The Six Wives of Henry VIII (Capon & Glenister, 1970) (Complete) on DVD

Star Review

After A Man for All Seasons (1966) and Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) had been showered with eight and 10 Oscar nominations respectively, the BBC turned to the Tudors with this nine-hour costume drama, which screened in the first weeks of 1970. Its BAFTA success led to a spin-off feature, Henry
VIII and His Six Wives (1973), and a sequel series, Elizabeth R (1971), in
which Glenda Jackson took the title role. With each episode running for 90
minutes, this was one of the most ambitious projects that the BBC had ever
undertaken and it still ranks alongside such classic historical recreations
as the peerless Fall of Eagles (1974).

The great strength of the series was its refusal to make intellectual
compromises. The plotlines were rooted in the latest academic research and
eschewed many of the popular conceptions that had underpinned such
enjoyable, but factually flawed pieces as Alexander Korda's The Private Life
of Henry VIII (1933), in which Charles Laughton had won Britain's first-ever
Oscar by playing Bluff King Hal as a kind of music-hall caricature.

The sextet's scholastic credentials are most readily evident in the Anne
Boleyn episode, which emphasised the struggle for power and influence within the court rather the racier subject of the king's lust for a younger woman. But while the political consequences of each marriage are always paramount, the human element of the reign is never neglected.

Annette Crosbie (Katherine of Aragon), Dorothy Tutin (Anne Boleyn), Anne Stallybrass (Jane Seymour), Elvi Hale (Anne of Cleves), Angela Pleasence (Catherine Howard) and Rosalie Crutchley (Catherine Parr) ably suggest the facets that either won them Henry's heart or earned them his displeasure. Moreover, they deftly reflected the changes in the king's personality, as the dashing Renaissance monarch became a corpulent tyrant, exhausted and embittered by altering the course of the nation's history in his desperation to secure the succession. But the action is dominated by the Australian actor, Keith Michell, who brilliantly captures Henry's vigour and grandeur, while also revealing his ruinous weakness in the face of both beauty and the cunning of his self-serving minions.