The Devil's Whore | |
---|---|
Genre | Historical drama |
Created by | Peter Flannery |
Directed by | Marc Munden |
Starring | Andrea Riseborough John Simm Michael Fassbender Dominic West Tim McInnerny Peter Capaldi |
Composer | Murray Gold |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of episodes | 4 |
Production | |
Producer | Company Pictures |
Production location | filmed in South Africa |
Editor | Joe Walker |
Running time | 1 × 1h02m 1 × 53m 1 × 52m 1 × 51m 215 minutes (Full running time) |
Original release | |
Network | Channel 4 (UK) |
Release | 19 November – 10 December 2008 |
The Devil's Whore (released as The Devil's Mistress in North America) is a four-part television series set during the English Civil War, produced by Company Pictures for Channel 4 in 2008. [1] It is about the adventures of the fictional Angelica Fanshawe and the historical Leveller soldier Edward Sexby and spans the years 1636 to 1660. It was written by Peter Flannery, who began working on the script in 1997. [2] It was followed by a sequel series, New Worlds , in 2014.
The series was filmed in South Africa. This caused some negative comment from reviewers but the producers maintained that they had been unable to find suitably "old English" locations in England. [3]
No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | "Episode 1" | Marc Munden | Martine Brant, Peter Flannery | 19 November 2008 | |
Covering the lead up to the war and the battles of Croyland Abbey, Edgehill and Newbury, this episode dealt with the events from Angelica's marriage to her husband's shooting by Charles I's firing squad for surrendering their manor house. Angelica is born in 1623, when England is divided both politically and religiously, a time when political disobedience turned to revolution and civil war, and English history changed forever. | |||||
2 | "Episode 2" | Marc Munden | Martine Brant, Peter Flannery | 26 November 2008 | |
The people of the besieged city of Oxford are in a desperate situation. Devastated by the King's brutal betrayal, Angelica has been cast out of court, and finds herself destitute and starving. Meanwhile, divisions are beginning to split the Parliamentarians. | |||||
3 | "Episode 3" | Marc Munden | Martine Brant, Peter Flannery | 3 December 2008 | |
The country is divided and in shock as Oliver Cromwell puts the King on trial for treason and becomes the first head of the Republican Government. | |||||
4 | "Episode 4" | Marc Munden | Martine Brant, Peter Flannery | 10 December 2008 | |
Sexby and Angelica seek to avenge themselves on Oliver Cromwell. With Sexby arrested and exiled after he refuses to fight for Cromwell, a distraught Angelica agrees to honour Sexby's departing wish and settle her debt with her enemy Joliffe. |
The series was released on DVD in North America in 2011. Retitled The Devil's Mistress, it presents the series as two two-hour episodes.
Critical reception was positive, though there was some criticism of the omission of some figures and events (such as John Pym, the Earl of Bedford, Sir Thomas Fairfax, Sir Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Holles, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, Colonel Sir John Hutchinson, Henry Ireton and the Bishops' Wars) and the fictionalisation of others (such as the suggestion that Cromwell orchestrated Rainsborough's death, [4] of Rainsborough not Sexby being a close friend of Cromwell's, Sexby's going to Ireland and the losing of his arm and Sexby's assassination attempt on Cromwell [5] ).
