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sunnyskywalkerI've loved C.J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake mystery series for years. A few weeks ago, I found out that (a) it was now a TV series, and the first season (based on the first book, Dissolution) had just been released, and (b) Sansom had died a few days prior after a long illness. I hope he got to watch the show first, and that he liked how the adaptation turned out.
I thought it turned out pretty well! They do a fantastic job creating a looming, threatening, and just plain spooky atmosphere at the monastery, freezing and isolated on the high point rising from a boggy marsh. Sean Bean is as fantastic a Cromwell as you could wish for. (And yes, there's probably an in-joke there, because if they make season 2...well, I don't have to tell you what happens to Cromwell, do I?)
Arthur Hughes is amazing as Matthew Shardlake. He burns with the fervor of a deeply committed reformer who wants to build a better world without being totally naive (I mean, a bit, but he is a lawyer) and while still being able to pause for quiet or funny moments too. A well-rounded person. He's fundamentally kind without being at all meek. This is a guy who first wanted to be a priest, was rejected because of his visible disability, faces daily mistrust and fear because a lot of people think his disability spreads bad luck, and his response was driving himself to become a skilled and respected lawyer using his training to change the world for the better. Or trying to, at least. He spends the show discovering just how hard a project that is...
[Aside: In the books, Matthew has kyphosis or severe scoliosis, I'm not sure which--he uses the historical term "hunchback." The show adds the actor's real radial dysplasia. Hughes bringing his real experience to the role makes it clear how much that matters. Many or most able-bodied actors would have overplayed how much the disability affects his movements while not managing the smaller, subtle effects.]
They have to trim a lot of details, of course. They murder a character who rode home safely in the books for additional drama at a certain point, which I think worked well for the TV format where you don't have as much time for digressions and minor characters and having this person leave safely would have lessened the threat in a way it doesn't in the book. A major change was introducing Jack Barak now, when he only enters the book series in the second book. This again makes sense; four-episode seasons don't give you nearly as much time to get familiar with characters as entire novels, so you want to get your main characters in early and not rotate them in and out too often.
I do wish we'd gotten more of Brother Guy, who is a great character. And I think the show cut one of his most interesting comments from the book. Brother Guy was born in the Kingdom of Granada to Muslim parents; they converted during the Reconquista and moved to France. In the book, Brother Guy points out that having an international church isn't just a useful check on kings, but also offers a refuge for people whatever borders they cross in Europe. He's not sure how he'll get by outside the monastery because in case Matthew hasn't noticed, people in England are prejudiced against dark-skinned men from Muslim families. Interestingly, the show hinted at the point in another way: in the book, Brother Gabriel and the abbot are white, but in the show, Brother Gabriel is mixed-race and the abbot is Black. We see the monastery as a haven for people who are different and as one of the few places in England someone like the abbot could gain that much status. It's possible that they're intentionally waiting until season 2, when we'll see more fallout from the dissolution of the monasteries, to make this point out loud.
We also see a man of color working as some kind of enforcer/bouncer/lackey in London and a Black man working as a secretary or clerk in Cromwell's office. The first fits book!Matthew's memory of meeting dark-skinned foreigners in London before, especially around the docks--which is historically accurate, incidentally. The secretary fits with Cromwell's practice (in the book, I don't know about real life) of "collecting" misfits whom he expects will be especially loyal to him in return for the opportunity, like the visibly-disabled Matthew and Jack Barak, born into a dirt-poor family which converted from Judaism in the 13th century to avoid being kicked out of England. (People are suspicious of the name "Barak." Sounds foreign. Is Jack a foreigner?). And again, it's reasonably historically plausible. Henry VII and VIII had a Black royal trumpeter, John Blanke. So Cromwell's secretary fits both history and the spirit of the book series, which is very much interested in people like Matthew, Jack, and Brother Guy, who really could have lived in Tudor England but who don't show up in a lot of Hollywood movies and classic history books.
[This seems like a good point to recommend the non-fiction history book Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann. She found records for over 300 people of African descent living in Tudor England doing all sorts of things: a needlemaker, a silk weaver, a salvage diver on the wreck of the Mary Rose, a servant whose master ordered him to whip a white servant, a woman in a rural village who owned a cow, and more.]
It's also just really lovely to look at. The brooding, creepy monastery, the stark but oddly beautiful marsh, Jack Barak's flash outfits, the visual contrast between the poverty of the Scarnsea residents and the abbot's fine clothes.
Actor trivia: Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, who plays Alice, is Andy "Gollum" Serkis's daughter, and the guy who plays Brother Edwig also shows up in Bodkin, a darkly funny and slightly trippy murder mystery set in modern Ireland. (Also recommended. Yoga nuns! Disco tractor! Eels!) He's obsessed with balancing fiscal accounts in both shows, which is oddly specific typecasting.
