actions, were to blame and those listening, particularly his fellow aristocrats, knew what George was trying to say without actually saying it.