Shame this war epic’s sweeping ambition far exceeds its budget: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews the weekend’s TV
World on Fire
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Becoming Elizabeth
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RIP Sean Bean. One of the running jokes of television is that the grizzled Yorkshireman rarely lives to see the end of any series — killed off more than 25 times across his career.
He seemed to cheat his telly destiny when the wartime epic World On Fire (BBC1) first aired in 2019. As conscientious objector and World War I veteran Douglas, he did all he could to prevent his wide-boy son Tom from joining up.
His craggy charm went a long way to thawing the heart of snobbish Robina (Lesley Manville), lady of the manor and an admirer of Oswald Mosley (her excuse was she couldn’t resist a man in a polo neck).
But it was too much to expect that Sean’s character could survive a four-year lay-off.
World On Fire finally returns after interminable Covid delays but, in the meantime, Douglas has been killed — flattened when the Luftwaffe dropped a bomb on his terraced house.
Writer Peter Bowker’s sweeping ambition is to depict the many arenas of the war in World on Fire (BBC1)
That’s the problem with being a ‘conshie’. As Leon Trotsky said, ‘You may not be interested in war but war is interested in you.’
Grief hasn’t softened Robina. Her spiky asides, like barbed wire dipped in poison, are a delight, as is the relish with which Manville delivers them.
Greeting her son’s wife, Kasia (Zofia Wichlacz), she complimented her: ‘I must say, I thought Polish women to be rather, I don’t know… bovine — but you’re really quite beautiful.’
Douglas’s daughter Lois (Julia Brown) returned, but perhaps not for long. Doubling as an ambulance driver and firefighter during the Blitz, she dashed into a burning building at the end of this opening episode to rescue an old chap’s false teeth.
The roof fell in and we last saw her lying under rubble. Perhaps fatally bad luck runs in the family.
Writer Peter Bowker’s sweeping ambition is to depict the many arenas of the war. Last time round, that meant Paris and Warsaw, and no doubt the Eastern Front and D-Day lie ahead. Whether we’ll go as far as Burma and Japan, we’ll have to wait and see.
Our hero Harry (played by Jonah Hauer-King, married to Kasia, in love with Lois) is off to North Africa, where he’ll find the Desert Rats fighting against Germans, Italians and an inadequate budget for special effects.
Scenes in a sandstorm were so obviously filmed in a studio, they looked like those 1960s episodes of Star Trek where Captain Kirk and his crew beam down to an arid planet. I half-expected Klingons to attack. Phasers set to stun, men!
There was a low-budget feel to the Tudor drama Becoming Elizabeth (Ch4), starring Alicia von Rittberg in the title role, and Jessica Raine as Henry VIII’s widow, Catherine Parr — determined to keep hold of political power by befriending the teenage princess.
Edward VI (Oliver Zetterstrom) is on the throne, a blond and petulant mini-tyrant in the mould of Game Of Thrones’ mean little monarch, Joffrey.
There was a low-budget feel to the Tudor drama Becoming Elizabeth (Ch4), starring Alicia von Rittberg in the title role, and Jessica Raine as Henry VIII’s widow, Catherine Parr — determined to keep hold of political power by befriending the teenage princess
First shown on the Lionsgate+ streaming channel last year (no, me neither, but it’s available via Amazon Prime), it features wonderful costumes, all fur collars and acres of velvet. If you enjoy the spectacle of messengers galloping out of castle courtyards on frosty mornings, this is the sort of period drama you’ll love.
But the script is lukewarm sludge. Characters repeatedly explain their complex family connections and court politics to each other, or spout fake Shakespeare. ‘What devil down there is playing finger puppets with us all?’ complained Jane Seymour’s scheming brother Thomas (Tom Cullen).
Thomas and Catherine are allies, something made vividly explicit in the opening sex scene. Jessica never got up to anything like that in Call The Midwife. What ever would Sister Julienne say?
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