The reign of King Henry VIII was a period of high drama, cruel punishments and seismic religious change, making it an irresistible draw for dramatists even 500 years on.
The sequel to BBC2’s blockbuster Tudor drama Wolf Hall is currently in the works and now Disney+ whisks us back to the same era of intrigue and danger with its new series Shardlake.
Based on the series of novels by CJ Sansom the four-part murder mystery blends the real with the imaginary as fictional lawyer-cum-detective Matthew Shardlake (Arthur Hughes) investigates a suspicious death on the orders of Thomas Cromwell (Sean Bean), Henry’s real-life right-hand man.
History buff Bean, 65, was lured to the role of Cromwell having already read the books. ‘I’ve always been interested in the medieval and Tudor eras and history in general,’ he explains.
‘I read the books 14 years ago, so when this came up I was obviously very interested.
‘Cromwell is such a great character and held so much power. He was intelligent but cunning, pitting people against each other.
‘He had many facets, so he wasn’t just a bad person – although he’s not very nice in this. But that was the attraction, there’s so much to delve into.’
Above: Arthur Hughes as the sleuth Shardlake, who investigates a suspicious death in the show
Adapted by Stephen Butchard, who also wrote The Last Kingdom, Shardlake is set at the time when Henry has broken from Rome and ordered the closure of England’s monasteries.
In the show, Cromwell asks Shardlake to look into the murder of one of the king’s emissaries who’d been sent to a monastery in the fictional town of Scarnsea to close it down.
The title role is a star-making part for Arthur Hughes, 31, who appeared in Netflix’s The Innocents and has played Richard III with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Now, having landed a leading role in a big-budget drama, he’s blazing a trail for disabled actors.
It’s the 16th century but the methods of a murder mystery don’t change
Arthur has a condition called radial dysplasia, which affects his right arm, while in the show Shardlake is disabled by scoliosis, a curvature of the spine that results in him being called ‘hunchback’.
‘When we have a disabled actor in a leading role, it’s huge,’ says Hughes. ‘I think it’s taking steps towards a point where there’s not such a big hoo-ha about it.
‘And that’s where we want to be, where we just see disabled actors in great roles regardless of whether the role’s disabled or not.’
He explains that Shardlake suffers prejudice due to his disability. ‘It makes him visibly different and he can suffer because of that, but he’s successful at what he does,’ says Hughes. ‘That’s why Cromwell holds him close as a useful asset.’
Shardlake is joined by Jack Barak (Masters Of The Air’s Anthony Boyle), a Cromwell henchman whose frosty relationship with Shardlake thaws into friendship after the pair face hostility at the monastery.
‘Cromwell sends Shardlake off to investigate the murder but sends Barak to make sure he does it right,’ says Boyle, 29. ‘The guy is very cocky. They’re the direct antithesis of each other – a Tudor odd couple.’
Above: Sean Bean as Cromwell who tells Matthew Shardlake to investigate a suspicious murder
A strong supporting cast play the monastery’s inhabitants, with Rogue One’s Babou Ceesay as the abbot who appears to be covering up the crime, and The Stranger’s Paul Kaye as the apparently mad Brother Jerome. Spooks’ Peter Firth is Cromwell’s adversary the Duke of Norfolk.
Interestingly, all the show’s atmospheric Tudor backdrops were filmed in central Europe. Locations included Romania, Hungary and Austria, and the monastery was an amalgam of Hunedoara Castle in Transylvania and Kreuzenstein Castle outside Vienna.
But the actors nearly froze on the winter shoot, recalls Hughes. ‘Some days in Vienna it was -8C. Kreuzenstein Castle was on top of this big hill, and it was biting cold.’ Fortunately during their four months in Budapest the cast bonded over Hungarian dinners of chicken paprikash and palinka, a fruit brandy.
Shardlake, dubbed ‘The Tudor Morse’, is an outsider who’s whip-smart but also endearing, and although it takes place half a millennium ago, the show’s themes are ageless.
‘Even though it’s set in the 16th century the methods and means of a murder mystery haven’t changed that much,’ says Bean. ‘Shardlake will take you on a journey that’s entertaining as well as historically interesting.’
- Shardlake, from Wednesday, Disney+.
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