The Devil’s Whore, BBC4 drama on the English Civil War, is refreshing: it is neither a literary adaptation nor an addition to a myriad of films on a heavily dramatized time period, says a critic in The Telegraph.

Flannery and Brant are also working with an advantage. The Civil War is barely ever dramatised on the small screen. There was By the Sword Divided made by the BBC over 20 years ago, a drama “so ropey”, says Flannery, that “there is only one exterior scene, where a wheel falls off a carriage as it’s going up a hill – and they didn’t even bother to reshoot it. The whole thing must have cost 14 shillings and sixpence.”

Flannery can’t comprehend the period’s neglect. “I can’t for the life of me understand it,” he says. “Also, for a writer, it’s the most glorious landscape for love stories and action.”

In the video included in the article, the commentator mentions that the goal of the film was not to present a historically accurate depiction of the English Civil War, but to emphasize the “chaos” and “high passions” of the era. I suppose it is meant to entertain — always a tradeoff.

The Devil’s Whore, a drama fixed in the midst of the English Civil War, is coming soon to BBC4. Angelica Fanshawe is the “Devil’s Whore” herself, a aristocratic woman whose sensuality and passions sometimes get her into trouble, says in a Times article “England’s civil war in The Devil’s Whore.”

If the language weren’t ambitious enough, there is the vast scope of Peter Flannery’s script — which some might argue resembles a vastly heightened period version of his previous big hit, Our Friends in the North. To remodel that drama’s catch line, this is a saga of two decades, five friends and their lives that shaped the world. The Devil’s Whore recounts the stories of comrades, enemies and lovers who battle, with varying degrees of idealism and brutality, through the civil war, from the closing days of the Eleven Years’ Tyranny to the post-war manoeuvring between parliament’s factions as the army, the radicals and the conservatives wrestle for the nation.

Director Marc Munden claims it is a sexy way to look at a period of English history that has been left relatively untouched — and there’s lots of blood and swords. Apparently, all sorts of drama rolled up into one. It will air in four one-hour-long episodes beginning November 19.

The Devil’s Whore Site: http://www.channel4.com/corporate/thedevilswhore/

An enlightening BBC Newsnight Review panel on the upcoming drama:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/review/7719958.stm

A humorous interview with Dominic West on his role as Oliver Cromwell: http://www.channel4.com/corporate/thedevilswhore/interviews/dominic-west/the-devil-s-whore-cast-interviews-08-10-16_p_1.html