The Gathering Storm

 "He promised to cut down to three bottles of champagne in the evening."

It's good to see this again, twenty-three years after I saw it first being broadcast. This TV film is an exemplar of something that exists, yes, as a nice little historical drama, but primarily as the vehicle for an actor to show us a real, incredible tour de force in a truly seminal role. For here, Albert Finney simply is Winston Churchill, in all the nuances of that very complicated human being. We often speak, when actors play real historical figures of whom footage exists, of the distinction between acting and impression. But here... well, the distinction simply doesn't exist. It's a truly extraordinary performance from a first rate actor.

The script, of course, deserves credit too, for this is Churchill- blinkered, irascible, deeply emotional, loving, exasperating. His views are nicely shown- of course, history remembers him for being very, very right about the most important thing- the urgent necessity of utterly crushing Nazism without mercy. But the script doesn't shy away from other things, such as his strong support of British rule over India, often using problematic language. Nuance, again. Yet, despite his flaws... he can't help but inspire loyalty and affection, something shown very well here.

The narrative is nicely done, beginning with Winston's career in the doldrums and ending with him being First Lord again, although much of this is due to Ralph and his deep sacrifice. But there's more- how he was so problematic yet loving as a husband and father. As a salutary reminder that one can, and bloody well should, have absolutely no truck with any of this "fourteen units of alcohol a week" nonsense.

And with that... I'm posting this and uncorking the wine. Happy Friday.

Good Omens: Every Day

 "You know as well as I do how badly understaffed Hell is right now."

Crikey, that was a busy final episode. And, in the end, it was very good indeed. I still maintain that this season started well, ended well but had a fair bit of filler in the middle, and perhaps one could criticise the pacing in that this last episode had an awful lot of work to do. But there’s no denying that it’s very good indeed.

It’s an episode about Armageddon and the desirability or not thereof, yes. But it’s also an episode about love and choice. We finally get to see what happened with Gabriel and… he stopped being such an arse and started to parallel Aziraphale. He lost his enthusiasm for Armageddon, started to plot with the other side to avoid it… and fell in love with Beelzebub. With whom he concocted a plan. 

All this, though, is riffing on the relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale, and their unspoken love, with heartbreaking results. The intervention of Maggie and Nina towards Crowley is mature and beautiful. They’re not rushing into their inevitable relationship, because this is reality, but it’s strongly hinted that happiness awaits them. Their own intervention, urging Crowley to tell Aziraphale how he feels, is far more grown-up than a Jane Austen ball full of shopkeepers.

But, despite Crowley pouring his heart out, and that kiss, happiness is not to be for Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley is a realist, not cynical for the sake of it, and he is right to be equally wary of Heaven and Hell. After all, in the flashback, Metatron strongly hinted at “institutional problems”. But, alas, Aziraphale succumbs to temptation, not from a demon but from Metatron. A fancy title, a fancy office, a swanky job running a project known as “the Second Coming”… he’s learned nothing, in the end. Poor Crowley has no choice. In a sense, Aziraphale has become Gabriel, while Gabriel has become Aziraphale.

An extraordinary, courageous finale. Despite the high concepts, in the end, the point is that love needs principles. We can’t just give our hearts to those who turn out to be lacking in integrity. Crowley, in the end, is more moral.

The Sandman: Dream of a Thousand Cats/Calliope

 "Writers are liars."

I'm again following far too many series because pesky present day telly insists on throwing up The Rings of Power, Inside Man and (coming soon to this blog) Andor. Fortunately this is a season finale, so I now have only Hawkeye, Breaking Bad and films to balance with all those. Anyway...

This is a beautiful coda to what is hopefully not the only series of Sandman. Here we have two achingly beautiful, profoundly meaningful fairytales that are so very, well... Gaimanesque.

As one who has been the property of many feline owners over the years, I was both amused by and admiring of Dream of a Thousand Cats, a cartoon with many famous voices. It transcends its superficial resemblance to Animal Farm (the Prophet is stroikingly similar to Old Major) to reach annundeniable truth. Cats, much as we adore them, have utterly enslaved us, and would certainly kill and eat them if they could... well, except Ashi, and Badger, and Loki, and Gizmo. I'm their daddy, so I'm safe. Right?

So it indisputably true that a reality shift occurred not all that long ago, and before then we were much smaller than them, and hunted by them. This is undoubtedly true,

Calliope is much darker, using myth to explore male abuse and exploitation of women, and the ensuing hypocrisy. In this case Richard is stealing the ideas of Calliope, a woman, and taking credit... not exactly unptrecedented. Arthur Darvill is superb as a dark protagonist straight out of an updated version of Hammer House of Horror, while Derek Jacobi is exquisite as an elderly writer who owes all his success to the fact that he kidnapped a Muse, Calliope, while on holiday in Greece, the Muse who inspired Homer.

