CinemaSerf

Set during the dying days of England's King Edward IV, this is a speculative version of the events that removed his legitimate heir and his brother and smoothed the process of ensuring that Richard III succeeded to give battle in vain. Now I say speculative because this has largely abandoned the history and supplanted it with the vivid imagination of auteur Charlie Steeds. He can't have had much money or time for anything here, but despite that he manages to film a certain effective eeriness to the scenarios. There is, however, nothing more to be said for this fanciful, slightly kinky, and really quite risible tale of usurpation. The acting is as bad as the writing - and that's saying something. Richard Rowden and Reece Connolly come across little better than easy on the eye drama school students and Tim Cartwright's attempt at portraying the megalomanic Richard III can be guaranteed to remind you of the original "Blackadder" series from forty years earlier. The myths about the princes in the tower are a great seam for film makers. This one? Well it's one that needs to be planted six feet under!