A World of Fools and Knaves

by Mike Walker. Henrietta Maria - Charles I's Catholic queen - watches her husband, the 'second-best-King', fail to keep a hold on the reins of government.

Directed by Jessica Dromgoole & Sasha Yevtushenko
Sound design by Colin Guthrie

Production co-ordinator: Selina Ream
Studio managers: Martha Littlehailes, Alison Craig

Notes:
An inauspicious marriage of three people changes when the third member, the Duke of Buckingham is assassinated. Charles becomes closer to his Queen Henrietta Maria and what started a marriage of convenience, becomes much deeper as the two try to support each other through turbulent times. Neither of them is able to read the signs of the times as politics and political philosophy take radical new directions. A man of great artistic taste, Charles is both too thoughtful and too indecisive to rule successfully and despite his hatred of war, war becomes his inheritance. Like many fundamentally decent men, Charles lacks iron: the ability to be utterly ruthless when necessary and merciful when expedient.