Richard finally gets his just comeuppance at the hands of Morpheus, whose tender relationship with Calliope- despite their past bad blood centred on theor son Orpheus(!) is deeply touching.

This is just a profoundly beautiful bit of telly.

The Crown: Season 3, Episode 8- Dangling Man

 "One doesn't often get a chance to visit a former king. Former kings are usually dead."

An interesting episode here, one that simultaneously looks back to the legacy of the dying Edward VIII and forward to the expected reign of Charles, not less than fifty years in the future as this episode, alongside the new decade, begins. David will not see much of the 1970s.

It is an easy, yet valid criticism here that David's seemingly treasonous behaviour during the War is downplayed. But one cannot criticise the emotional beats, not the performance of Derek Jacobi which is outstanding as ever, as we chronicle the last couple of years of the self-indulgent old fool.

But David is not so much the focus of the episode as awarning of a possible future for Charles, who shows worrying signs of admiration for his great-uncle as well as similar tendencies to meddle, be opinionated, and fail to see the constitutional necessity of suppressing one's opinions- although we should again note that, should Charles not like the requirements of the job, he can always just not do it.

It's fascinating to see the, er, love square between Charles, Anne, and the recently split Camilla Shand and Andrew Parker-Bowles. Anne is delightful here in her chasing and, well, shagging of Parker-Bowles, wittily wrongfooting him into bed and adopting a traditionally male role in bedding a man she rather fancies. Charles, meanwhile, comes across as rather immature at this date with Camilla, at first appearing rather deep with his discussion of Saul Bellow and his line about the state of Prince of Wales being a "predicament" appearing to quote from Alan Bennett's not-yet-written The Madness of King George... only fr this all to be set up to a silly practical joke, That's clever writing, telling us a lot about the character. Josh O'Connor is excellent, and we are again left nervous about our future king.

Elsewhere, Ted Heath is now PM and he's determined to take us into the Eurpean Economic Community: happier times, times of hope, times when Britain looked outward with ambition rather than inwards with a smirk. Yet then, as now, the heir to the throne is a worry. This s good, thoughtful telly.

Good Omens: Saturday Morning Funtime

“Did you count their nipples?”

Adam, very much a Boy's Own Antichrist, is starting to affect reality in visually expressive ways which are a good opportunity for actor cameos but, of course, being exposed to New Age Twaddle can have a highly deleterious effect on any child, Beast or not. We meet a new Horseman of the upcoming Apocalypse- Pollution, Pestilence being a bit too old-fashioned these days. Apocalypse, though not quite now, is clearly quite soon.

I like the bit with Death following soon after although it's unfortunate that, unlike in the book, we don't really get the Terry Pratchett version. But then the Pratchett version can only really exist effectively in print. Far more televisual is all the palaver at Megiddo, but things are now too far advanced for either Crowley or Aziraphale to be able to square things with their respective Head Offices; both are rumbled. This episode mostly concerns their trying to deal with this fact, in Crowley's case a highly entertaining series of attempts to escape from everything. Hastur being trapped on a cassette tape is genius; Neil Gaiman was quite right to take this wholesale from the novel, our modern digital world be damned.

The bits with Newt and Anathema meeting being blown about and shagging, all as foretold by Agnes Nutter, is fun, as is any scene containing Shadwell. Derek Jacobi is nice in his little cameo as Metatron, a Kabbalistic figure who I just had to look up. And yes, that's quite the cliffhanger. More please.

I, Clavdivs: Old King Log

"The man who dwells by the pool shall open Graves..."

The first episode, which seems so long ago, featured an interesting bit of breakage to the fourth wall early on as, while Augustus, Marcus Agrippa and co reclined and chatted, a couple of minor characters discussed how the old days never truly existed, that the past is an illusion. That was a clear acknowledgement by Jack Pulman that we rely on sources but we can never arrive at real historical truth, and certainly not via Suetonius.

And so it’s appropriate that, in this final episode, realism breaks down somewhat and the fourth wall is constantly pointed at- and not only in the above quote from Claudius’ farewell speech to the Senate, where he refers to Jack Pulman and Robert Graves. No; in this final episode Claudius has become convinced that he erred in ruling wisely; he reconciled Rome to monarchy instead of discrediting it. So Old King Log resolves to “let all the poisons that lurk in the mud gat h it”, leaning into the Sibylline Prophecy. So he marries his niece and favours Nero as heir over his own son Britannicus. In doing so he raises himself from a mere principal character almost to the status of author, truly Claudius the God. This is often humorous, as when he exasperates Agripinilla by anticipating her every wish without hiding his contempt. (How come such a noble couple as Germanicus and Aggripina spawned such a nest of monsters?). He exerts control over his own death. Yet the ferryman waits for us all in the end.

