Workmanlike romp: Sky Atlantic's Mary & George reviewed

If there’s such a thing as a workmanlike romp, then Mary & George might be one. This drama about political and sexual shenanigans during the reign of James I certainly has all the scheming, racy dialogue and nudity that any romp-lover could wish for. At the same time, there’s the slightly awkward sense that it’s harbouring a guilty secret: it wants to be taken seriously as history and thinks it has some important things to say about class, gender and sexuality in 17th-century England and beyond. As a result, the naughty stuff – while definitely naughty – occasionally feels rather dutiful, and the playfulness somehow rather solemn. (‘It’s really interesting having women and queer characters at the centre of the narrative,’ says the executive producer – even though it’s hard to think of any recent drama that doesn’t.)

The Mary of the title is Mary Villiers, played with suitable film-star charisma by Julianne Moore. In this version, Mary was born into poverty but married her way up by means of the violent, syphilitic George Villiers, who survived long enough in the show for Simon Russell Beale to demonstrate that he can ham it up with the best of them.

After her husband’s unlamented death, Mary duly headed off to ensnare another rich oldie, Sir Thomas Compton. But, given the boy’s irresistible handsomeness, her real hopes of power lay with her son George – because, as she put it in one of the more transparently serious moments, ‘bodies are currency’. Now all she had to do was send him to France to learn the courtly refinements he’d need to bag a high-born wife.