The White Queen

[Kimberly]

Hi, this 10 part serial started on the BBC yesterday after much hype. it follows the lives of Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Beaufort and Anne Neville beginning with the marriage of Elizabeth to Edward IV. It is based on the historical romances written by Philippa Gregory ( The Cousins Wars I believe). It is ( imho ) a bit of historical fluff, a romp through the Wars of the Roses but I actually quite enjoyed it, although I am sure at some point in the future I will be wanting to throw my shoe at the telly :-). It is somewhat in the vein of The Tudors but possibly everso slightly more historically accurate. It is causing a bit of a rumpus on another forum so I thought I would post here about it.
So, did anybody else watch the first episode?? I know that it will be aired in the States ( with slightly longer and uncut sex scenes !! ). What did you think about it....

[GDLynn]

I just finished watching it online! I heard about this show awhile ago but could never find more info on it. So last night when I found it online I was SO happy. Since I didn't know that they had started it yet.

OK, so I really like it so far! I loved the Tudors but was always mad about how messed up it was, so I was really happy to see that it was more historically accurate. The only thing I am slightly  upset about is the way they are portraying Elizabeth and her Mother as witches. I can see where it may add to the story later on, and I know there was rumors that her mother was a witch, but I'm just not sure if I like how  they are doing it. I can't wait to see where they go with the show! And I can't too for when they bring the war of the roses and the tudors into it more!

[jehan]

I had my doubts about this one- as I dislike Philippa Gregory's writing intensely due to her historical innacuracies.  I also disliked "The Tudors" for the same reason- I couldn't watch it after the first episode.

But this wasn't bad- it more or less followed the events as they were historically.  The witchcraft part isn't actually farfetched, as Jacquetta was  indeed tried for witchcraft (and acquitted) historically, and did claim descent from Melusine.  The costuming is not far off either- although as always in these things there is too much unbound/uncovered hair.  A couple of Elizabeth's sisters should be a bit older (mid twenties), rather than the teens they are shown as, but that's a minor quibble- at least they showed the whole gaggles of Woodville kids and didn't narrow the family down to 2 or 3 kids. ("the Tudors" couldn't even handle the fact that Henry had 2 (surviving) sisters and combined them into one!)
 
I liked the very brief portrayal of Margaret Beaufort/Tudor, and the Woodville parents.

I will probably watch this, at least for a while- it seems well done.

[mcdnab]

I am a huge fan of Elizabeth Wydeville and surprised myself by enjoying this - having read the books the later episodes will probably annoy me more.
On the witchcraft issue as has been pointed out the general shock of Edward's marriage and the fact the St Pol's (Elizabeth's maternal family) claimed descent from Mesaline was indeed why she and her mother were both accused of witchcraft.
I think dramatic licence on that is okay.
I have met Philippa Gregory who is a great speaker and very entertaining and ironically I am more inclined to think with her Wars of the Roses books she has more licence for imagination than with the tudor books as there is far less historical evidence for the period in terms of letters and state papers etc.
I think it has been well done and has a terriifc cast particularly Janet McTeer as Jacquetta Wydevillle and Caroline Goodall as the Duchess of York.
In terms of the Wydeville children i think the ages are actually pretty close to reality - i spent a lot of time looking at their ages, the births of their first children etc and based on the ages we know (Elizabeth and her eldest brother) when they married etc i think the girls were mostly teenagers downwards. At least the ones they show.

[Kimberly]

I too am enjoying it for what it is and James Frain is rather good as Warwick as well as the brilliant Janet Mcteer who acts everyone off the stage so to speak. Its terrible weakness (IMHO) is the miscasting of Max Irons as Edward who comes across as a bit of a twerp and cannot act his way out of a wet paper bag.
As far as Ms Gregory's books go...they are ok but not particularly accurate - someone has told me that she has Mary Boleyn sitting on the doorstep peeling potatoes in one of her novels !!!
I think this is scheduled to air in the states during August.

[Kimberly]

Oh my days....now up to episode 8 and I have to say that it is pure, unadulterated cr*p.
Shame on the BBC and their collaborators !!!!!
While I understand that it is Ms Gregory's fictional account of the last of the mighty Plantagenets, there is a limit to what I can tolerate.
Elizabeth Woodville has just cast a spell and "withered" Richard of Gloucester's sword arm and now she has swapped her son Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, for some street urchin and spirited her son away. I have to see this through to the end but I fear that my (emptied) glass of gin WILL be thrown at the TV at some point and I will be taken away in a strait-jacket....a mere gibbering wreck.
Its not even "so bad, its good" a la Tudors.
You have been warned.

[edubs31]

I got a kick out of your review Kimberly! How much longer do you have to endure?

Here's a funny review from IMDB that I think you might agree with...