There is one thing Claudius can not control- his honourable yet naive son, Britannicus, who refuses to  go along with Claudius’ secret plan because “no one believes in the Republic any more”. Instead he chooses to put on his manly gown and face death. Claudius is not omnipotent, after all.

So Claudius gets his big death scene, and a chat with the Sibyll. We get the cameos we’ve longed for from the characters we missed. We get to know the loathsome Agripinilla and Nero (interesting casting!) who, as we won’t be following their exploits after Claudius, can be portrayed with relish, with Nero noting “What a pretty thing a fire is”. No subtext there...

A fitting end to a drama that is justly seen as one of the finest ever. Who cares about the obvious staginess. This is superlative telly.

I Clavdivs: A God in Colchester

"Copulation on a cosmic scale!"

This episode is, to a large extent, a continuation of the last one with even more sex- although we are of course told, not shown, of Messalina’s shagging competition with the magnificently brazen chief prostitute, much as we are told, not shown, of Herod’s ill-fated, blasphemous and hubristic downfall and death. This is, as ever, a very studio bound series of talking heads and studio sets, and there are times it’s very obvious, when visually spectacular events happen only in dialogue. We notice this, but we don’t care, because I, Clavdivs is awesome.

Again we have Claudius being successful in policy- he successfully masterminds the invasion of Britain and wins a triumph, and he successfully opens his longed for winter port at Ostia- but the domestic life almost succeeds in destroying him and, emotionally, arguably does so. Messalina’s sexual appetites, psychopathic personality and extreme lack of discretion is very over the top and Grand Guignol, and no doubt the sources exaggerate, but all this has the serious point of emphasising Claudius’ humiliation. Here he is, the most powerful man in the world (Chinese and Parthian emperors notwithstanding), and he had been blind to a terrible humiliation and threat. Worse, Messalina’s lover plots not only to overthrow him but to replace him with, irony of ironies, a republic. We see how many depend on an emperor, too- his two freedmen ((one of them John Carter, the boss cop from The Abominable Doctor Phibes) are loyal to him because they are likely to be killed should he be murdered. Politics is a dangerous game.

All this and poor Claudius’ best friend betrays him, leaving him old, heartbroken and utterly alone. The tears in his last scene are extraordinary. Still, at least he’s big in Essex.

I Clavdivs: Fool's Luck

"Congratulations, Caesar. You've just passed your first sentence of death. How many before the people grow tired and pass one on you?"

Here we are, then. A full three quarters of the way through the series and finally we move on from adapting  I, Claudius to its sequel Claudius the God, and everything feels understandably different, as the premise of the series has suddenly changed. No longer are we looking at the exploits of a man who survives decades of murder and backstabbing through being thought a fool but how he copes when absolute power is forced upon him. And forced it is- he begins as the very real prisoner of the Praetorian Guard, and it’s only when the ever-reliable Herod convinces him that refusing the purple would mean not only civil war but his own murder that he accepts his position. His splendid speech before the senate is at once eloquent, directly addressing his physical disabilities and very much acknowledging that it is 400 soldiers of the Praetorian Guard who are in charge here, wielding a power that the senate “so spinelessly them”.

And we find that Claudius is and is not a fool. In affairs of state he is anything but, seeing through the corrupt machinations of his civil servants on the matter of building a winter harbour in Ostia. Yet he is but the puppet of his manipulative wife Messalina, and the episode is nicely structured in how it slowly allows her wickedness to unwind. In the end she achieves nothing but the pointless death of the good man who was unlucky to be fancied by her, but she survives u suspected, no doubt to up the ante. And apparently this girl is only seventeen.

Claudius is making s good start as Emperor, but the seeds of his destruction are already there, in the private rather than public realm. Unused to being wanted by women, he is easily manipulated. And even Herod oozes foreboding when he warns Claudius to “trust no one”. An emperor must be alone and friendless; it’s just that Claudius does not yet know this. His closing words- “I’m tired”- foreshadow much.

This is very different to earlier episodes. But just as superlative.

I, Clavdivs: Hail Who?

“Drusilla! I’m dying!”

So this is it; the big one. Claudius, amongst chaotic schemes, and while protesting that he wants a republic, is made emperor. And the whole thing, really, is played like a farce.