Critical reception of the first episode was positive, with Nancy Banks-Smith of The Guardian praising Capaldi's performance and calling the drama "rollicking", "well written and acted" and marked by "a quite serious attempt to explain the underlying issues". [6] The Telegraph also praised Capaldi, along with the lack of anachronisms and the treatment of the era's sexual politics. [7] The Independent called it "bodice-rippingly melodramatic" and showing a tension between Flannery's "desire to get as much real political fact in as he can and the ... requirement that a primetime series should liven up the party with sexual tension and historical glamour". [8] The Times called it "a curious beast – mannered and theatrical, with modern-looking faces speaking period dialogue in an historical dreamscape" and "If not entirely successful, ... the best sort of failure – unusual, brave and fascinating". [9] Another Times critic criticised it for "slightly too much reading history backwards here, almost making Angelica look like a modern woman travelled back in time" and its "frankly unnecessary bedroom scenes ... slipped in, presumably to demonstrate her liberated nature", whilst overall praising the episode as "gripping", "cutting" and "lively" and in particular noting that Simm played Sexby "strikingly". [10] The Radio Times also noted it as "an intelligent, richly textured labour of love". [11] John Adamson, a non-stipendiary by-fellow in History at Peterhouse, Cambridge, criticized the series as "a cartoon-strip version of the Civil War". [12]
The series won in the Best Drama Series category at the 35th Broadcasting Press Guild Television and Radio Awards (2009) and Riseborough won in the Best Actress Category. [13] Michele Clapton won at the BAFTA Awards, in the category of Best Costume Design. [14]
At the 2009 Royal Television Society Programme Awards, the series won three awards, Drama Serial, Actor: Female for Risenborough and Writing: Drama for Peter Flannery. The same year, at the Royal Television Society Craft & Design Awards, Julian Court won Lighting, Photography & Camera – Photography – Drama and Nadine Prigge was nominated for Make Up Design – Drama. [15]
The Levellers was a political movement active during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms who were committed to popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law and religious tolerance. The hallmark of Leveller thought was its populism, as shown by its emphasis on equal natural rights, and their practice of reaching the public through pamphlets, petitions and vocal appeals to the crowd.
Colonel Edward Sexby was an English Puritan soldier and Leveller in the army of Oliver Cromwell. Later he turned against Cromwell and plotted his assassination, which Sexby considered tyrannicide, as a decapitation strike, which would then be followed by a joint regime change uprising by both Cavaliers and Levellers. Failing in his efforts, Sexby was taken prisoner and died in the Tower of London.
Carnival Film & Television Limited, trading as Carnival Films, is a British production company based in London, UK, founded in 1978. It has produced television series for all the major UK networks including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Sky, as well as international broadcasters including PBS, A&E, HBO and NBC. Productions include single dramas, long-running television dramas, feature films, and stage productions.
John Ronald Simm is an English actor, director, and musician. He is best known for playing Sam Tyler in Life on Mars, the Master in Doctor Who, and DS Roy Grace in Grace. His other television credits include State of Play, The Lakes, Crime and Punishment, Exile, Prey, and Cracker. His film roles include Wonderland, Everyday, Boston Kickout, Human Traffic and 24 Hour Party People. He has twice been nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor.
Peter Flannery is an English playwright and screenwriter. He was born in Jarrow, Tyne and Wear and educated at the University of Manchester. He is best known for his work while a resident playwright at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Notable plays during his tenure include: Savage Amusement (1978), Awful Knawful (1978), and Our Friends in the North (1982). Other theatre work has included Singer (1989).
Thomas Rainsborough, or Rainborowe, 6 July 1610 to 29 October 1648, was an English religious and political radical who served in the Parliamentarian navy and New Model Army during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. One of the few contemporaries whose personal charisma and popularity rivalled that of Oliver Cromwell, he has also been described as "a soldier of impressive professional competence and peerless courage".
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Andrea Louise Riseborough is an English actress. She made her film debut with a small part in Venus (2006), and has since appeared in more prominent roles in Brighton Rock (2010), W.E. (2011), Shadow Dancer (2012), Oblivion (2013), Birdman (2014), Nocturnal Animals (2016), Battle of the Sexes, The Death of Stalin, Mandy, Nancy, The Grudge, Possessor, and To Leslie (2022). For the latter, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Charles I of England has been depicted in popular culture a number of times.
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New Worlds is a 2014 Channel 4 TV series, set in 1680s England and America and forming a sequel to The Devil's Whore.
Marc Munden is an English film director best known for his work on Utopia, National Treasure and The Mark of Cain among others.
Odile Dicks-Mireaux is a British costume designer. Her work include productions for both cinema like the Academy Award-nominated films An Education (2009) and Brooklyn (2015) and television like the BBC One drama The Lost Prince and the HBO miniseries Chernobyl (2019), receiving an Emmy Award for the former and a BAFTA Craft Award for the latter.