*** out of **********

So, some woman called Elizabeth Woodville (Rebecca Ferguson) goes and stands underneath a big oak tree in a forest. Edward IV rides past, take one look, and instantly falls in love with her.

This man is Elizabeth's sworn enemy, and the murderer of several members of her family, but despite this fact she also falls instantly in love with him. For some reason.

I Googled this historical event to see if it really took place under a tree in a forest and it seems it didn't. In real life, they met in a room. But wherever Liz and Eddie ("Leddie"?) first bumped into each other, had this meeting not occurred there would have been no Henry VIII. Because Elizabeth Woodville was fat old King Harry's grandmother. Such, my children, is the role of sex in history.

Set in 1464, during the Wars of the Roses, The White Queen (BBC1) is quite simply rubbish. The writing is woeful, the performances are wooden, and there are more historical errors than you could shake a polystyrene broadsword at.

Max Irons as Edward IV looks more Eton First XI than majestic, and James Frain as Lord Warwick appears to be an evil reincarnation of Gareth Hunt from The New Avengers. This is dark, curly perm acting at its most inscrutable.

Here we have another highly anticipated Sunday night costume drama crashing and burning because the BBC once again stubbornly refuses to spend our hard earned license money on decent scriptwriters. As usual the characters spend the whole time telling each other things they already know. "But he is your five year old son". "But I am this boy's mother." "But Edward, you are the King of England!". "But Sire, she is your twice married sister ." The Beeb still haven't noticed, but people in the real world don't speak like that. There is no sense of reality in this series, no feeling of actually being there. Only an endless, cringe-making string of crass backstory pick-ups, thinly researched historical facts and figures, and the occasional erect nipple to keep us watching.

Scriptwriting for Dummies: Day One: Lesson One: NEVER HAVE YOUR CHARACTERS TELL EACH OTHER THINGS THEY ALREADY KNOW! If you want to see good historical drama writing, I suggest you watch re-runs of I Claudius. The make-up may have been terrible, the sets might have been made out of cardboard, but every script was lovingly crafted by a real, card-carrying author. Not by a dreary, lazy hack writer who would clearly be more at home writing a Wiki page about minor English kings and their mistresses.

Where have all the real writers gone? I'll tell you. They're sitting at home on their own writing novels, because they are sick to the back teeth of having to deal with the new generation of pimply, useless, Excel-driven BBC Drama executives who wouldn't recognise a great script if it jumped out of a jiffy bag on their desk and clamped itself to their face like a newly birthed Alien on the good ship Nostromo.

The person who commissioned The White Queen should go and stand underneath an oak tree and wait for a proper writer to go past.

[Kimberly]

Edubs 31....thank you, that was a brilliant review you discovered.
Thankfully there are only 2 more episodes of this dross to go.
It is being discussed on another forum and last week one of the "forumers" was up in arms because somebody had said that King Edward dies this week....."WHAT!!!! he dies!!! oh no you should have put that information in "spoilers" ". You could not make it up. You can educate people who have no knowledge of different periods of history using these sorts of programmes.- I have a friend who became passionately interested in Anne Boleyn after watching the Tudors and got down to some good, old fashioned reading.. ( Ives, Starkey etc as well as some half decent fiction). This kind of "wiki-lite cr*p does nothing to educate people. Yes, I know this production of TWQ is derived from  fiction and is entertainment but there is a limit and badly acted, poorly produced bunk like this just turns people off. ( IMHO ).
I end with a mighty big Harummmpph and wait with bated breath for the next installment when Elizabeth magics a huge hump on Richard's back, just before he kills his wife and runs off with Lizzie of York.

[Svetabel]

Now, with 8 series behind I can say that I've been watching this so-to-say-drama only becouse of very good play of actors who portray Richard III and his wife Anne Neville. I do like them.

Max Irons and his Queen look like a parody to Royal persons for me. I don't see any special in their story and don't see chemistry between them.

Also I detest the thought that more likely Richard III will be a murderer of his nephews thanks to the imagination of the script-writers! If Henry Tudor will be a murderer (as it was in reality in history) then I think my time is well-spent in front of TV.

[Selencia]

I think episodes 8 just aired yesterday in the US. Episode 7 was my last, I just can't take it anymore. And I thought I was the only one who had a problem with the way the actors spoke. In ep7 I was so tired of the constant "his brother, George"..." He has me confused with my brother George!"....WTF who speaks like this? We are 7 eps in, and we all know who George is, there is no need to constantly state he is the brother of so and so.
I hate Phillipa Gregory and for months I refused to watch this series. I only started when I saw Max Irons and then I saw Aneurin Barnard and I fell in love with him. This drama is one of the worst I have seen recently and it makes Elizabeth Woodville deeply unlikable.