Caligula is still dangerously mad and capricious, of course, but the shock of all this most definitely peaked at the end of last episode. Not that we lack spectacle, or John Hurt being superb; on the contrary we get several minutes of Caligula in a dress performing as Dawn in a weird dance to Homer. But the focus has moved to Claudius. So the palace is a brothel at the start, but shown in relation to on Claudius, the butt of the joke but managing to save a couple of women from being raped. Caligula plays at being on campaign and makes war on Neptune, yes, and his booty is a load of shells, but the focus is on how court jester Claudius saves two messengers from death by beheading, and later saves the entire Senate by acting the fool. And on how the old and clumsy Claudius is married to the young and beautiful Messalina- as a joke.

Just as chaotic is the plot to murder Caligula- ultimately, and sbsurdly, caused by his silly habit of giving Cassius suggestive phrases to use as the watchword of the day. Nothing goes right, and the surviving Claudius is almost killed before he is declared emperor by a Praetorian Guard who want to keep the cushy life they have.

Less amusing, of course, and a brutal contrast, is the murder of Caligula's wife and baby daughter, a reminder that Cassius is no saint either. It is, as usual, a splendidly written and acted piece, although the range of settings- on camp near the Rhine, at the Gams- make it more than usually obvious how studio-bound it all is.

I, Clavdivs: Zeus, By Jove

"Don't go in there..."

In a sense this episode just goes to show an increasing sense of depravity in Julio-Claudia Rome, as Tiberius’ depravity and tyranny is followed by something even worse- a madman emperor who considers himself a god. Yet there’s a certain loss of the subtleties of character here as things go very Grand Guignol. The tone becomes less subtle and, although there are superbly written character moments such as Antonia’s commentary on all the depravities leading to her blunt, matter-of-fact suicide.

I’ve never read Suetonius but I understand Graves’ two novels were a toned down version of the garish details found in The Twelve Caesars. But I understand historians tend to view all this as much exaggerated, and there’s a view that Caligula may have been a bit of a troll, yes, but perfectly rational. That’s not what we see here. When he recovers from his coma he tells the sycophant who promised to give his life if Cæsar may be saved to carry out his promise. He openly cavorts with his sister Drusilla. He has his nephew be headed because of an annoying cough.He declares himself a god. And then, of course, there’s the shocking ending. It’s all very entertaining spectacle but compared to all the previous episodes it’s very one note, superlative though John Hurt is.

Also worth singling out is John Rhys Davis who, while being an utter wanker in real life, does an excellent job as Macro, an ambitious man who has gambled his own future on Caligula and worries about the nature of the horse he’s shackles himself to. And, of course, Margaret Tyzack owns the episode with her blunt words to Claudius just before her suicide. Claudius, as she says, survives everything.

I, Clavdivs: Reign of Terror

“Do you know him personally?”

“No, but I have slept with his wife several times.”

This time I, Clavdivs channels the Ben Jonson play Sejanus His Fall, and does it much better. This is telly of the very first rank, and a classic study in tyranny.

We begin with Sejanus’ control over Rome deepened and Tiberius, with his mother and son dead, utterly oblivious to his own manipulation. He is being pushed further and further to remove potential threats to Sejanus’ rise- Aggripina is banished to the island where Julia was exiled with a similar fate for her eldest son, and when she refuses Tiberius’ sexual advances she is flogged. Her second son is arrested and starved in his cell, with only his depravity and closeness to Tiberius saving her theirs son Caligula- shown as delightfully decadent throughout the episode- from a similar fate, and Sejanus has plans for him too. This, Livilla’s affair with Sejanus, and Claudius’ distance from his own wife, lead Antonia to decry the modern world in reactionary style- but she has a definite point.

Tiberius, though, forbids Sejanus from marrying Livilla, instead suggesting he marries her daughter Helen, to which Livilla reacts with predictable fury, driving a wedge between them. This is the first crack in Sejanus’ armour. His tyranny continues unabated but the cracks widen, and Antonia discovers more and more, including that Livilla is poisoning her own daughter out of jealousy. And it is Antonia who manages to warn Tiberius over in Capri, behind Sejanus’ back.

In a wonderfully perverse scene, it is Caligula who suggests to a suddenly frightened emperor that he can use the ambition of Sejanus’ deputy Macro to get rid of him, and talk of the ensuing purge becomes instantly horrifying. We aren’t shown much other than the bodies, but what we do see and hear is sickening. Senators quietly flee the senate as Sejanus is denounced. And when a soldier complains to Macro about killing Sejanus’ children, with the girl being a virgin, he is simply told to “Make sure she’s not a virgin when you kill her”. We see Sejanus’ fatal stabbing from his own POV in a nice piece of camera work, the last thing he hears being that his children are dead. He is a monster, yet he is human, and the script allows us to feel for him.

