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Pity it's not our Bou... tune into ITV next Sunday to see Alex Kingston do a lot of shouting in what looks the laugh of the season judging by the preview...

A ratty-haired psycho. She looks like my neighbour screaming at her kids...

I did see the trailer and I couldn't believe it. It could only come off the back of the recent history program and history/fantasy movie craze.

pah! that's rubbish! not in the least bit swishy.

pfff, Roman propaganda again.

shes got a big face that alex hasnt she? not as big as minnie driver, she'd need a whole extra chariot for hers.

meoww.

At least she has red hair!!!

It's not just her face that's big.... phwoooar!

And may I add Cor!

Tsk! you boys...

Wasn't she in that shag-fest, Moll Flanders?

That was the best period drama i've ever watched.

Yeah she was great in that... and not just for the ahem action scenes.

Bloody wasted in ER she was

I've been wasted in ER, mostly accompanying blooded pals after a few sherries...

Very Patient Huff

er what times it meant to be on ? thought it was 9 ?

too lazy to look it up.

Just watched it, and may I be the first to comment. Way too much mournful "aah-aah-aah-aah" pseudo-celtic music, and not enough extras, but otherwise quite good. It's a good story, it'd be hard to make a complete mess of it, and Alex Kingston was well-cast.

Took a wee bit of artistic licence with time, with Suetonius going from Anglesey to London with time to go to Rome to report to the emperor personally. And perhaps a bit heavy-handed with The War Against Terror (TWAT) parallels (I was pleased they were there but they could have been a wee bit more subtle), but I suppose it's on ITV, what do you want.

What's anyone else think?

I turned on (after I'd finished watching The Deal, which was bloody good) and turned off again after a few minutes.

No real critique to offer - my suspension of disbelief lasted about 10 seconds, and after that there was no way I was going to enjoy it.

ROARRRRRRRRRRRR!

well luckily i am the worlds easiest person to suspend disbelief, which is lucky. TV drama eh? shucks. still it could have been much more worse, & still managed to bring a celtic tear & mostly a celtic Rage. i had to get my sword out & stab a few cushions afterwards, er as you do... yes Trout you may scoff, but i do have a sword actually.

a) stupid dialects, not big or clever. If you can't be historically accurate don't be smart arse-edly anacronistic, the viewer doesnt have to be symbolically hand held thru Everything.

b) smart arsed anacronistic language, 'client country' ? pulease, why not dress the cast as mods n rockers to make a bold new interpretation or some other w*nk. historical drama, can we tryyyy & stick to some extropolated facts ?.

C) pagans, they didnt know how to wash you know. In fact being a modern pagan type, i smear mud on my face every morning yes. They may have been highly skilled crafts people, chariot designers, argiculturalists etc etc, but wash faces ? obviously not. people in the past = dirty, Romans = all mother f*c*ers. obviously.

d) ending.... er, so the extras got bored & went home did they? i was looking forward to see how they dealt with that...pish. shall have to read history book now to refresh memory.

e) i thought the romans killed her man?

f) wailing celtic easy listening shite music, crap.

and other stuff.... some good points tho too.

i can however, see me driving around tomorrow, sticking head outof astra sunroof shouting ROAAARRRRRRR!!!! a lot. as you do.

Point by point:

(a) Not really sure what you mean here.

(b) The Romans did practice client kingship. That's where we get the term from.

(c) This one I agree with. They made the Britons way too primitive. It looked like reconstructions of Iron Age village life, but they were dealing with kings and queens whose lifestyle would have been rather grander.

(d) They didn't have enough extras to begin with. If you want the history, get Tacitus's "Annals" and "Agricola" for the only contemporary accounts.

(e) Nope. He was a client king, he made the emperor co-heir to his kingdom, and when he died the Romans marched in and took over. They got that spot on.

(f) God yes. Should be banned.

That was a pile of shite, wasn't it?

She were talkin' loik one of the Wurzels.

- Trout

stupid dialects, not big or clever

Now as I was in the pub, I didnt quite hear many of the accents.  I caught the battle at the end.  But I was under the impression that the Iceni, where Britons (not true Celts, I could be wrong) from norfolk and suffolk.  Now they have pretty odd accents, these days!!

Yer Slips

what i meant by the accents was, these were modern accents. hers was more south west than south east, but worse was the other tribe were speaking scouser, i presumed to represent people from oop north. & the Romans were all dead posh queens english type thing.  obviously we can't go completely historically accurate cos not many of us understand latin & who knows what type of wierd talk the tribes had. but you know, i'm sure i heard someone say "i don't think soooo" at one point, did they watch 'friends' in the iron age? i don't think so.

i eat humble pie about client ship tho' i presumed it was blair spin pish language, i know the concept was roman...

but alex was good tho i thought.

shoulda shouted for extras, running around in the mud shouting ROARRRRRRR & waving a sword sounds like bliss to me.

That was crap. The script was abysmal.

Whilst I don't expect the whole thing to be in latin (we'll leave that to Mel Gibson), I do draw the line at Emperor Nero using phrases like "take them out" and "hairy-arsed bandit".

And what the hell kind of an ending was that?

I only saw the very last bit with all the hacking and the stabbing and the killing and then there was a mirror and a ghost and the millenium wheel.  Which confused somewhat.

I'd had a few though.

Arrgh! Now you've reminded me of a really awful Riverworld TV movie I accidentally watched.

The only historical dramas I tend to find believable are Monty Python's Holy Grail and Life Of Brian - probably because they make a point of people speaking in an ordinary manner, misunderstanding each other, interrupting, looking foolish rather than heroic in their religious beliefs etc...just because events go down in history doesn't mean people spoke like they were on the stage delivering classic lines of prose.

Agreed.  The dialogue was pretty awful.
Also the bits set in Rome were monumentally hackneyed crap.
The statue of Claudius going into the ground was enormously rubbish as well.
The evil screaming kids coming out of hidden trapdoors were quite fun, but nicked from Mad Max.  Also a blatant Braveheart rip where the hero guy rides in slo-mo towards the Romans before pulling out a hidden sword and dealing them hacky death.

Actually I think Pat Mills did it much better...

Z

Ade - Monty Python's FULL of classic lines of prose...those lines get quoted more often then anything else!


He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy!

"Who's that?"
"Dunno, must be a king."
"Why?"
"He hasn't got shit all over him."

Of course but I'm sure you still get my point - they were classic lines because they so brilliantly went against the grain of pompus hitorical epics and the way it's suggested people used to talk.

ADE

Yeah Ade, I agree with you...I just couldn't pass up the chance to quote Python so gratuitously!


You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!

Yeah I know I'm late to this but i gave up when Inspector Dalgliesh showed up doing nd impersonation of Derek Jacobi doing G W Bush via Caligula

Words of Wisdom: 'Always cut down, never up'