Disney’s Shardlake: Arthur Hughes Portrays Disability Differently In 16th-Century Britain

Arthur Hughes, a British actor best known for roles in Richard III, Then Barbara Met Alan, Help and The Innocents, is now the lead in Disney’s new original series Shardlake. Based upon the best-selling novels by British author, C.J. Sansom, this four-part series is a thrilling murder mystery set during the Tudor era and centres around Matthew Shardlake, accompanied by his cocky assistant, Jack Barak, who is tasked with investigating a murder at the instruction of Thomas Cromwell.

Our editor Emma Purcell got the opportunity to interview Arthur Hughes – who lives with an upper limb difference – about the period drama, his role as Matthew Shardlake and his thoughts on disability inclusion in 16th-century Britain.

Read: Arthur Hughes On Being An Actor On Stage And Screen With An Upper-Limb Difference  

Shardlake plot summary

Arthur Hughes plays Matthew Shardlake, a lawyer with an acute sense of justice and one of the few honest men in a world beset with scheming and plots. Shardlake works for Thomas Cromwell, played by Sean Bean (Time) the dangerous and all-powerful right-hand man to Henry VIII. Despite Shardlake’s unwavering loyalty to Cromwell and the Crown, his position in society is unfavoured due to his appearance, as a person living with scoliosis during the Tudor period, suffering the indignity of being abused as a “crookback” wherever he turns. Anthony Boyle (Masters of the Air) plays the cocky and good-looking Jack Barak, who leaves Shardlake unsure of whether he is an assistant or Cromwell’s spy.

Drenched in mystery, suspense and deception, this four-part drama, based on the first novel in Sansom’s series, is an eerie whodunnit adventure, set in 16th-century England during the dissolution of the monasteries.

Shardlake’s sheltered life as a lawyer is turned upside down when Cromwell instructs him to investigate the murder of one of his commissioners at a monastery in the remote town of Scarnsea. The commissioner was gathering evidence to close the monastery and it is now imperative for Cromwell’s political survival that Shardlake both solves the murder and closes the monastery. He leaves Shardlake in no doubt that failure is not an option. Cromwell insists that he is accompanied by Jack Barak to Scarnsea, where the duo are met with hostility, suspicion and paranoia by the monks who fear for their future and will seemingly stop at nothing to preserve their order.

Arthur Hughes getting the role and filming Shardlake

Arthur began by explaining how he got the role of Matthew Shardlake, admitting he wasn’t particularly keen on the character when he first read the script. He felt it was too similar to Richard III, with its negative stereotypes around disability.

Arthur said: “I was asked to read for it. I was in rehearsals for Richard III at the time when I read the script. Being in the world of Richard III, which is quite a lot of hatred and self-loathing and cruel language about being a disabled person, I said to the writers, the director, the casting and the producers that there was some similar stuff in Shardlake, which was about how he sees himself, looking at himself in the mirror, and kind of not liking what he sees. And I was thinking ‘Another one of these characters?’.

“So we had some good conversations and they were really open to me saying how I wanted to have a positive experience portraying this disabled character. He does have some issues with his confidence and so in getting the part, and what hopefully got me the part, I wanted to approach it with a bit of sensitivity so it not be full of self-hatred and actually having a bit of confidence in himself.

“Throughout the audition process, that was what I was pushing for. But I think they’d quite rightly decided they wanted a disabled actor to play Matthew and I think doing Richard III at the time, it was obviously quite a good useful way for them, to find me. I did a couple of tapes, I had a couple of meetings and by November 2022 I got the part.”

Arthur went on to share what it was like filming Shardlake and starring alongside Anthony Boyle and Sean Bean:

“It was incredible but hard work. Filming was difficult. We were filming in some difficult locations. We were filming massively ambitious scenes at a big scale. But I absolutely loved it. I had just the best time. I really hope we get to do it again.

“We were out in Austria and Hungary (mostly in Budapest) and we spent a little bit of time in Romania. There were castles, dark corridors, horse riding, sword fighting, taverns and even murderous monks.

“The production value of this series was so high and it was like we were really in this adventure. We didn’t feel the fakeness of a set when we walked behind the facade and saw it. One of these castles we were filming in was just like a 360 experience of it. It was a real castle and it was freezing cold.

“There were long days and obviously I was in every day. When you are the lead, you are in every day. Sometimes you’ll have some days off when you have the other characters do their own scenes. But no, I was in it every day with the crew, and that was huge and a different experience for me. Like everything, I’m always ready for things to end. So we got to the end of the shooting and I was tired and I was ready for it to end. And as soon as it finished, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I really wish we were doing it again’ – I loved it.

“The fabulous Anthony Boyle, who is a real dear brother to me, plays Jack Barak, my companion, my sidekick in this adventure. We had so much fun with him. He’s such a talented actor, very funny, very quick, very charming. We’d always have fantastic laughs together every day, which makes all the difference. And I hope if we have some longevity with Shardlake, we’ll be doing it well into our later years together.

“When we were shooting in Vienna there was a lot of these scenes with the monks. We were all sat in this monastery and it was a real ensemble feel. We had, I think probably a core cast of maybe 50 with all the brothers and all the staff who work at the monastery.

“We were all in this hotel together in Vienna. We were all going to this castle every day sitting in this cold little room in our monks habit and me in my cloak and doublet and stuff. It was a really good group.

“And then with Sean Bean as Cromwell, Sean was in for only a couple of days. He is such a fantastic actor. It was a real honour to do some quite complex, lengthy scenes with him. We got to really flex our acting chops a bit. To act alongside someone such as him was a dream. Lovely man and what an actor.”

