Shardlake review: A gritty Tudor murder mystery

Murderous monks, letter-perfect costumes, and a shadowy violent realm untrodden by period dramas past? It can only be Shardlake, Hulu’s gritty adaptation of the late C. J. Sansom’s bestselling Tudor murder-mystery series. And we’re here to tell you that the show, which premieres May 1, is pretty
excellent.

Now, we know what you’re thinking: The Tudors have been done to death at this point, right? Wrong. Set shortly after the execution of Anne Boleyn, Shardlake takes us away from all the pomp and glamor of the royal court, plunging us instead into the shadowy, misty, and oh-so-boggy fictional port town of Scarnsea, where the sinking shifting muds are basically guaranteed to trigger fans of The NeverEnding Story.

In this bleak and hostile setting, we follow Matthew Shardlake, a lawyer with Witcher-style investigative tendencies. (Seriously: He can stare at a headless corpse and determine the height of the killer in mere moments!) Our hero has one mission: To solve a violent murder—one that occurred inside the locked fortress of a monastery kitchen, no less—so that Sir Thomas Cromwell can make good on his promise to Henry VIII and shut the religious institution down. His task is far from easy, however, as he has to contend with a rapidly rising body count, cloaked figures lurking in the rafters, a walking codpiece of a bodyguard who is likely reporting his every move back to Cromwell, and the ever-increasing possibility that he’s working on behalf of “the devil” himself.

It’s an engrossing story, made even more so by the show’s slick and atmospheric approach to its subject matter. Shardlake has all the violence and gore of a modern thriller, without ever betraying its historical setting. And while its flashbacks sometimes feel a little confusing (they often happen with very little warning, prompting us to wonder if we’d accidentally nodded off and missed an integral moment or two), there’s no denying that they add a sense of urgency to events.

It’s become increasingly difficult not to compare this to Game Of Thrones, too—at least to the earlier seasons, when things were far less controversial. The gorgeous settings! The costumes! The swearing and the casual regard for human life and the forever-galloping horses (does nobody ever trot or canter anymore?) belting down dirt roads towards looming fortresses! Oh sure, there are far fewer dragons and naked women, but the basic elements are still there, including the wit of it all. This show makes a point of injecting dark humor into the most unexpected of places, like, say, the skull of a virginal saint.

The cast, too, is ace: Arthur Hughes was positively born to play the eponymous Shardlake, ramping up those “last honest man in 16th century England” vibes with seemingly very little effort, while Sean Bean lifts Cromwell out of the history books and transforms him into someone who feels every bit as jovial and intelligent as they are dangerous. Anthony Boyle breathes new life into the cocky Jack Barak, creating the sort of lovable asshole we all like to root for, in spite of ourselves. And let’s not forget the stellar work of Babou Ceesay, Paul Kaye, Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, Peter Firth, Brian Vernel, Irfan Shamj, David Pearse, Miles Barrow, Mike Noble, and Kimberley Nixon, either—or Matthew Steer for bringing us some much-needed “excellent boiled potatoes” energy in Goodhap (perhaps a distant Tudor relative of Jane Austen’s Mr. Collins).

Perhaps one of the best things about Shardlake is also its worst: The series is a microscopically mini one at just four episodes long. On the one hand, this makes for tight storytelling, very little bloat, and an insatiable desire to binge binge binge like mad until you get to the very end. On the other hand, however, it all feels as if it’s over far too quickly. We’ve only just gotten to know Shardlake & Co., and then, just like that, we’re expected to say goodbye? It’s a lot to ask, quite frankly.

Still, with a whopping seven books in the Shardlake series, it’s unlikely we won’t get another run of episodes in the not-so-distant future—presuming all goes well, of course—so it might be best to view this batch as the visually rich scene-setting first chapter in… well, in a sprawling new period drama that spans several stories and offers up countless mysteries to get stuck into. Fingers crossed, anyway.

Shardlake premieres May 1 on Hulu