King Charles III

[ardcarp]

What could have sprawled in saccharine fashion across ten episodes was tightly compressed into a single drama. The big surprise for me was the Shakespearian couplet format; strangely effective. Being a non-Royalist, I was dragged screaming to watch this, and was roundly hushed by asking such things as who Kate was in real life. Maybe it was a simple and predictable 'plot', but 'twas well written and well acted, methought

[jean]

I've only watched the first twenty minutes so far, but wasn't the splendid music for the Queen's funeral strangely inappropriate?

[Mary Chambers]

I spent a lot of time at the beginning counting syllables, because I wasn't sure that the iambic pentameter was always entirely accurate - but a lot of actors these days don't know how to speak blank verse. This does not apply to Tim Pigott-Smith, who was more or less perfect.

At first I wasn't sure I was going to like it, but once it got going it was quite powerful stuff, and I was glad I stuck with it. Superior to most television drama, perhaps because it wasn't originally television drama.

[ardcarp]

At first I wasn't sure I was going to like it, but once it got going it was quite powerful stuff, and I was glad I stuck with it

My thoughts exactly.

[aeolium]

I thought it was truly terrible. False archaic language and language forms are bad enough when used in period productions but to use something archaic in a period supposedly in the future is bizarre in the extreme. Some of the contrived rhymes sounded as though they could have come from a Rupert Bear annual and there were numerous really cringe-making passages. Not only the language but the ideas were anachronistic - as if the leader of the opposition would advise a monarch to use the royal prerogative to dissolve parliament! Only the great efforts of the late Tim Pigott-Smith redeemed the 90 minutes - and lovely to see a brief cameo from John Shrapnel at the end, a too rarely seen actor who looked here (and rightly so) full of anger at the tosh he was involved in.

[Stunsworth]

I loved it. I confess I hadn't read that it was in blank verse, so at first thought it sounded rather Shakespearean but couldn't put my finger on why. I thought the blank verse worked given the Shakespearean nature of the tale being told.

[ardcarp]

but to use something archaic in a period supposedly in the future is bizarre in the extreme

Bizarre is ok, surely? I mean time-shifting historical plays is almost de rigeur these days, and this was a more original use of the technique than, say, Richard III in 1930s Berlin.

I'm not saying this was a masterpiece of the dramatic art, but it caught my attention and was far less naff than it might have been.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I found it stilted, contrived, clichéd, and with much owing to Michael Dobbs' To Play the King ... but also, for some reason, compulsive viewing: I spent most of the time loathing it, whilst unable to tear myself away from it. I'm still trying to figure that out.



(And, yes - why was a Latin Requiem text used for the funeral of the Head of the Church of England?)

[teamsaint]

Really, it would be SO much better if our media movers and shakers could get over the monarchy, aristocracy, serial killing ,wartime nostalgia, and so on.

Bringing back Play for Today, or something like it would help.

[vinteuil]

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teamsaint is Dave Spart - and I claim my £5.

https://johnlonden.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/dave_spart_private_eye.jpg

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[Serial_Apologist]

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teamsaint is Dave Spart - and I claim my £5.

https://johnlonden.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/dave_spart_private_eye.jpg

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That's where I learned my literary craft, I'll have you know!

[Dave2002]

I found it stilted, contrived, clichéd, and with much owing to Michael Dobbs' To Play the King ... but also, for some reason, compulsive viewing: I spent most of the time loathing it, whilst unable to tear myself away from it. I'm still trying to figure that out.



(And, yes - why was a Latin Requiem text used for the funeral of the Head of the Church of England?)

Pretty much agree with you there.

I also didn't like much of it, yet watched to the end. The notion that the great unwashed would rise up and start setting fire to things because of any action or inaction by a putative future monarch seems unlikely, given what seems like indifference of the populace to most things - political or royal or otherwise.

[teamsaint]

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teamsaint is Dave Spart - and I claim my £5.

https://johnlonden.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/dave_spart_private_eye.jpg

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Still, a point worth making.

Isn't it ?

[ardcarp]

(And, yes - why was a Latin Requiem text used for the funeral of the Head of the Church of England?)

It was nevertheless quite 'atmospheric'...and would the average punter have known/bothered? Better than the marimba broken chords which seem to accompany everything these days.

[jean]

Wrong atmosphere.