The Musketeers: A Marriage Of Inconvenience. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tom Burke, Santiago Cabrera, Howard Charles, Luke Pasqualino, Alexandra Dowling, Ryan Gage, Maimie McCoy, Tamla Kari, Marc Warren, Hugo Speer, Perdita Weeks, Nicholas Blane, Laurence Kennedy, Charlotte Salt, Bo Poraj, Andrew Westfield, Ed Stoppard, James Joyce, Tony Guilfoyle.

It seems funny in some ways that there is so much made of the destabilising forces that seek to infiltrate the countries of the world and the modern techniques used in the world of espionage and spying, that people forget just how long spying has been used as a precursor to war, whether on a nation or on a person, spying is always the name of the game.

A Marriage of Inconvenience, the latest episode of the B.B.C. series The Musketeers manages to merge and bring together the reflection of the state, diplomacy and politics and the institution of marriage under one umbrella and does it convincingly well in what could have been a true shambles of writing ambition. By showing that marriage and diplomacy, the art of spying and treachery could be considered all one and the same, the makers of The Musketeers tapped into the point of life as seen in many quarters, the power of knowledge and what it can gain you.

It is that power that threatened to spill over as in all corners’ treachery was seen to skulk, whether through the machinations of Rochefort, played with ever consuming ease by Marc Warren and who has truly stepped comfortably into the shoes of Peter Capaldi as the villain of the piece, by the ever inspirational quality that Maimie McCoy brings to the spiteful and vengeful MiLady De Winter or in the case of this particular episode, a resonating appearance by Perdita Weeks as the cousin of the King.

Power, treachery, treason and marriage, all games that seem to be played with risk, fear and with an eye over the shoulder of those close to you, the life of the spy is not just fraught with danger, it can lead to the death of all you know.

The Musketeers is on next Friday on B.B.C.

Ian D. Hall