After enjoying "John Adams" ,and ,of course the gracious bowing out of "the Wire" i just had to tell you about a new four part T.V series from channel four "the Devil's Whore"..
Having been infuriated by the actions of "Jimmy McNulty",creating the "homeless man killer",( I even heard a Wire fan call it a "jump the shark" moment ),thinking that he may go "all the way" and actually commit a murder.
Accepting the,quite conventional way that David Simon ended things .. One thought left hanging was,what did Mcnulty (West) do next?..
Answer: Dominic West is, no less than, Oliver Cromwell!, in "The Devil's Whore" a contentious iconic figure that he fills out superbly..honestly,i hardly thought of McNulty at all ..
Co-written by Martine Brant and Peter Flannery,(who is famous for a great bit of T.V from the nineties ."Our Friends In the North" which is full of top Brit stars that are even bigger names now..Daniel Craig ,Mark Strong,Gina McKee and Chris Ecclestone..) ..this is an Historically accurate drama,with a fictional thread which attempts to embody the mood of the times.. England was tearing itself apart,overthrew the Monarch ,became a Republic,only for that to resemble much the same tyrrany it purported to replace,ultimately ushering the Monarchy back...
Demonstration of the forging of power structures through force of individual will, the "cult" of personality,and the role that religious fundamentalism can play,make this another hugely entertaining ,precient and,indeed ,educational work...
Starring as the one fictional character Angelica Fanshawe "the Whore",the percieved embodiment of the "licentiousness of women" is the wey-faced Andrea Riseborough ,(nothing less than a junior Angelina Jolie...) her,almost "proto-feminist" character is a common factor in the lives of the key players...
"Leveller" , Rival to Cromwell ,Thomas Rainsborough is played by "Hunger" man Michael Fassbender..and the mercurial,"gun for hire" Edward Sexby is played by all time "man crush" John Simm..(Life On Mars ) it doesnt get much better than this. . Hopefully those outside the U.K. can access the web-site ..and get to see it via "I-tunes" or DVD...
So, as Elvis Costello said :"Olivers Army is here to stay" .. and as Cromwell "Lord High Protector" reflected, on the fate of "Leveller" "Honest" John Lilburne .."He was...a free-born man...." ..now where did i hear that line sung recently?