The Devil’s Whore
I started watching The Devil’s Whore with a sense of annoyance. I’m all for Civil War dramas, but why have a female central character, (Angelica Fanshawe, the whore of the title), when the Civil War was made out of those two traditionally masculine pursuits, fighting and politics? Then, when Angelica was shown as the usual sexy, feisty female, with occasional liberal opinions and a bit of proto feminism, I became derisive. Watch her, I thought, as she levels with the Levellers, digs the Diggers, rants with the Ranters, and rumpy-pumpies with guys who look like members of seventies rock bands. She gets to wear gorgeous gowns or to be fetching in highwayman’s gear, and beauty’s self she is indeed, when all her clothes are gone. She wafts about battlefields under huge Dutch Master brooding skies. She meets the interesting men of her day and shags some of them.
Angelica was played by the excellent Andrea Riseborough who was first rate as the young Margaret Thatcher in The Long Walk to Finchley, portraying Thatcher’s single-minded drive and controlled anger at the old grandees and ex-soldiers who thought they were entitled to thwart her. In the end I really had to come round to the character of Angelica and her role as observer of as well as participant in the days when the world was turned upside down. Dominic West who played Oliver Cromwell was also compelling as the realistic hard man.
Martine Brant, the co-creator of the series says here:-
‘Why are we doing the Russian Revolution and not our Civil War?’ This was my teenage daughter Miranda, coming home from school the day after the first episode of our drama serial, The Devil’s Whore. All her friends were raving about it, she said; they were downloading it on the internet, cancelling Saturday sleepovers to watch the repeat, even trying to locate battlefield sites – not easy since there are few memorials to this heroic and tragic struggle in which so many of this country’s ideals were forged and liberties won.
. . .
Airbrushed into events, Angelica can go everywhere, be Everywoman. Through her eyes, we see the world turned upside down and we feel and experience the tumult through her encounters with actual historical characters.
Yes, an Everywoman who kills her would-be rapist (yay!), is put on trial and nearly hanged, is married and widowed three times, is served, saved and serviced by the piece of rough Scarfaced Sexby, who is anti-colonialist, feminist, and liberal, who finally dispatches her persecutor – that’s an Everywoman that Everygirl should dream of being. It was something to celebrate that the crippling old theme of one great permanent love, which you get in the novels of women’s experience set against turbulent historical times eg Gone with the Wind and Forever Amber, was absent and that a woman’s life was seen as going through phases, not fixed on that single trajectory.
The series deepened, dealing with complex events and political turmoil, when people could play for great stakes, the winner taking, the loser losing all. The religious dimension was closer to us now than it would have been ten years ago. John Lilburn was the revolutionary who embodied the best ideals of the movement and suffered the usual fate of incarceration and despair. The last episode with its sombre greys and browns, except for the red plumes in the helmets of the horsemen, was full of tragedy and defeat, of failed endeavours, of betrayals and the final scene, of Angelica with her daughter, of salvage from the wreckage.
Martine Brant writes about the necessity of the story part of “history” and how turning it into drama arouses interest in the subject:-
It seems to have worked. Amelia, my eldest daughter, said many of her friends were asking why, if this was the English Revolution, we don’t mark it, why there’s no public holiday on 30 January, the day when Parliament cut off Charles I’s head?
As part of promoting “British values” the Prime Minister once suggested while some of us cringed that we have a National Day for Britain. If this is instituted, would the Queen have to turn up and preside over an official event where we celebrate her ancestor’s head being cut off? The French and Americans, those true Republicans, celebrate their national days in July. Our day would be at the end of January. A poorly executed business, my lords.
Comments
| 14 December, 2008, 12:40 am |
I was put off when I heard that 12 episodes had originally been written, and they’d been forced to condense it down to 4. Seemed like a recipe for a mess.
But I think I’ll give it a go!
(And surely “rumpy-pumpy”, not rumpty-pumpties”!?)
| 14 December, 2008, 10:40 am |
(And surely “rumpy-pumpy”, not rumpty-pumpties”!?)