Anyway, the show was enormously fun, and I hope they keep going. There are six more books and whatever notes and early drafts exist for Book 8, so there's plenty of material!
I thought it turned out pretty well! They do a fantastic job creating a looming, threatening, and just plain spooky atmosphere at the monastery, freezing and isolated on the high point rising from a boggy marsh. Sean Bean is as fantastic a Cromwell as you could wish for. (And yes, there's probably an in-joke there, because if they make season 2...well, I don't have to tell you what happens to Cromwell, do I?)
Arthur Hughes is amazing as Matthew Shardlake. He burns with the fervor of a deeply committed reformer who wants to build a better world without being totally naive (I mean, a bit, but he is a lawyer) and while still being able to pause for quiet or funny moments too. A well-rounded person. He's fundamentally kind without being at all meek. This is a guy who first wanted to be a priest, was rejected because of his visible disability, faces daily mistrust and fear because a lot of people think his disability spreads bad luck, and his response was driving himself to become a skilled and respected lawyer using his training to change the world for the better. Or trying to, at least. He spends the show discovering just how hard a project that is...
[Aside: In the books, Matthew has kyphosis or severe scoliosis, I'm not sure which--he uses the historical term "hunchback." The show adds the actor's real radial dysplasia. Hughes bringing his real experience to the role makes it clear how much that matters. Many or most able-bodied actors would have overplayed how much the disability affects his movements while not managing the smaller, subtle effects.]
They have to trim a lot of details, of course. They murder a character who rode home safely in the books for additional drama at a certain point, which I think worked well for the TV format where you don't have as much time for digressions and minor characters and having this person leave safely would have lessened the threat in a way it doesn't in the book. A major change was introducing Jack Barak now, when he only enters the book series in the second book. This again makes sense; four-episode seasons don't give you nearly as much time to get familiar with characters as entire novels, so you want to get your main characters in early and not rotate them in and out too often.
I do wish we'd gotten more of Brother Guy, who is a great character. And I think the show cut one of his most interesting comments from the book. Brother Guy was born in the Kingdom of Granada to Muslim parents; they converted during the Reconquista and moved to France. In the book, Brother Guy points out that having an international church isn't just a useful check on kings, but also offers a refuge for people whatever borders they cross in Europe. He's not sure how he'll get by outside the monastery because in case Matthew hasn't noticed, people in England are prejudiced against dark-skinned men from Muslim families. Interestingly, the show hinted at the point in another way: in the book, Brother Gabriel and the abbot are white, but in the show, Brother Gabriel is mixed-race and the abbot is Black. We see the monastery as a haven for people who are different and as one of the few places in England someone like the abbot could gain that much status. It's possible that they're intentionally waiting until season 2, when we'll see more fallout from the dissolution of the monasteries, to make this point out loud.
We also see a man of color working as some kind of enforcer/bouncer/lackey in London and a Black man working as a secretary or clerk in Cromwell's office. The first fits book!Matthew's memory of meeting dark-skinned foreigners in London before, especially around the docks--which is historically accurate, incidentally. The secretary fits with Cromwell's practice (in the book, I don't know about real life) of "collecting" misfits whom he expects will be especially loyal to him in return for the opportunity, like the visibly-disabled Matthew and Jack Barak, born into a dirt-poor family which converted from Judaism in the 13th century to avoid being kicked out of England. (People are suspicious of the name "Barak." Sounds foreign. Is Jack a foreigner?). And again, it's reasonably historically plausible. Henry VII and VIII had a Black royal trumpeter, John Blanke. So Cromwell's secretary fits both history and the spirit of the book series, which is very much interested in people like Matthew, Jack, and Brother Guy, who really could have lived in Tudor England but who don't show up in a lot of Hollywood movies and classic history books.
[This seems like a good point to recommend the non-fiction history book Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann. She found records for over 300 people of African descent living in Tudor England doing all sorts of things: a needlemaker, a silk weaver, a salvage diver on the wreck of the Mary Rose, a servant whose master ordered him to whip a white servant, a woman in a rural village who owned a cow, and more.]
It's also just really lovely to look at. The brooding, creepy monastery, the stark but oddly beautiful marsh, Jack Barak's flash outfits, the visual contrast between the poverty of the Scarnsea residents and the abbot's fine clothes.
Actor trivia: Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, who plays Alice, is Andy "Gollum" Serkis's daughter, and the guy who plays Brother Edwig also shows up in Bodkin, a darkly funny and slightly trippy murder mystery set in modern Ireland. (Also recommended. Yoga nuns! Disco tractor! Eels!) He's obsessed with balancing fiscal accounts in both shows, which is oddly specific typecasting.
Anyway, the show was enormously fun, and I hope they keep going. There are six more books and whatever notes and early drafts exist for Book 8, so there's plenty of material!
