'The Hollow Crown: The Wars of The Roses' Review: Bloody Carry On

With two of the three installments of Series 2 of The Hollow Crown now up on the iPlayer and Richard III coming this Saturday, it can safely be said that this series is as good as the one that came before it.

I was uncertain about that after Henry VI Part 1 (and half of Part 2) aired two weeks ago. Richard II's Tom Sturridge isn’t half-bad as Henry VI, but he’s not nearly as striking a performance. That also went for Ben Miles and Adrian Dunbar as the dueling Dukes of Somerset and York, who seemed like secondary voices behind Hugh Bonneville’s Gloucester and Sophie Okonedo as Queen Margaret. Okonedo basically walked in, picked up the entire production and proceeded to walk away with it. Bonneville was the only one putting up a fight.