Shardlake: From novel to screen

Shardlake is a series of seven books by author C.J Sansom published from 2003 to 2018. The six first books are set during the reign of Henry VIII, while the seventh, Tombland, takes place two years after the king’s demise. Sansom has said that he plans to write further Shardlake novels taking the lawyer into the reign of Elizabeth I.

Season one of the Disney original series is a television adaptation of the first novel, Dissolution, which is set in 1537 during the dissolution of the monasteries, the book follows the lawyer Shardlake in his attempts to solve the murder of one of Thomas Cromwell’s commissioners in the monastery at the fictional town of Scarnsea on the south coast of England.

Arthur told us what he knew about the book series: “I read it ahead of filming it. I hadn’t read them before. My dad was a big fan and when I told him he went, ‘No way, I love the Shardlake books.’ So before my auditions, he gave me quite a good rundown of who Shardlake is, so that was really useful. He was thrilled when I got it. I’ve read the first three books now. So I should probably get going reading the rest.”

Arthur went on to tell us what we can expect from the series: “It’s like a real spooky detective story. It’s almost like a cop show. These two investigators are sent into a world that is quite opposite to their own. We all know Tudor shows and some of them can be quite stuffy – in the world of court and how Henry VIII and all the political machinations. I think this is different because that is all going on, but it’s all a backdrop actually for this quite murky underworld type of workings in the monastery.

“I think you can expect a fun buddy cop show, but quite spooky, quite touching and a mystery, which keeps you guessing the whole way through as to who did it. There’s a lot of murder and swashbuckling horse riding. I think it’s a classic who’d done it but with a lot of characters that you’ll love.”

Arthur Hughes on portraying disability in Shardlake

Despite all the negative stereotypes disabled people faced in the 1500s, Arthur expressed his pride and gratitude for how Shardlake shows determination and resilience towards the way people treat him.

Arthur said: “I suppose having done Richard III, that play tells us about how Richard is treated and what we see disabled people as. I think Shardlake is quite different because he’s quite independent and a good man. There was something in the book that really resonated with me about Shardlake and how he views himself and his disability. It’s really quite moving.

“There’s a chapter in the book where he has a flashback. It’s in the show as well. But the way C.J Sansom writes this chapter about this flashback really moved me. When he was a boy and he wanted to become a monk, he grew up in a monastery and the older brother said, ‘You can never be a monk. Look at you, look at the shape of you. We are made in God’s image, and you could never be that.’ It hits him with profound hurt and sadness.

“Then Shardlake says, ‘I’d never heard God speak to me until that night when I heard a voice in me say, you are a good man. You are enough.’

“It’s that innate sense of goodness and justice within him, whether it’s God or whatever speaking to him. But he has that kind of self-worth to navigate this quite difficult life that he’s going to have to be a success. He’s a successful lawyer. He is quite a powerful man and respected in the life he lives and with the people and circles he moves in.

“I remember reading that and being like, ‘Wow, it really moved me’. When you are disabled, to find that kind of self-worth for yourself and yet from the outside world, you won’t always be given that and sometimes you’ll get the opposite.

“I thought that was what centres him, roots him. He’s got this sense of goodness, sense of justice, and he knows that he’s a good person and he knows what is right. And what is God, what is faith. In this period of time, the way some people treat Shardlake is like he’s cursed. Like he’s been tortured by the devil. This historical view of disability still exists in some parts of the world today.

“I think he has incredible faith, but it’s not necessarily faith in God. I think he does have that, but it’s faith in himself of always doing the right thing by other people to other people. I think that’s why we like him so much. That’s why I like him so much.”

As well as representing the characters’ thoughts and feelings towards being disabled, Arthur also had to consider how he was going to portray the disability from a physical point of view.

He first told us how he portrayed Richard III’s scoliosis, when he played the royal monarch in the Shakespeare play back in 2022: “I wanted him to be my Richard. As the years have gone on and you think about portrayals of disability, and Richard II is a character responsible for probably a large part of the negative stereotypes of disability we see. So I wanted my Richard to be strong, didn’t want him to have a limp or look hunchback. I wanted him to have my disability because when I’m on stage with my arm, that’s it.”

He continued to describe how he depicted Shardlake’s disability: “So for Shardlake, he’s described in the book by people as a hunchback, a loaded term in modern sensibilities. When I first got the script and was thinking about whether I’d want to do it and my feelings on dressing up in a disability that’s not my own. If you’re going to do that, it’s got to be truthful.

“I thought what is it that’s truthful for me? I’ve had some back issues in the past. I used to put my right smaller arm in my pocket quite a lot, and it would bend me over and it gave me some bad back issues, which then replicated. I still get them now and then. But I thought that’s quite like Shardlake and it doesn’t feel too exaggerated.

“It feels real as something to me. It’s something to me because of my disability. I do have a prosthetic back for when my shirt is off in Shardlake so you can see the curved spine because I don’t have this in my back. But I am obviously uneven on one side.

“That was where I anchored in my experience of how my body has been affected by my disabilities. That’s what my Shardlake would be. He does have this S-shape, but I didn’t want this to make any kind of caricature. This has to be the realist that it can be. Everyone was really on board with that.

Arthur concluded: “It was different with Richard III, who’s obviously been done so many hundreds of times that I was like, ‘this is where I can have my play on Richard and it’s not going to be about dressing or crippling it up’.

“Whereas I think I felt like it was different with Shardlake because we’re bringing a fictional character from a book to life. People will expect a certain way and I think as long as it can be truthful in a way my body is and that I’m not just completely affecting something. It’s coming from somewhere in me, then I think that’s good. And I think we’ve done a really good job with it. He feels really real.”

Shardlake will air on 1st May 2024, exclusively on Disney+.

You can find out more about Arthur Hughes by following him on Twitter and Instagram.