Series on Henry VIII may beat “Forsyte Saga” sales

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32562, 23 March 1971, Page 4

Series on Henry VIII may beat “Forsyte Saga” sales

They said that after “The Forsyte Saga” there couldn’t be another television success like it.

Snapped up by 47 countries including Russia, it was the most spectacular TV serial ever tackled a production that broke all the show business rules yet made a profit for the 8.8. C. of. more than £1 million. Overseas television networks are still clamouring for it.

The producer, Donald Wilson, would have been justified in gathering together all his colleagues and saying: “Now beat that if you can.” In fact, a fellow 8.8. C. producer, Mark Shivas, looks as if he might do so. For he is the man responsible for the six-part series, the “Six Wives of Henry the Eighth,” which has just finished its second showing in Britain and which, according to 8.8. C. officials, looks set to reap as big a harvest of overseas sales as “The Forsyte Saga,” if not bigger. So far, 16 countries as far

apart as Australia and Antigua have bought it . . . and' enquiries are still flooding in, notably from America, Canada and Japan. It is perhaps small wonder that 8.8. C. chiefs are rubbing their- hands in glee. For a start, the series has cost a mere £loo,ooo—a third of the outlay of the "Saga”— and, unlike the 26-part adaptation of John Galsworthy's novel, it has the added attraction of being in colour.

But the real secret of the series’ success, says Mark Shivas, is its universal appeal—a formula that has all the success - making ingredients.’ love, hatred and political intrigue on an immense scale. “Almost for the first time,” he says, “we have been able to start to understand this extraordinarily complicated man and his complicated wives.” ’ The extraordinarily complicated man is played by a man who is extraordinarily uncomplicated: Keith Mitchell. Not unnaturally perhaps, his views on marriage are just about as far away from Henry the Eighth’s as you could get.

Says Mitchell who, like so many of the cast in the “Forsyte Saga,” stands to gain international stardom from his brilliant portrayal of the Tudor King: “Marriage is a big step which many people are afraid to take. “I’ve been married to Jeanette (actress Jeanette Sterke) for 13 years, and I feel my marriage is only just beginning.”

His role in the television series, by coincidence, gave the 8.8.C.’s make-up department as many headaches as the part of Soames in the “Forsyte Saga.” Whereas Eric Porter had to age subtly from the late 20’s to the 70’s, Michell ages from a young, intelligent and witty boy of 17 who wanted to make his Court renowned for its wisdom, to a decrepit, diseased hulk of a man in his mid-50’s, who so revolted his last wife on their marriage night that she rejected his feeble advances.

The series took years of planning, and many thousands of hours were spent to ensure historical accuracy —right down to the last boned-stay in the last of more than 300 corsets! The costumes, designed specially for the production by 8.8. C. staff designer John Bloomfield, won a prize in their own right last year, and they form the centrepiece of a travelling exhibition mounted jointly by the 8.8. C. and some of Britain’s leading museums. The “Six Wives,” according to the 8!8.C., represents a new departure in television . . . because not only are the programmes themselves being sold, but an all-out attempt is being made to market a whole range of “spin-offs” from the series. A set of prints of some of the most eye-catching costumes is selling well . . . and so is the gramophone record of the music from the series —specially arranged from authentic 16th century sources. The costume exhibitions, too, have been drawing tremendous crowds. The series was planned from the start as a collection of separate stories, written by different writers, drawing its continuity from the presence of Henry himself, and some of the supporting characters. This meant, says Shivas, that different facets of Henrv had to be polished each The first clue 8.8. C. executives had that they might have another “Forsyte”-type hit on their hands came when the "Wives" first went out last year on the minority 8.8. C. 2 channel. They attracted record audiences of more than four million viewers—even though only half of the television sets in Britain could pick up the station. As the classic tale of Tudor plotting and intrigue unfolded, the television executives watched with growing delight as their series of costume dramas developed into something of a national cult. For Keith Michell, the hardest task was to present Henry as he had been seen by six different writers . . . and yet still keep a degree of continuity and growth in the performance. As it happened, he was no stranger to Henry the Eighth. A few years ago he played opposite Glynis Johns in a West End comedy production called “The King’sMare.”

That performance was more in line with the tradition'begun by Charles Laughton in the classic movie, “The Private Lives of Henry the Eighth,” which showed the king as a rowdy, roistering figure leaping from one bed to the next until he collapsed from over-exertion.

Keith* Michell sees him today in a rather different light, and believes that many of the king’s intellectual achievements are ignored because they are overshadowed by his sexual activities. “I sometimes wonder,” he says, “if he had any more relationships with wpmen than ordinary men today. The fact that he married them all just made it that much more apparent.” As a result, Michell has given Henry one of the most sympathetic characterisations seen for years, at the same t time showing the ruthlessness of a man who believed he was king because it ; was God’s will that he should be. [ Whatever may be the real facts behind the story

of Henry the Eighth, it is practically certain that the magnificent performance of Keith Michell is destined to be the yardstick against which all others will be

! measured for years to come. : Henry’s marriages broke f up the Church of his time > and nearly destroyed his t country. Now, they are the ; basis of what looks like be-

. coming the world's most > successful ever television s drama. s Not bad going for a king ) who lived and died 400 years ■ ago . . ■