Six Wives of Henry VIII, The (BBC Two 1970, Keith Michell, Patrick Troughton)

Period drama serial. The tempestuous lives and loves of King Henry VII, specifically his relationships with his six wives.

UK / BBC Two / 6×90 minute episodes / 1 January – 5 February 1970

Creator: Maurice Cowan / Producers: Ronald Travers, Mark Shivas, Roderick Graham / Dances: Geraldine Stephenson / Camera: A.A. Englander /Narrator: Anthony Quayle / Music arranged and played by David Munrow

REGULAR CAST
Keith Michell as Henry VIII

Each episode carried the subtitle Henry VIII and (whoever the wife was)

THE EPISODES

1.CATHERINE OF ARAGON.
The story of Henry and hisnfirst wife who married when very young, married as part of a pact between Spain and England, they were in love but Catherine couldn’t give Henry the male heir he was desperate for. This was the start of his dealings with the Catholic Church and the problems it caused him for the rest of his life.

cast
Keith Michell as Henry VIII / Annette Crosbie as Catherine of Aragon / Dorothy Tutin as Anne Boleyn / Patrick Troughton as the Duke of Norfolk / John Woodnutt as Henry VII / Martin Ratcliffe as Prince Arthur / Ken Wynne as Dr. de Puebla / Sally Travers as Dona Elvira Manuel / Donald Bisset as Earl of Surrey / Margaret Ford as Maria de Salinas / John Baskcomb as Cardinal Woolsey / Verina Greenlaw as Princess Mary.

Writer: Rosemary Anne Sisson
Director: John Glenister

2.ANNE BOLEYN
Henry may have met his match with the feisty, intelligent Anne Boleyn.

cast
Keith Michell as Henry VIII / Dorothy Tutin as Anne Boleyn / Anne Stallybrass as Jane Seymour / Patrick Troughton as Duke of Norfolk / Sheila Burrell as Lady Rochford / Michael Osborne as Mark Smeaton / Jonathan Newth as Viscount Rochford / Hilary Mason as Lady Boleyn / Wolfe Morris as Thomas Cromwell / Bernard Hepton as Archbishop.

Director Naomi Capon

3.JANE SEYMOUR
Henry marries the young, ambitious Jane Seymour who is soon turned off by the ageing King and later takes a lover thus bringing about her downfall.

cast
Kewith Michell as Henry VIII / Anne Stallybrass as Jane Seymoour / Patrick Troughton as Norfolk / Sheila Burrell as Lady Rochford / Daniel Moynihan as Edward Seymour / Gillian Bailey as Dorothy Seymour / Dorothy Black as Lady Margaret Seymour / John Ronane as Thomas Seymour / Howard Land as Sir John Seymour / William Abney as Sir Francis Bryan/ Louis Haslar as Sir Nicholas Carew / Bernard Hepton as Thomas Cranmer / Jo Kendall as Anne Stanhope / Wolfe Morris as Cromwell.

Writer: Ian Thorne
Director: John Glenister

4. ANNE OF CLEVES
Henry is now married to German princess Anne of Cleves who is a smart cookie and is more than able to survive the machinations of Henry’s court.

cast
Keith Michell as Henry VIII / Elvi Hale as Anne of Cleves / Sheila Burrell as Lady Rochford / Bernard Hepton as Thomas Cranmer / Wolfe Morris as Thomas Cromwell / Patrick Troughton as the Duke of Norfolk/ Basil Dignam as Bishop Gardiner / James Mellor as Hans Holbein / Carol Macready as Amalie / Mollie Sugden as Lotte.

Writer: Jean Morris
Director: John Glenister.

5. CATHERINE HOWARD
Henry is now 50 and married to the young Catherine Howard and trying to recapture his youthful exhuberances.

cast
Angela Pleasance as Catheirne Howard / Patrick Troughton as the Duke of Norfolk / Julia Cornelius as Anne Cornelius / Sheila Burrell as Lady Rochford / Catherine Lacey as the Dowager duchess of Norfolk / Howard Goorney as Will Somers / Ralph Bates as Thomas Culpeper / Simon Prebble as Francis Dereham/ Bill Riley as Stanton

Writer: Beverly Cross
Director: Naomi Capon

6. CATHERINE PARR
Henry is now approaching his final years and is married to Catherine Parr, he is trying to fight off a whirl of political back stabbing and having to deal with Catherine is being pursued by Sir Thomas Seymour. The series of plays ends with the death of Henry.

cast
Keith Michell as Henry VIII, / Rosalie Crutchley as Catherine Parr / John Ronane as Sir Thomas Seymour / Howard Goorney as Will Somers / Daniel Moynihan as Lord Hertford / Basil Dignam as Gardiner Bishop of Winchester / Patrick Godfrey as Sir Thomas Wriothesley / Edward Atienza as Chapys / Bernard Hepton as Archbishop Cranmer / Alison Frazer as Mary / Karen Ford as Lady Lane / Anthony Knevet as Jim Kennedy

Writer: John Prebble
Director: Naomi Capon

• Hamlet at Elsinore (BBC 1964, Christopher Plummer, Robert Shaw)

• A Handful of Thieves (BBC One 1969, Helen Worth, Martin Ratcliffe)

• Hands Across the Sea (BBC, 1938, Nadine March, Nicholas Phipps)

• My Son Reuben (Thames 1975, Bernard Spear, Lila Kaye,)

• The Franchise Affair (BBC 1962, Rosalie Crutchley, Michael Aldridge)

• The Galactic Garden

• The Sentimental Agent (ATV 1963)