La cortesana

The combination of a strange title and the English Civil War subject matter might not get everyone's lips smacking with glee. And that would be a shame, because The Devil's Whore is a treat, an intelligent, richly textured labour of love from writers/creators Peter Flannery and Martine Brant. Andrea Riseborough - so good as a Margaret Thatcher in The Long Walk to Finchley - shines as Angelica Fanshawe, a young woman abandoned as a child by her fanatical mother and haunted by apparitions of the devil ever since. Marrying into aristocracy, Angelica is pitched headlong into a divided Britain. Cromwell (an impressive Dominic West) and the Roundheads are dismantling the social and political order, while Charles I (Peter Capaldi) clings to the throne. Angelica's life is disrupted, and not least by the enigmatic mercenary, Edward Sexby (John Simm).