It’s difficult for me when I go to press screenings because I get really excited about a show and enjoy it and then write about and then get hammered (see Bonekickers). Must be something to do with watching a television show on a big cinema screen or the cast standing not ten feet away. Seductive viewing surroundings aside, I make no bones about this one… I was verging on the sexually excited about The Devil’s Whore. Why? Well, the English Civil an event and a time that has always fascinated me (ever since the BBC’s 1980s drama By The Sword Divided), Peter Flannery (of Our Friends In The North) wrote the thing, and it stars some of my favourite actors (John Simm, Andrea Riseborough and Maxine Peake, as well as The Wire’s Dominic West and the always-great Peter Capaldi). What wasn’t there to like?

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The Devil’s Whore. let’s have a quick plot run through. We’re immediately introduced to Andrea Riseborough’s Angelica Fanshawe as a child. In among the churches and the country pile, her and her cousin (Harry, Ben Aldridge) played. Her mother, on the other hand, had to witness the execution of her mother’s Catholic priest. She knew the country was in a spot of bother, so she decided to head off to France to become a nun, leaving behind one very hacked off daughter.

So hacked off was Angelica she renounced the Bible and had a right old go at the big man upstairs. As a consequence, she started to have some weird visions of devils and she grew up with not only this stigma attached to her, but also the fact that her uncoventional nature suggested that she put it about a bit as well. Such was the Godly time, women were expected to live in a certain way and anything that challenged that was seen as evil.

But, by now, Angelica beguiled everyone with her porcelain beauty and found herself marrying her cousin and ex-playmate Harry. They were also members of the King’s court.

The King, King Charles I (played by Peter Capaldi with one of the most ridiculous beards I’ve seen for many a while), was also coming under pressure. The head of the Levellers, John Lilburne, was demanding equality for the working class, and he had a formidable team behind him – his wife Elizabeth (Maxine Peake, great as usual), Thomas Rainsborough (a very smooth Michael Fassbender) and one Oliver Cromwell (Dominic West… from Baltimore to Naseby in one easy step).

In among all this discontent, and unlike the very black and white views of her peers, Angelica empathised with the imprisoned Lilburne (otherwise known as Freeborn John and Honest John) and showed, even though she was a Royalist, some very un-Royalis tendencies. By the end of the first episode, let’s just say her loyalties get very, very tested.

And then there’s John Simm. He plays this guy called Edward Sexby, who’s a soldier for hire. In the press pack Simm himself calls him Indian Jones with knobs on. I’m no sure about that, but sporting a scarred face, pillaging dead bodies on the battle field and living to kill people, he’s not your average hero. But my goodness, John Simm doesn’t half play him well and he’s all brooding and mysterious and silent and enigmatic. Him and Angelica form an weird friendship.

You know, this has to be the windiest television show I have ever seen. I’m pretty sure the (almost) constant howling wind was supposed to be a metaphor for how revolutionary 17th century England was (let’s not forget it really was an incredible and incredibly unstable time, where people severely radicalised themselves in the name of what they believed in), but this was cool – I really like the way that Channel 4 make its period dramas utterly gritty and dirty and filthy and raw-to-the-core. Lost In Austen this ain’t.

Andrea Riseborough deserves special mention. She has this wan, doll-like quality, but she ever so spirited and she really was terrific in The Devil’s Whore. In fact the whole of The Devil’s Whore was terrific. I promised myself I wouldn’t get carried away writing this, but it kind of had everything – political intrigue, bloody battle scenes, some good dialogue, some well-sketched characters and some serious, meaty emotional clout. I really, really, really liked it.

Look out for it, I think, next month. I always managed to grab a chat with Andrea Riseborough (Being Human, Margaret Thatcher in The Long Road To Finchley), so I’ll pop that up nearer to transmission.