This is, once again, superlative, and I’m already running out of ways to say that. Interestingly, Claudius’ wife, Sejanus’ sister, begs Claudius to protect her and, although he is busy expressing his revulsion at what is happening, he refuses. She survives in the end, but we are reminded that Claudius, while saner than his relatives, is no saint.

I Clavdivs: Queen of Heaven

“He’s building a prison here, stone by stone.”

Damn all this current telly and it’s distracting me from the antics of those naughty Julio-Claudians. Now where were we?

Cleverness, that’s where. This episode is really all about plot, plot, plot but it does so with wit and gusto. The opening scene has to tell us that Tiberius’ reign has now reached its later point of extreme decadence and tyranny, but it does so by showing the hostess of an enjoyable dinner party, attended by characters we know such as Agrippina and Claudius himself and has the gracious hostess (Judith Caroon from The Quatermass Experiment) dramatically reveals the circumstances of her rape by Tiberius- and then stab herself. BBC2 In 1976 cannot show these depravities so it must simply tell- but it does so dramatically, and gives us some spectacle anyway.

It also develops how Sejanus is slowly assuming power from Tiberius, encouraging him with his treason trials for such things as “treasonous utterances” and already ruling Rome as a kind of proto-totalitarian state. And he is deeply ambitious- in a hilarious scene Claudius slowly walks across a room while Sejanus gradually gets him to divorce his estranged wife and agree to marry his own sister. He is also having an affair with Livia which, it is implied, consisted of some rather rough sex, and the two of them contrive to bump off Castor, who happens to be Tiberius’ son and likely successor. All this is done with humour and style, and in no way feels like exposition.

We also meet Caligula, or Suetonius’ version at any rate, played with absolute sublimity by the great John Hurt. Already utterly depraved, he bonds with Tiberius over porn and ends up as the likely next emperor simply because Tiberius wants his successor to be worse out of sheer vanity.

But the episode is about the death of Livia, aware of her many crimes and desperate for deification to save her from eternal torment, with another extraordinary performance from the great Sian Phillips. Interestingly, a lot of the meat of the episode revolves around Thrasyllus’ horoscopes, with a lot of very intelligent people believing in this woo woo. But, in an age before our present conception of science, astrology was not necessarily a stupid way to try and understand the world. Interestingly, though, the Sybilline prophecy, and that of Thrassylus, are shown to be true. Caligula and Claudius will indeed be the next to rule, and one who is going to die soon will indeed become the only God worshipped in the Roman Empire one day.

Bloody superlative stuff.

I, Clavdivs: Some Justice

"That child is a monster!"

This episode takes what is perhaps an unexpected turn as a courtroom drama unfolds. This courtroom drama has wider implications, though, and acts as an ingenious frame around which to explore Tiberius' early rule- he is bitter, resentful but not yet depraved or tyrannical in spite of the baleful presence of Sejanus. However, the elderly Claudius' narration at the beginning (a rare bit of narrative clumsiness) makes clear that this is to change after Germanicus' death.

And the death of the dutiful, popular, republican Germanicus shapes everything here, from the raging desire for revenge of his widow Aggripina on the parts of Piso and Plancina who, as we shall see, are guilty of persecution but not murder, and were acting on Tiberius' orders in any case. Unknown to all, the real killer is the infant Caligula, who horribly terrorised and murdered his father by poisoning and a superstition which the genuinely clever and civilised Romans simply accept, to the incredulity of Herod, speaking for our own culturally Judaeo-Christian worldview. Nevertheless, Aggripina want revenge and the crowd id with her, and it becomes slowly clear that the appearance of justice is only a figleaf for what is politically convenient. Piso must die to save Tiberius, and he becomes increasingly doomed as the episode progresses. Deliciously, Plancina manages to do a deal with Livia, still at the centre of the web, to save herself and her children, and ends up "assisting" her father's suicide. This is delightfully, entertaining cynical. And we Doctor Who fans get the added thrill of Lady Peinforte wanting Monarch dead.

We also see how, thankfully, Claudius now has friends in Aggripina, Castor, Herod and others and, while hardly a confidant of the Emperor, has a degree of respect. Antonia, of course, despises him as much as ever, wishing he had died instead of Germanicus. So does Livia, who is increasingly exasperating her son with her antics and whose scene with fellow poisoner Martina (Nursie from Black Adder II) is a hoot.

This episode essentially sets the scene for the new reign, then. Hugely enjoyable though it is, it hints at much depravity to come. Utterly superb, as though that needed saying.

I, Clavdivs: Poison Is Queen

"Don't touch the figs..."

Well, even by the high standards of this rightly praised drama, that was exceptional. And this, more than anything, proves that the great Brian Blessed was an actor of incredible depth and subtlety, if not necessarily softly spoken while doing so, and it's such a great shame that he very shortly after became typecast as shouty barbarians.

