‘Enthralling TV’: The intense Serpent Queen plays like a muffled scream

The Serpent Queen ★★★★
Stan, from September 11*

With two-time Oscar nominee Samantha Morton as a flinty, hard-bitten Catherine de’ Medici and Charles Dance gently nibbling the carpentry as her jaded uncle, Pope Clement VII, this blackly humorous historical romp doesn’t lack for star power.

But the real star of the show is young Liv Hill (Three Girls) as the young Catherine, a bewildered but scrappy girl who might easily have been murdered in the conflicts that convulsed Italy in the 1530s, but instead went on to be the wife of one French king and the mother of three more.

Samantha Morton as hard-bitten Catherine de’ Medici in historical romp The Serpent Queen.Credit: Stan

The series’ heightened yet earthy feel might briefly put viewers in mind of the deliciously outre satire of The Great (Stan), but The Serpent Queen keeps its feet pretty firmly in the muck. The emotional tone is set at a muffled scream – where you might expect the credits to roll to some plinky-plonky chamber music, you get the likes of P.J. Harvey at their most intense.

Within minutes we’ve seen in fairly startling fashion how syphilis claimed both of young Catherine’s parents and how – with enemies of the family keen to kill any Medici they can get their hands on – young Catherine has been sheltered among nuns whose mercies are less than tender.

In a brief respite from his own troubles, Pope Clement arranges Catherine’s rescue and then arranges to have her married off to Prince Henri (Alex Heath), second son of the French king, Francis I (the agreeably bearlike Colm Meaney).

As the young Catherine, Liv Hill is the real star of The Serpent Queen.Credit: Stan

Hill has a great line in looks of disgusted perplexity, which is just what’s called for with the physical and moral squalor of Renaissance Europe on full display. But young Catherine quickly taps into what you might call her inner Machiavelli. The art of manipulation is going to be essential for her very survival – heck, even Diane de Poitiers (Ludivine Sagnier), Catherine’s own cousin and supposed ally at the French court, is going to betray her in cruel style.

Series creator Justin Haythe (Revolutionary Road), adapting a biography by Leonie Frieda, frames the action as a story told by the older Queen Catherine to a lowly young serving girl (Sennia Nanua), who she is grooming for purposes of her own.

Director Stacie Passon, who brought Anais Nin’s erotic short stories to the screen in Little Birds (Stan), conducts the opening episodes with elan and a keen eye for power dynamics at every level. Thoroughly enthralling telly.

Welcome to Wrexham ★★★
Disney+

There’s a touch of the Ted Lassos about this intriguing documentary series following American actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney as they take over the languishing Wrexham football club in north Wales. The once-proud town has struggled since the closure of the last coal pit in the 1980s, and the club’s fortunes have also waned -- it has spent more than a decade outside the all-important top-four tiers of the English football league system.

Welcome to Wrexham charts the takeover of a struggling football club in Wales by Hollywood A-listers Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds.Credit: PA

The documentary quickly establishes McElhenney’s affinity with the working-class roots of the 157-year-old team and its supporters, taking us back to his childhood home in Pittsburgh to see the humble circumstances in which he grew up. It’s less confident in establishing a tone.

McElhenny and Reynolds are sheepish and almost apologetic at times about taking over, though their drafting of former Leeds United CEO Shaun Harvey to run things underlines their seriousness. The harsh reality is that real success will require new players, so if things go according to plan most of the ones we’re meeting now will get the flick. Viewers will share their hopes and their wariness.

Untold: The Race of the Century
Netflix

John Bertrand discusses the 1983 America’s Cup in Untold: The Race of the Century.Credit: Netflix

The 1983 America’s Cup was a long time ago now, but this near feature-length instalment of Netflix’s sports documentary series brings it all rushing back as John Bertrand and the crew of the yacht Australia II recall the journey to their stunning upset victory. The late Ben Lexcen, who designed the yacht and its revolutionary winged keel despite only having three years of school education, remains a big figure in the story, as does yacht owner Alan Bond and American skipper Dennis Conner, who sit for frank interviews.

Witness Number 3
Paramount+

Nina Toussaint-White in the terse British police thriller Witness Number 3.Credit: Paramount+

Hairdresser Jodie (Nina Toussaint-White) grew up on a tough South London estate and wants to make it better. But when she agrees to be a witness in a murder case, she’s stalked and intimidated by the ruthless drug gang that rules the streets. This four-part thriller is terse and tense from the outset, with daylight the colour of cold concrete and night time the province of vicious gang members whose menace is amplified by the anonymising effect of their identical hoodies. Brew the tea strong.

Recipes for Love and Murder
Acorn TV

Maria Doyle Kennedy plays an advice columnist on the cosy village crime series Recipes for Love and Murder.Credit: Acorn TV

With Maria Doyle Kennedy lovingly preparing ingredients in a rustic farmhouse kitchen, this South African series looks like your typical cosy village-murder series. But things take an exceedingly dark turn as Doyle Kennedy’s character, Tannie Maria, in her position as advice columnist for the village newspaper, begins public correspondence with a woman who is being cruelly abused by her husband. The chilling gravity of the situation and its depiction contrasts uneasily with the antics of standard-issue rustic characters chasing sheep and so on.

Glorious
Shudder

Director and horror obsessive Rebekah McKendry pays both homage and fromage to classic horror films in Glorious, starring Ryan Kwanten (pictured).Credit: Shudder

Wes (Ryan Kwanten) is a dishevelled emotional wreck even before he finds himself trapped in a public toilet with some thing in the next cubicle voiced by J.K. Simmons. This might not be an accident – we may be about to witness a personal reckoning for Wes and a cosmic reckoning for the cosmos. Director and horror obsessive Rebekah McKendry pays both homage and fromage to H.P. Lovecraft, David Cronenberg and Stanley Kubrick in an enjoyably loopy movie that has a sense of humour and visual style.

* Stan is owned by Nine, the owner of this masthead.

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