Small-screen portrayals of British monarchs showcase the burdens and performative demands of royalty, balancing spectacle with psychological nuance. Claire Foy's Elizabeth II embodies a tremulous newlywed transformed into an unflappable sovereign through quietly controlled gestures and measured restraint. Damian Lewis's Henry VIII appears as charismatic, isolated, and morally decaying, alternating bravura and menace. King and Conqueror dramatizes events around the Battle of Hastings with Harold II (James Norton) and Edward the Confessor (Eddie Marsan), continuing the royal drama tradition that emphasizes vocal and physical expansiveness alongside human vulnerability.
Foy's multi-award winning performance offered an exquisitely nuanced take on the rise of HRH, from tremulous young newlywed, gasping as centuries of tradition prepare to clamp her in a constitutional headlock, to unflappable monarch, her tiny, gloved hand steady on the nation's rudder. Even as the queenly baton was passed on first to Olivia Colman, then Imelda Staunton it was Foy's quiet, beautifully controlled study that remained The Crown's crowning glory: the definitive portrayal of, if you will, The Ascent of Ma'am.
Damian Lewis as Henry VIII in Wolf Hall (2015 & 2024) A bearded love-tank Damian Lewis in Wolf Hall. Photograph: Nick Briggs/BBC/Playground Entertainment Oh look, it's brilliant Damian Lewis being brilliant again, whether barrelling around Hampton Court Palace like a bearded love-tank or smirking inscrutably at poor, doomed Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance) as his principles, perspicacity and waistline gradually melt into a gouty moral abyss.
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