My Lady Jane
From the first moments of My Lady Jane, it’s clear that this is not going to be your typical Tudor drama. (Indeed, the narrator goes to great lengths to assure of the fact.) Instead, it’s a quirky, anarchic take on one of England’s shortest and most ill-fated reigns, in which Lady Jane Grey was placed on the throne before being beheaded about nine days into her tenure as queen. By embracing fantasy elements, it frees itself from any obligation to be faithful to history, either in its depiction of key players or indeed entire chains of events. The result is a raucous affair, one that is extremely silly but unabashedly fun.
Lady Jane Grey (Emily Bader) is in a bit of a pickle. All she really wants out of life is to continue her studies, adding to her compendium of local plants and other ingredients that contain medicinal properties. But for some reason, her mother (Anna Chancellor) is insistent that she get married – to a stranger, no less. Since her father’s death, her family has been living on borrowed time, financially speaking, at the whims of a grotesque relation, the Duke of Leicester (Jim Broadbent). Her marriage, Lady Frances Grey insists, will give both Jane and her younger sisters security. So she is reluctantly betrothed to Lord Guildford Dudley (Edward Bluemel), who is … well, let’s just say not quite what he seems. And as if that isn’t quite enough to be getting on with, Jane quickly becomes embroiled in national politics when her sickly cousin Edward (Jordan Peters) names her his heir.
In this version of Tudor England, the biggest political flashpoint is the treatment of Ethians (people who can change into animals) by Verity (ordinary human folks). The Ethians are persecuted, existing on the margins of society with increasing purges of their numbers and laws passed to limit their freedoms even further. It’s clear that this is a play on the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in actual Tudor history, and although it’s not particularly nuanced in its exploration of these two groups, the idea to replace religious strife with the persecution of magical shapeshifters is undeniably clever. It allows the production to not be beholden to the historical record or any of the plot points that have been beaten into the ground by every other Tudor drama. Without this dramatic departure from reality, some of its modern touches or wild alternate interpretations of major historical figures might have rung false or as though My Lady Jane was trying too hard. Instead, by making it clear that it is entirely divorced from reality, we can embrace its more unhinged plot twists for what they are.
For her part, Bader brings an earnestness to Lady Jane that is incredibly endearing. It helps that the production has an active narrator that gives us insight into her character without loading her up with unwieldy exposition. The character beats we get from the narrator aren’t subtle, but they have no intention of appearing as though they are, and we can respect that. It’s one of the few examples of when it works better to tell your audience than show them. It also saves Bader from having to spout too much dialogue intended to showcase how clever, headstrong, and unconventional she is (although we do, of course, get some of that). It might be easy to have reservations about her character at first, when she’s playing the obstinate teen hell bent on not getting married. But along with a new title and position in society, marriage lends depth and maturity to Lady Jane. Part of this has to do with the electric chemistry between her and the rogueish Guildford, but also the surprisingly fresh approach to their relationship arc, which is incredibly satisfying to watch play out.
Although the visual effects are nothing to write home about, and the style of cinematography is artificially bright in a way that makes it clear you’re watching a series made for streaming on Prime Video, there’s one thing that the show accomplishes quite well, and that’s packing every scene full of enchanting side characters. From Jane’s ambitious and pragmatic-to-a-fault mother and Guildford’s dopey but surprisingly warm-hearted brother Stan (Henry Ashton) to the wildly unstable Princess Mary (Kate O’Flynn) and her submissive (in every sense of the word) crony Lord Seymour (Dominic Cooper), the supporting cast sparkles.
My Lady Jane may be a little bit silly, but it relishes its eccentric role in the greater Tudor canon, which makes it hard not to like. With a cast full of talented performers who exploit every inch of their characters’ hidden depths, the show continues to surprise throughout the entire season – especially in how much we grow to care about even the characters who seem at first as though they only exist to fulfill broad archetypes. Other films and television series about the Tudor era may be more historically accurate (if only just), but My Lady Jane has to be the most fun.
Directed by Gemma Burgess
Starring Emily Bader, Edward Bluemel, Anna Chancellor
Runtime Season 1 - 8 episodes
Language English