I absolutely love the Tudor period but am kind of fixated on Henry VIII and his wives so it's refreshing to focus on another area, with this adaptation of the first of CJ Sansom's Shardlake books (which I've been meaning to read for ages, and now will). It isn't star studded, but is full of talent and unfamiliar faces. I only knew of the incredible Arthur Hughes from his work on BBC Radio 4's The Archers and he has huge screen presence as lawyer Matthew Shardlake. Perfect casting all round. Miranda Kaufmann's book The Black Tudors researches the reality of the Tudor court not usually reflected on TV and so it was refreshing to see this diversity. The characters were believable and now I'm getting further into the series, I'm enjoying seeing them develop. I can't pretend to know exactly what's going on all the time, and I'm looking for escapism rather than a documentary anyway so don't care too much if the costumes etc are spot on, but I know enough about the period to let the characters lead me through, and I'm engaged enough to now read a bit more about Cromwell and the dissolution of the monasteries. Between this and Baby Reindeer, my bank holiday weekend is spoken for!
Review of Shardlake