Come to think of it, it is “rumpy” rather than “rumpty” wo will change. For the “ies” ending though, it is being used as a verb in the third person singular.
| 14 December, 2008, 10:41 am |
That “wo” should be “so”. My fingers are numb from requesting a preview button.
| 15 December, 2008, 4:58 am |
I enjoyed it greatly and i generally hate most costume dramas intensely. West is quite simply brilliant, quite the best Cromwell i’ve seen on-screen and the whole program looked beautiful. The battles looked shit though and it was a bit of a push having some many historical figures so closely bound by one life.
Hope this neglected area gets more attention both in telly history and drama
| 15 December, 2008, 8:18 pm |
It’s hard to do a television or film drama that covers complex historical events. You get people like eg courtiers telling each other what they already knew and wouldn’t have discussed in these terms.
Courtier 1: We are now allied with Spain.
Courtier 2: I thought we were allied with France.
Courtier 1: Not since the King has decided that the Dutch are really our main rivals in naval trade, and he is now betrothing his daughter Princess Kylie to Prince Pablo of Costa Brava, as he needs the Spanish alliance.
Battles on the small screen are hard. A couple of goods ones I’ve seen were in a version of Vanity Fair, where they managed very well, getting a sense of tension by having a couple of soldiers in red coats dragging cannons back and forth, and that one in Band of Brothers, when the guys clear defenders fortification by fortification shortly after landing.
| 15 December, 2008, 8:20 pm |
At the moment I am working at stupid times, and am existing on a diet of downloaded telly watched on my laptop. I don’t currently have a working computer running windows, I’ll get round to it. Linux suits me fine. However…
The BBC is winning my viewing hours as THEY ACTUALLY LET ME WATCH STUFF. ITV insists on using an old version of Silverlight, and Channel 4 are whining about DRM imposed by their content providers. I pay for my TV licence. Some of that goes to Channel 4. Where are my programmes?
| 16 December, 2008, 12:15 pm |
Was really looking forward to this – I’ve been saying for years to anyone who’ll listen that the English Civil War (although it was truly a British civil war) and the years of the republic are much neglected and are deserving of more prime-time dramas!
Whilst I enjoyed it hugely my complaints would be:
-I worry that to people who don’t know the history the whole thing could have seemed very confusing, especially since it was rushed into those 4 episodes.
-Once I heard that it was shot in South Africa I couldn’t help but notice how damned foreign a lot of the scenery was! Good ol’ British history deserves good ol’British landscapes!
- A lot of the best events seem to have been missed out/done poorly. e.g some of the major battles, the Putney debates, etc
Otherwise two thumbs up.
| 19 December, 2008, 6:03 pm |
I remember watching a BBC series called ‘By the Sword Divided’. I thought it was rather good, but then I was only eight years old, and maybe it was just all the swordplay and low-cut bodices I appreciated.
| 24 December, 2008, 6:51 am |
which you get in the novels of women’s experience set against turbulent historical times eg Gone with the Wind and Forever Amber, was absent and that a woman’s life
Angelica was played by the excellent Andrea Riseborough who was first rate as the young Margaret Thatcher in The Long Walk to Finchley, portraying Thatcher’s single-minded drive and controlled anger at the old grandees and ex-soldiers who thought they were entitled to thwart her.
So thatcherite and pro slavery gals are your bag.
| 24 December, 2008, 3:23 pm |
“So thatcherite and pro slavery gals are your bag.”
No. Nor do I believe in the divine right of kings, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying Shakespeare.
| 26 December, 2008, 11:02 am |
Nor do I believe in the divine right of kings, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying Shakespeare.
Sorry
Boring , Catholic and jewish hating, Thatcherite and pro slavery gals are your bag.
| 4 May, 2009, 1:04 am |
Those last couple of comments really don’t deserve an answer. Some people – I don’t know gev pearce, perhaps he’s one of the omnipresent blog/twitter bores who have to inject everything with their own twisted world view or perhaps think they are being hugely humorous – just can’t be objective.
I enjoyed the various reviews, and enjoy good costume drama occasionally as well, so it is informative when people write about their impressions, no? But whether the movie is racist, politically biased, or badly put together should be supported by some slightly more in-depth reason than ‘that’s your bag’, and will soon become apparent to a clued up person watching the same. Thanks to KB Player, Martine, and others.
| 4 May, 2009, 9:33 am |
Thanks for your comments, Eilidh. Gev Pearce is an idiot-troll and can be ignored.
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