So Germanicus returns to a warm and brotherly reunion with an unhappily married Claudius, and at last hears and believes the news about Postumus' framing for rape and Livia's misdeeds- although, I'm glad to see, not without a very #MeToo nod to the fact that actual rapists use such excuses all the time.

In the very next scene Augustus clearly knows everything, and is very cagey about Livia. Rightly so; his eyes may now be open, but will soon be closed forever. His secret reunion with Postumus is deeply emotional for both men, yes, although Augustus' tears are self-indulgent as ever, but they must tread with care and it is, in truth, far too late. Livia is running rings round them throughout, whether secretly getting access to Augustus' altered will, ensuring the despairing Tiberius is not far away, or finally managing to poison the rightfully paranoid Augustus to death. Too late. poison is queen, and Postumus is doomed, although in the process we meet the ruthless Sejanus, played with icy steel by a young and only very slightly balding Patrick Stewart. It's all moving towards an inevitable conclusion, but you can't take your eyes off it even if the whole thing looks absurdly studio-bound at times.

But Livia, blinded by her cruel dismissal of Claudius. never suspects his part in revealing the truth, and she constantly humiliates him throughout, culminating in that final scene where a somewhat pissed Livia, having achieved what she wanted, mocks Claudius while telling him too much. Sian Phillips is one of the great villains of television history. And what an episode.What writing. What acting. 

I Clavdivs: What Shall We Do About Claudius?

“Are you sure this girl will marry him?”

“What’s it to do with her?”

In a sense, I suppose, you could say that this episode’s plot is largely a continuation of previous episodes in that Livia is still scheming to get rid of all rivals to her sullen son Tiberius so he can succeed Augustus- in this case Postumus, played here by a frighteningly young version of the baddie from RoboCop 3.

But it’s not about the mere plot, of course, entertaining though the scheming may be. No; it’s about the people, the acting, the clever scripting. It’s about the way Livia traps the charmingly thick Livilla (a young Patricia Quinn just after Rocky Horror) into betraying her lover Postumus, running rings around her. It’s about how Postumus blurts out Livia’s entire catalogue of murders to Augustus just before his exile to a tiny island, to the Emperor’s scorn- but manages to reveal all to Claudius first. This smells very much of foreshadowing.

It’s just as much about little moments, too. Augustus appreciating Horace but disparaging Ovid for “smut”. Augustus shouting “Quinctilius Varus, where are my eagles?” as three legions are massacred in the Teutoberg Forest; it’s 9AD, and Augustus is an old man with a lot on his shoulders. Livia’s hilariously psychopath is speech to the gladiators- “These games are being degraded by the use of professional tricks to stay alive, and I won’t have it!”, along with the entire imperial family being perfectly fine with the gruesome spectacle, in scenes more obviously set in a small studio than most. At the Games, we are so very obviously looking at a theatre set with a camera pointed at it, but we are far too engrossed to mind.

But the main purpose is to introduce the young adult Claudius, with Derek Jacobi appearing for the first time without prosthetics in an extraordinary performance. Humiliated, belittled, despiser by his own mother and an embarrassment to all, he causes laughter at his wedding to a woman who dwarfs him . But he is an intelligent and principled young man, as devoted to the republic as his father. And the historian Pollio encourages him to play up his infirmities in order to outlive those who threaten him. It’s an artfully constructed episode, building up Claudius within the flashback narrative alongside plenty of wit and black humour, while moving Livia’s plotting to a point where next episode has to give us some kind of climax.

I Clavdivs: Waiting in the Wings

“IS THERE ANYONE IN ROME WHO HAS NOT SLEPT WITH MY DAUGHTER???!!!”

Sometimes it’s hard finding a quote. Today is not one of those times.

We ended last episode with Tiberius in exile for violence against his wife, Julia, Augustus’ daughter, while Caesar’s grandchildren Gaius and Lucius were being groomed for power. Well, Gaius has already had a “sudden and unexplained death”; I’m sure Livia was shocked. Now, as she spends the episode plotting to have Tiberius recalled, I’m sure she’s anxious for poor Lucius. It would be a shame if anything were to... happen to him. All very similar in shape to last episode, then, except that Claudius is now a limping, stuttering child thought a fool by everyone. Like Tristram Shandy, it’s taken a while but he’s got past his own birth in his autobiography.

