THE WHITE QUEEN REVIEW 2 - Faye Marsay & Amanda Hale

It was hard to judge Amanda Hale's performance, she is an emotional unpredictable actress who can seduce the audience with her highly dramatic rendering. It seems to be a loyal portrayal of Margaret Beaufort, who was a woman of great faith and who used her faith to fight in such unstable times. Amanda Hale's performance grows on people, we feel her pain, we feel her anger and her passion. We understand her and cannot help but being on her side. Hers is a performance that is worth watching.

Faye Marsay has been a revelation so far - we're on episode 6. Her portrayal of Anne Neville began timidly shy and childish but she always acted the part of a medieval creature who later gets to know herself and the extent of her power. We believe we are in the presence of a very intelligent actress. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for her counterpart Aneurin Barnard who plays Richard.

We look forward to see more of Aneurin so we may get a more informed opinion of his portrayal of the infamous Richard III, a king whose reputation has recently been rehabilitated. It will be interesting to find out how he is portrayed in this series. 

The White Queen - Acting

British actors are mostly great but there are the OK ones (such as some that star in some soaps), the GOOD and the GREAT (such as Vanessa Redgrave, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen and many others.)

The White Queen does not have any Great actors. They do have GOOD ones like Janet McTeer but she is not yet GREAT. However Janet compensates that with a huge amount of confidence and we think that in time she will become a GREAT actor. The problem is that her acting in The White Queen set in the MIddle Ages is not in any way different from what it would be if her character was born in this century. Janet's performance as Jacquetta does not come anywhere near some of her earlier works, such as Vita Sackville-West in Portrait of a Marriage, where truth be told she does portray her own rather colourful interpretation of Vita, nonetheless a very convincing and likeable one, for which she does deserve full credits. 

Max Irons, with whom one immediately falls in love, does have a good start as King Edward but as the series progresses one can clearly see that his acting goes somewhat out of control. We did get to watch his earlier works (Red Riding Hood and The Host) to appreciate his acting. Max Irons is good and there is much more to him than just looks. In actual fact, as it has been said about him, he is not pretty enough but there is something beautiful about him, something that comes from within.

We feel that a lot of acting in this series is not convincing enough for the time it is set on. We find it hard to believe that people would address each other in such fashion and we know this from reading books that portray those times. That seems to be an abundant fault nowadays, perhaps due to the influx and dominance of the US series, which are much worse in terms of acting. This american influence seems to be damaging the quality of UK series. More important nowadays are the love scenes, especially the nude ones, because they make more money, so the acting suffers. We doubt that excellent great actors like the late Peggy Ashcroft, who had crooked teeth, would ever be considered in our times to star on TV or the Big Screen. The same way, as previously mentioned, Max Irons was labeled as "too old and not pretty enough" by a Hollywood film company after an audition for another Hollywood movie.

But not all TV series or movies have gone american. "Call The Midwife" is a great example of outstanding acting. Please do read our review of this series, which by our standards, was the best BBC series of 2012.

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