What to watch
Secrets of Henry VIII’S Palace
CHANNEL 5, 8.00PM
Given a measured narration by actor Sam West and bearing the unmistakable bombast of a PBS documentary, this survey of Hampton Court and its tumultuous history inevitably spends plenty of time on the very familiar story of Henry VIII, the Reformation, his six wives, and so on. We begin with its construction as a home for Cardinal Wolsey that was hijacked by the monarch.
The real interest lies in stories of the architecture (the woodwork holds an enduring, secret tribute to Anne Boleyn), the anecdotes (those working by Henry’s kitchen furnace were given a beer allowance) and, to a lesser degree, the enjoyably gossipy post-tudor history of the palace. Taken on by William III and Mary II, it was partially revamped by Christopher Wren, using Versailles as a template, with funds proving insufficient to finish the job. While its swansong as a royal residence had a grubby Georgian postscript, its extravagant glory remains both accessible and undiminished. The chin-stroking reconstructions are kept to a minimum, and the contributors are topnotch, led by Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley and historian Jonathan Foyle. Gabriel Tate