Mary & George

Mary & George is what happens when a show is firing on all cylinders, as it features a bevy of talented performers with great chemistry delivering fantastically written material. Not only that, but it’s delivered in a beautifully crafted package with remarkable aesthetics and an equally extraordinary soundtrack to boot. This show — like King James I — rules hard.

Since the 2018 film The Favourite, followed by TV’s The Great, a contemporary energy has entered the genre — one charged with a ton of colourful swearing, moments of off-centre humour and romping a go-go, the more sexually fluid the better. Mary & George has all this in abundance. A touch affected, maybe, but certainly fun.

Mary & George aspires to be more than standard sexed-up period fare, and most of the time it gets there.

“Mary & George” strikes a desirable balance, delivering a little of the unexpected and uncouth in welcome spots, especially where the randy bits are concerned.

Darkly comic and lushly erotic, both boldly anachronistic and surprisingly true to history, “Mary & George” takes the better part of its duration for the viewer to internalize its offbeat, unpredictable rhythms. By then, what could be a standard story about the overlap of sex and ambition has wormed its way deep under our skin.

The king alone seems to hope he’s living in a fairy tale, or a star-crossed romance, or a grand historical epic. The fun of Mary & George is that it recognizes all along that he’s just been a pawn in a particularly vicious soap.

Mary & George takes bold swings, with regard to its approach to the period’s details and to its depiction of history. These swings are wild enough that it could off-put purists of the genre, but I was delighted. Mary & George is the type of show pushing the period drama genre where it needs to go in the future: to a vision of the past that shows us how similar it really was to our present.

Too often TV critics (this one included) must bemoan a series for not living up to either its premise or the sum of its parts. Mary & George emphatically – uproariously – does both.

The seven-episode limited series zips along with all manner of surprising plot turns.

Imbued with a historical kick, the new Starz limited series boasts juicy performances from Julianne Moore and Nicholas Galitzine and a level of debauchery that makes “Bridgerton” look like a Sunday-school romp.

The series gets too grave in the final episodes, otherwise this bawdy 17th-century sex romp, starring a dynamite Julianne Moore and Nicholas Galitzine as a twisted mother and son, blows the dust off history to find what's alive, kicking and relevant to right now.

Never staid and often kinky, “Mary & George” stumbles halfway through but remains chew-up-the-scenery entertainment, a spicy affair that gets more outlandish and wicked with each episode. It helps that Moore and Galitzine are so good at forming this chess-like alliance and that a trio of top-notch directors — Oliver Hermanus, Alex Winckler and Florian Cossen — never let the high drama topple over into outright camp.

Mostly, though, there’s Julianne Moore. What a performance! Mary is arguably the most vicious and intimidating figure in the entire, sprawling story, yet Moore never shies away from showing us how Mary is often clueless and puts herself in humiliating situations — only to get back on her feet, dust herself off and get back in the game, more tenacious and dangerous than ever.

Unlike Galitzine, who struggles with the various notes George calls him to play, Moore is truly dialed into the woman Mary was. .... [Julianne Moore] more than holds her own, finding a chilling coarseness run through her portrayal of Mary Villiers. On the other end of the spectrum is Tony Curran. The Scottish actor brings a welcome incandescent warmth to the Scottish-turned-English King.

Even if it might be tricky to remember when George fell ill with the pox or any individual scene of the young man sleeping his way to the top of the ladder, there’s still enough to consider continuing the journey into the remainder of the season; it’s a testament to all involved and their ability to make a compelling watch out of something centuries in the past draped with a peculiar contemporary feel. It’s imperfect, and yet somehow works.

It’s more difficult than it should be to figure out how it wants us to understand Mary’s story, let alone her place among the pantheon of powerful women that history has done dirty. And as fun as Mary & George is, it’s hard not to wonder what the version of this show that let us really get to know her might have looked like.

Galitzine is doing what he’s known for: playing an omnisexual noble whose beauty determines his path. Or at least that’s where we start. .... In the season’s back half, its talented actors and specific setting reveal something dark but essential about the human condition, beauty, and bravado.

Mary & George is lurid fun, up to a point, as a kitschy hybrid of historical drama and R-rated primetime soap. [22 Apr - 12 May 2024, p.5]

While the series can sometimes feel like you're seeing out the long game with our protagonists, there's no denying this is a totally moreish watch that'll leave you suitably obsessed with (or fearful of) the Villers in no time.

A look at the reign of James I is welcome – apart from the Gunpowder Plot, this isn’t a period of history that gets too much attention – but much of what happens is pure conjecture. A stylish drama, but with little substance.

The sexual politics (and sexual politicking) of Mary & George will come to define the show for most viewers, but underneath the heaving buttocks, there’s an interesting depiction of life at the advent of modernity. It’s a shame, then, that in trying to be so modern, the show forgets to take a punt on having an identity of its own. Risqué, perhaps, but risky? Not so much.

Handsomely shot and well-performed, Mary & George starts out edgy and refreshing — but ends up falling into a more familiar, though still interesting, rhythm.

It drips with attitude, wit, and archness, which can sometimes work — see “The Great” — but fails to provide enough character and narrative to back it all up. It doesn’t build so much as tread water.