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Mary queen of scots john guy5/26/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() ‘The more difficult role’: Margot Robbie as Elizabeth I, with Joe Alwyn as Robert Dudley, in Mary Queen of Scots. When Lord Randolph ( Adrian Lester, nicely underplayed) asks: “How did the world come to this?”, Ian Hart’s conspiratorial Lord Maitland replies: “Wise men servicing the whims of women.” Elsewhere, a seething John Knox ( David Tennant, as excellent as he is unrecognisable) brands Mary “a murderous harlot… Queen Strumpet”, while Elizabeth muses upon “how cruel men are”. Yet despite such differences, both queens are subject to the vicissitudes of men who see their gender as a threat. “I will be the woman she is not,” declares Mary, proudly asserting: “I shall produce an heir, unlike her barren self.” As for Elizabeth, she chooses to be neither wife nor mother, preferring “to be a man”, calling her confidant Sir William Cecil ( Guy Pearce) “the closest thing I shall ever have to a wife”. ![]() ![]() On one level these women are polar opposites: while Mary is young, beautiful and forthright, Elizabeth oozes world-weariness, her face painted a frightening white, a clown mask that covers the ravages of the pox. ![]()
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