Tea at Trianon: Jacobean Period Drama 'Mary & George'

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, November 11, 2022

Jacobean Period Drama 'Mary & George'

A new series is being filmed about the Duke of Buckingham and his mother at the court of James I. From Telly Visions:

Thankfully, period dramas are now mainstream enough that studios and filmmakers are finally beginning to branch out, albeit ever so slowly. Starz's hit drama The Serpent Queen is set in sixteenth-century France, the popular new German series The Empress takes place in nineteenth-century Vienna, and Prime Video's upcoming The English sends its British heroine to the American Wild West. But there are still some periods we almost never see dramatized---like the reign of King James I.

This has always been kind of surprising, given that it was the Jacobean era that first saw a united England and Scotland under the crown, and included everything from controversial royal scandals to a witch panic. Happily, Sky and AMC seemed determined to fix that with Mary & George, an eight-part limited series about powerful royal family favorites Mary Villiers and her son George, who would become the first Duke of Buckingham.
Academy Award-winner Julianne Moore has signed on to play Mary, in just her second leading television role. (The first was the Apple TV+ Stephen King drama Lisey's Story.) Here, she will portray a woman who some claim purposefully molded her son George to seduce King James I, and was so successful that the pair’s outrageous plotting ultimately propelled them humble beginnings to become one of the richest, most influential families in British history.

“Mary Villiers was a woman who through her own actions rose to become a powerful and influential figure in Jacobean London," Moore said in a statement. "It’s a daunting but exhilarating challenge to bring her to life on screen.”

Inspired by the non-fiction book The King’s Assassin by Benjamin Woolley. Mary & George is created and written by playwright DC Moore, whose credits include Killing Eve, Temple, and Not Safe For Work. The series is produced by Liza Marshall’s Hera Pictures in association with Sky Studios and Oliver Hermanus (Living), is the lead director.

“Since I first read about Mary Villiers’ life – and all she achieved with her son, George – I’ve been obsessed with bringing this story to the screen," Moore said. "Between King James’ often-overlooked love and lust for men, Mary’s extraordinary rise as a woman in a man’s world, and George’s (many, many) sexual and political conquests, this is a profoundly rich, and, as yet entirely untold on screen, story, about a pair of ‘commoners’ who conquered all before them.” (Read more.)