DVD
Under the Hammer, 2-disc set, Acorn Media, Silver Spring, Md., 7 episodes, app. 357 minutes, $49.99
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AND NOW FOR SOMETHING completely different. John Mortimer set this one-part romance, one-part mystery caper in the posh, high-stakes art world. The protagonists are Ben Glazier (Richard Wilson) and Maggie Perowne (Jan Francis), who head the art department at the London auction house of Klinsky’s. The ever-present threat of fraud, professional (and sometimes unscrupulous) competition and the expectations of any business to maximize profits provide plenty of storylines at Klinsky’s. While Ben and Maggie share a deep passion for the art they put under the hammer, the spark between them smolders unmistakably, if at a lower temperature.
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COURTESY OF ACORN MEDIA
This is lovely English escapist drama, full of interesting characters and inimitable character actors. Ian Carmichael, John Gielgud and Emily Mortimer are among those who make guest appearances. Best of all, the stories are fast-paced enough to fully capture a viewer’s attention.
The series taps into our love for British mystery and our delight in looking beyond the curtains of the worlds we do not inhabit. The particular world of Klinsky’s and the big-time London art world, like all those of John Mortimer’s creation, is particularly colorful, idiosyncratic, eccentric and very human. Under the Hammer proffers a week’s worth of evenings worth looking forward to as the darker hours of winter creep in.
BOOKS
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The Women of the Cousins’ War: The Duchess, the Queen and the King’s Mother by Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin and Michael Jones, Simon & Schuster, New York, 339 pages, hardcover, $26.
Looking Closer at the Women in the Shadows
WE KNOW IT BETTER as the Wars of the Roses. In its own day, however, the great 15th-century civil war between the houses of Lancaster and York was indeed very much thought of as a family affair between branches of the Plantagenet family–a squabble among the heirs of the mighty King Edward III: the Cousins’ War.
The premise of this collaborative volume is that the stories of three extraordinary and powerful women have been neglected by history. Unquestionably the three women of note, Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford; Margaret Beaufort; and Elizabeth Woodville, were near the center of the action during the tumultuous, bloody two-generation family feud. Among the reasons that their roles have been little tended by historians is the sheer paucity of the written record. First-hand sources are scarce enough from which to unpack events and causes almost 600 years ago. Beyond that, of course, in those days women only entered the narrative when they were principals in the military and political action, and that was only intermittently.
Philippa Gregory begins the challenge, then, in the book’s introduction–definitely not to be skipped in this case. In it, Gregory discourses thoughtfully on the challenges of historiography, particularly as they relate to the treatment of women. Among her concessions are that much of what is written as “history” as well as “historical fiction” is based upon speculation and surmise as much as fact. Telling the story involves coming to conclusions on the basis of what is known of the culture and the times as much as on the facts as they are revealed by the first-hand record. That’s certainly the modus operandi of writing a historical novel, of course. And it’s impossible to deny that much history is written with speculative assumptions and tentative conclusions.
The Duchess, the Queen and the King’s mother are seen through the prism of blurred lines between what is known and what is, well, educated guess. Phrases like “she would have accompanied her husband to Rochester,” and “like other women of her station, she would have…” may be true enough, but hardly tell us anything about their subjects personally. And they are guesses, after all.
The Women of the Cousins’ War is a well-written, fast-paced narrative of two generations of internecine war observed from the assumed point of view of three leading women of the century. We do get a fresh, interesting perspective on the Wars of the Roses. Whether or not we’re reading history is less clear.
Tough Love in Northumberland
DVD
Vera, 4-disc set, Acorn Media, Silver Spring, Md., 4 episodes, app. 355 minutes, $59.99
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ADMITTEDLY, THE TITLE of this new series doesn’t sound terribly titillating. When Vera debuted this spring on ITV, however, it was met with well-deserved rave reviews. Acorn Media gives Vera her North American debut.
We’re a long way from Midsomer or St. Mary Mead here. And our heroine, DCI Vera Stanhope, is a veritable anti-Miss Marple. There’s nothing warm and cuddly about her. Vera’s beat is Northumberland—the rough council estates of Newcastle, the working Tyneside waterfront and the vast swath of empty moors and uplands that radiate north from the Tyne.
Detective chief inspector Vera (Brenda Blethyn) is a rumpled, lumbering, obsessive, grumpy loner—well-suited to the bleakness of the landscape and the cityscape. She is also good at her job, and tough enough to command a team of dutifully assorted, but essentially dull, detectives. The four feature-length episodes, based on the novels of Ann Cleeves, proffer a juicy mix of genuinely baffling mystery cases and a fascinating ménage of characters.
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COURTESY OF ACORN MEDIA
There are endearing human touches here that break the generally grayness of both the urban and rural environments.We see enough of Vera’s life and that of her young right-hand, Sergeant Joe Ashworth (David Leon), to care for them.
This is tightly written, well-acted drama in the best tradition of English murder mysteries. Admittedly, that Geordie accent and bits of Northumbrian dialect can take a little getting used to. So, too, can the fundamental colorlessness in the Newcastle cityscapes and the general dullness of the Northumberland countryside and coast.
Still, like all proper mysteries, the magnetizing episodes of Vera are essentially comedies—that is, things work out right in the end. In our less-than-certain world, that’s why we are so attracted to the genre. Vera may be cantankerous, but she’s on the side of the angels: reassuring and just a touch maternal.
A second series is in the works. Huzzah!
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