Last episode I failed to note a few actor spotting moments, not the least of which was Granny Pig from Peppa Pig (a key cultural touchstone to we parents if young children) discoursing on anal sex. Well, Julia is now, having been told last episode to lay off a bit, shagging around with wild abandon and her terrible downfall and exile is, I suppose, the central plot line of the episode, giving us a chance to see some splendid plotting by Livia and leaving Julia both sweating revenge against Livia and with a fairly clear idea of what’s been happening. It’s all very clever plotting at the same time as giving some superb actors a chance to have some real fun with some delightfully scheming characters. Sian Phillips is deliciously evil here, with loads more to come. But BRIAN BLESSED, beneath the SHOUTING, give a wonderfully subtle performance of avuncular bonhomie which can switch to menacing in an instant. Livia may manage to manipulate him on family issues, but this is a believable, power-hungry Augustus, albeit one who has long grown used to power and is now saddened by the tragedies that seem so inexplicably to befall his blood descendants.

In the middle of the episode is an odd omen that seems to predict Claudius’s rise, followed by some wonderful dialogue between Livilla and Antonia as she wishes herself dead before Claudius should ever come to power and is promptly send to bed without any supper, an appropriate prefiguring of Livilla’s own manner of death.

There’s also a lot of witty commentary in the dialogue on Rome and its ways- Julia and Antonia bemoan the unreliability is slaves these days, while Augustus forces his knights to get themselves married- “And don’t try to get round it by getting engaged to nine year old girls. I know that dodge”. But all this is overshadowed by Julia’s exposure, and by THAT scene. It may be a famous shouty Brian Blessed scene. It’s also an extraordinary piece of acting. Although personally I also love Kevin Stoney as fraudulent astrologer (but I repeat myself) Thrasyllus as Tiberius shares with him a dramatic reversal of fortune and is unexpectedly recalled to Rome. Their fit of laughter as they hear of Lucius’ seemingly natural deaths is utterly wonderful.

But now stage young Postumus is joint heir with Tiberius. And he’s intelligent to know this probably isn’t good for his life expectancy. So ends another magnificent episode, but I suspect I’ll be ending all the rest of these blog posts with similar sentiments.

I, Clavdivs: A Touch of Murder

"It never was what it was..."

It's 20th September 1976. I am as yet a very small collection of cells in my mother's womb, a bizarre thought, and on BBC One there begins the first feature length episode of I, Clavdivs, the BBC's new prestige drama adapting Robert Graves' novels I Claudius and Claudius the God, both of which I recommend heartily, or at any rate at least those parts of the novels that don't require any location filming.

Because that's the thing; there are no locations, no handheld camerawork. Instead there are small sets where you can tell the sets dressing extends no further than is visible on screen. It's theatre with a camera pointed at it, with only lip service made to realism. It relies only vaguely on spectacle; it's entirely about the acting and the script. And, my God, it's magnificent. I would never want them to take away today's location filming and handheld cameras, but we shall never again see the likes of I, Clavdivs.

We begin, after a title sequence that I'd quite forgotten would later inspire the titles of Black Adder II, in the present day in, I think, the 50s AD, with that young Derek Jacobi aged up as the elderly Emperor Claudius as he prepares a framing device, Greek chorus to his own autobiography with the added Greek touch of a riddle from the Sibyl. Then we are in flashback, the seventh anniversary of Mark Antony's defeat at Actium so 24BC, where there is dancing with boobies and our dramatis personae- the splendid Brian Blessed as Augustus in a large yet subtle and nuanced performance that is the highlight of his career, and rivals Herod Agrippa, the old warhorse, and young favourite Marcellus. We also have Augustus's sister Octavia mother to Marcellus, and his wife (and Caesar's only child) Julia- keep up at the back. And at the centre of the web we have Livia.

So we're all set for a long game of- well, definitely not thrones, that's for sure, because Rome doesn't do kings. Oh no. Definitely not. Because Augustus can't wait to lay down his temporary burdens and the republic will be back again like it was in the recent past, right? But before this we get an extraordinary fourth wall-breaking moment as a Greek orator and an actor playing an actor have their faces foregrounded over the main characters and lament how the theatre is not what it was, and never was  in th first place. We are deliberately reminded of the artificiality of all this, that Suetonius may well have been writing out of his arse, and even (by Augustus) that history is not being told as it was but with poetic licence. All this is quite wonderful.

We see the early power games between Agrippa and Marcellus, until first the latter and then the former are fatally poisoned by Livia, whose choice of words is exquisite as she "helps" her sick victims, in order to maneouvre her glum and awkward son Tiberius to the top spot. We see the contrast between Tiberius' weakness and deep depression versus his heroic and cheery brother Drusus, who hopes for a republic but, alas, has a mother who hates him and happens to be Livia.

Augustus is the consummate psychopathic politician, a mafia don, whose every act is politically calculated and whose calculated bonhomie covers a terrifying ruthlessness. And Rome is a goldfish bowl where marriages, divorces, sex and happiness are but political tools. Power pervades every action. Tiberius' self-loathing is quite understandable.

