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Marie Antoinette is a new 8-part drama about the lady who may or may not have declared, “Let them eat cake!”, but certainly wasn’t needing to be planning a 40th birthday party any time soon…
We’re in the late 18th Century and war is afoot, namely the French Revolution. However, since Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (Emilia Schüle) was the last French queen before this happened, we can be thankful that this series is just shot in English.
History was never my strong point, so taking my cue from this, England are mad that France recognised the United Provinces of America, and so for pointless reasons as always, the two countries are at war.
Coming up… (f’nar, f’nar), there’s some rather lame and unsexy “how’s your father” going on, and when guests – well, men who are ‘friends’ of Yolanda – are coming to stay, but where will they sleep? Erm… in Marie’s bed, who claims to be staying in the attic, instead. I can guess where she’ll be…
Everyone talks in “Ooh, aren’t we all quite delicate flowers” tones, and has ridiculous big wigs, some men using the size of this attire as an excuse for lacking in a different size in the trouser (or pantaloon?) department.
Since I’m not into history, like Dangerous Liaisons, this a bunch of women and non-descript male fops in ridiculous wigs. And yes, when you rewatch that movie, it IS as completely average as you forgot to remember.
In fact, I’m really not sure why they bothered with this rubbish if they don’t have anything to add in the form of a period drama.
Oh, and as I go to put this online, I thought I’d only seen episode 1, but now I realise that since I was playing it from my Android phone, I would assume it would proffer the series from episode 1 onwards… but no, it gave me the finale! Well, I can’t be doing with going back, especially since it certainly didn’t give any indication that it was a finale. It is what it is. And it was a load of crap!
Marie Antoinette starts on BBC2 tonight at 9pm, but it’s on the BBC iPlayer now. You can pre-order it on Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release on Febuary 20th.
Series Directors: Geoffrey Enthoven, Pete Travis
Producers: Aude Albano, Margaux Balsan, Stéphanie Chartreux, Claude Chelli, Deborah Davis, Alban Etienne, Christophe Toulemonde
Creator: Deborah Davis
Writers: Deborah Davis, Louise Ironside, Chloe Moss, Avril E Russell
Music: Guillaume Roussel
Cast:
Marie Antoinette: Emilia Schüle
Louis XV: James Purefoy
The Dauphin: Louis Cunningham
Count of Provence: Jack Archer
Princess of Lamballe: Jasmine Blackborow
Victoire de France: Caroline Piette
Adelaide de France: Crystal Shepherd-Cross
Count of Mercy: Nathan Willcocks
Louis XVI: Louis Cunningham
Marie-Thérèse d’Autriche: Marthe Keller
Chartres: Oscar Lesage
Young Marie-Antoinette: Charlotte Angel
Joséphine: Roxane Duran
Madame de Noailles: Laura Benson
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.