Shardlake

Shardlake offers up an intriguing plot with an excellent cast, it can at times lack a captivating spark to reach the next level. However, provides enough interest to keep you engaged to the end. I feel this is more an intro into the characters and expect more layers to unfold should more series be green lit. Certainly provides the opportunity for different stories to be told.

Sean Bean lacked much character development and was massively underutilised. Whilst Arthur Hughes was very impressive and kept me interested throughout.

Overall certainly worth a watch and with time I expect the show to improve with more series.

There is more to putting a drama like this together than sinister music, sinister looks and a bit of running about.

The shame about SHARDLAKE is that the budget is there and the actor are there, the script however isn't.

The adaptation takes a strong book by C J SANSOM and makes it a meandering mess of a thing, a basic detective procedural laced with long exposition sections in the refectory, replete with lingering glances, meaningful stares and moody music.

The music is a sub Hans Zimmer smush of broody brace and tense strings that doesn't really drive the action, just paints it in different variants of beige.

It's a diverting watch but could have been so much better in the hands of writers and directors who trusted the material.

I have recently watched both Shardlake and Shogun, one set in historic England the other in historic Japan. Both had wonderful costumes and locations designed to represent the location and period they were set in, but Shogun used actors of Japanese origin for all the Japanese parts while Shardlake did not respect the ethnicity of the historic English characters.

Both countries had small numbers of foreigners present at the time, with the estimated number of black people in 16th Century England to be no more than about 100. In no way were either country "diverse" and England was 99.99% white, with most people never seeing a non-white person in their life time.

Whereas Shogun drew me in to a believable world, Shardlake broke all immersion with the use of inappropriate races for the time.

Shardlake is spoilt by Disney's current political agenda - why did they respect the ethnicity of the Japanese characters in Shogun but not the English characters in Shardlake? Double-standards?

I am glad Shogun stuck to authenticity with its casting, but Disney should pay the same respect to historic white European dramas.

I'd forgotten the plot of the original Dissolution novel on which this is based hence the whodunnit element was enough to keep me watching the whole series. I see some reviewers are critical of casting choices which I can't truly see any issue with - it's a dramatisation, faithfulness to the period in terms of exact settings, clothing, architecture etc don't need to be adhered to, as after all, in the time of its setting the language spoken itself would've been impossible to recreate faithfully to modern viewers understanding! I'm interested to see if further adaptations will continue as I do love the genre of medieval murder mysteries and TV lacks these! But the main characters were well developed and cast, and I'm amused at the irony of Sean Bean playing Cromwell who, we all know, irl did not meet a happy and peaceful ending, much like many of the characters Sean plays...

I'm going to keep it short and sweet. Watched the first episode and some of the ingredients were good and had potential like Sean Bean and Arthur Hughes characters. Also it takes place in such an interesting time in Englands history which is exciting because there are not too many shows set at the time of the Dissolution of the monasteries, it's a show with a serious tone, so it should definitely take the historic time it's based in seriously right?? Nope it fails miserably at that. Such a waste, I didn't even bother with the next episode. If you want to watch a better show that is similar I would watch The Pillars of the Earth.

Ohh well, I wonder what other amazing books Disney can ruin next.