... the reign of Elizabeth's catholic step sister Mary. Immediately the audience is in no doubt that this is an age of great cruelty and religious strife as Protestant martyrs Latimer and Ridley are gruesomely burned at the stake in the Tower of London, except in reality this happened in Oxford and in 1555! The issue of the succession is highlighted as the childless Mary mistakenly believes the cancerous growth in her stomach to be evidence of pregnancy. She is portrayed as old and inadequate displaying a mouthful of rotten teeth. The filming takes place in Durham cathedral which presents a dark and mournful image that the director claims to be England moving from the middle ages into a brighter Elizabethan age. However as Tudor monarchs had ruled England since 1485 this is certainly a piece of chronological licence, and why not use one of the magnificent Tudor mansions that England ...

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