THIS MONTH I'M ON ABOUT SIX-PACKS – Elizabeth Fremantle

Matthew Macfadyen as a smouldering Mr Darcy

For some weeks now we've been bombarded with images of a sultry Aidan Turner, topless, with a tanned and rippling six pack. Now personally, enjoyable though Poldark has been on a Sunday evening, I'm not one of those multitudes who finds Mr Turner's phwoar factor off the scale. So I was rather pleased to find Matthew Macfadyen, a regular costume drama hero, speaking out about the narcissism and the inaccuracy of the historical drama six-pack.

'But all those men from the past were doing manual work, even the posh ones were riding and generally doing manly things, weren't they?' I hear you say. But Macfadyen rightly points out that a character in a period drama wouldn't have done crunches. A six-pack is something that can only be achieved in the gym with specific exercises – it is a modern phenomenon.

He talks of being expected to sculpt his torso for his role as Mr Darcy and also having acted in a series about soldiers in the former Yugoslavia and working with the Royal Greenjackets –  some of the fittest men he had ever encountered and none of them sporting a six-pack. Macfadyen is taking a stand against the vanity of it all and I thoroughly approve.

Some gratuitous nudity – not a sculpted calf in sight!

The ideal body changes over the years, but filmmakers are hamstrung in needing their heroes to appeal to modern audiences. We know that Henry VIII was inordinately proud of his manly calves but I can't imagine the people who produced The Tudors requesting lingering shots of Jonathan Rhys-Meyer's lower legs instead of his ripped abs.

It is the female body that has been scrutinised for centuries and wilfully shaped to meet the desires of  men and now our inherently narcissistic culture is forcing a similar set of expectations on men. It's tempting to say as women that we have been subject to the male gaze for long enough and now its our turn to shift the gaze onto men. But this makes me uncomfortable; I feel it is something we should resist as it is reductive and shallow.

If Macfadyen can manage to be a sex symbol and remain fully clothed then more power to him and, if truth be told, I'd take him over Turner any day.


Elizabeth Fremantle's novel WATCH THE LADY will be published in June.
To find out about her Tudor trilogy go to ElizabethFremantle.com
Twitter – @lizfremantle
Facebook – Elizabeth Fremantle Author

Hijacking History or the Alarming Burglar Alarm of Ye Olde Cornwall Catherine Johnson

OK I'm starting with Poldark. Yes the new one. Calm down ladies this isn't Aidan Turner topless. This was in the paper. It's a screen grab. Cast your eye up to the house in the background. No, not Aidan Turner, the house. There between the down pipe and the shiny shiny modern glass window a boxy, twenty first century, burglar alarm.

BBC's new Poldark rescuing Demelza

No I didn't notice it ether, but I did read an article about the fabulous teeth of the lead characters and how the screenwriter  - congratulations Debbie Horsfield - argued that at least the peasantry should have some visible decay. I think we're all used to the glaring teeth on TV and I can forget most things if the story is good. (Although I was wondering about the bridles). And I thought Poldark with it's galloping and frocks and more galloping and tricorns was actually pretty enjoyable Sunday night fare.

So that got me thinking about the liberties I take with history. I expect most of you know my I am crap story by now, but yes, history lessons and me? Not a good mix. My report for History, aged 14 said;

'Catherine's written work is completely inadequate and disorganised...'

I did so poorly in what is now Year 9, I was barred from taking the O level. In fact, my mark for the end of year exam was the worst in the year. I am not a historian. So I can be excused if I don't get everything absolutely spot on, can't I? 

Well, let me say loud and clear I'm not talking about the big stuff, it's a matter of pride that mostly, nearly, almost, everything is as it should be, is as near to how it was as I can possibly make it. It irks when reviewers argue you got your facts wrong when you didn't. 

But I cannot lie. There are times when I have bent historical facts to my will. 

In The Curious Tale of The Lady Caraboo, out in July (I am sorry but you'll get a lot of this from me over the next few months) I took a real story and sort of riffed on it. Mary Willcox was real, but the story I've told has meant messing about with her age, shifting the time line around, in order to reference Frankenstein since you ask, and making up people who did not exist. I wanted so to tell her story as a novel but I ended up reshaping (crafting?) and embroidering and downright inventing so much that it is almost complete fiction. There is a disclaimer in the book, so that's OK, isn't it?

And the script I'm working on at the moment set in the latter half of the eighteenth century. I've stuck to the truth of the background facts. My characters are all inventions, but it could have happened. I'm worried about boats and sailings and desperately making sure it really could have actually worked.

I think that's all I aim for. Could have been. I wouldn't stick Queen Victoria on the mobile phone in the background or put someone in a regency frock with platform heels. I like to do the right thing.

But I have to admit in Sawbones there was one anachronism I couldn't get round. It wasn't revolvers rather than pistols, it wasn't any of the medical science. It was that most unremarkable piece of door furniture the letter box. Paris had them in 1790 but they weren't commonplace (note common place it could be argued that a modern man like William McAdam - my hero's master would have had one fitted) in London until the start of the nineteenth century. I tried to get around the letter box but couldn't. I needed one. So I kept it in.

Are there any things in your books that shouldn't be there? Have you noticed anything in your reading that's bought you up short?

Go on, tell all....