We end with Drusus' suspicious death, with deeper darkness engulfing both Tiberius and the widowed Antonia, a crying baby, and Claudius in the present day with his food taster, suspicious that his wife and stepson are trying to kill him, because such is Rome. It's a richly written, superbly acted bit of telly history and I don't care about the very 1976 hair of young Gaius and Lucius, Livia's next victims. I'm loving this already.

The Day of the Jackal (1973)

"How did you know whose telephone to tap?"

"I didn't. So I tapped all of them."

 I read the novel in my teens, and very quickly. It's not just that it's a somewhat unputdownable thrilller with no pretensions to literary ambition, but the prose was extraordinary basic: bare, functional, impossible to praise or criticise. Indeed, probably the best adjective for Frederick Forsyth's prose is "absent" but it does its job for what is probably Forsyth's best novel in a series of ever-diminishing returns.

I mention this because the film is an extraordinary faithful adaptation. Fred Zinnemann shows admirable restraint in following the style of the book and allowing the narrative to do its natural job with no unnecessary directorial flourishes to take us out of the style. He's unafraid to have long periods of silence if that's how best to tell the story and ends up producing a film that is slow, unhurried yet pacy. That's as much of a talent as any directorial trick.

Edward Fox is superb, of course, playing his rather flat cipher of a character, and the same is true of the impressive cast of largely British character actors. But what makes this film is the story- a slow, methodical look at how a high profile assassination is carried out in a pre-digital, pre-surveillance age that is little more than a decade before my time; I can still remember those French bank vans from trips to France as a young child in the early '80s. This is an age where it is relatively easy to fake documents yet the French state still practises both torture and judicial killing. Social attitudes may have improved since 1963 but it's easy to be jealous of the privacy that could be enjoyed back then.

The Odessa File (1974)

"You are not even worth a bullet..."

Frederick Forsyth is one of those guilty pleasures; hardly a literary writer, prose that makes no pretensions to be anything more than functional, and (especially late on) somewhat right-wing, Biafra aside. But he's a quick, undemanding writer and, dammit, exciting, so it's no surprise that, after the previous year had brought The Day of the Jackal to the big screen, 1974 should see a second adaptation in the shape of this Anglo-German production, with Hollywood star Jon Voight parachuted in to join the largely Anglo-German cast in a film which manages to impress in spite of all the English- speaking actors putting on comedy German accents. It's odd seeing a young Derek Jacobi in such a small role, but great to see the wonderful Mary Tamm, four years before Doctor Who, playing the leading lady.

It's an interesting artifact from the year of the Watergate scandal, and I think that's a valid thing to say even if the novel was published in the year of said burglary itself, starting with a moment of nostalgia for the very recent past of Kennedy. Except the West Germany of 1963 had some very dark shadows lurks by beneath the prosperity, the flawless constitutional democracy and the Beatles in the Reeperbahn; not all of them were SS, but many Nazis had quietly integrated into society and there was a quiet determination to cover things up, to be in denial: even the head of the police War Crimes Unit attends a deeply disturbing regimental reunion. And that kind of sinister doublethink is what the film is about. Peter Miller may represent a younger, less tainted generation who is horrified by the Holocaust (at last re-emerging as an event in its full enormity into the wider culture in the 1970s) but ultimately motivated by personal reasons.

This is an entertaining and exciting political thriller, even if the characterisation is close to non-existent. But the Holocaust flashbacks- filled in monochrome- certainly stay with you.

Nanny McPhee (2005)

"I did knock..."

I wasn't originally going to blog this, hence the fact that I'm wings big it without any notes. It isn't the sort of thing I'd usually blog; just one of many bit of Christmas telly that we're catching up on the Sky Plus, in this case recorded because Mrs Llamastrangler is rather fond of it.

But in hindsight it deserves a blogging, not least because I have nothing else to blog at the moment; it's been a busy few days. Besides, it's rather good, and Emma Thompson would be my ideal choice for the next Doctor Who donuts worth a look at her.

She is, of course, brilliant, both as star and as writer of this adapted screenplay. This may fit into an existing tradition of children's fantasy in a Victorian milieu (cough Mary Poppins cough), but that is no bad thing. Oh,of course you can criticise it for uncomplainingly showing us a socially stratified world, but that's implicit in the setting. To complain would be churlish. And yes, Colin Firth is the same in everything and only ever plays Mr. Darcy, but he fits in nicely here.

The fantasy conceit is brilliant. Emma Thompson is brilliant. Thomas Sangster is brilliant. Angela Lansbury is... interestingly miscast. We even get brief scenes of Derek Jacobi camping it up. As recent kids' films go, this is one of the best.