If you want to understand something of the exercise of absolute power in the early Roman Empire, this is not for you.
I still cannot understand the delirious praise heaped on this version of "I Claudius" which is overwhelmingly superficial, inaccurate and a kind of infantile, tabloid version of the far better novels by Robert Graves (who had a sense of humour though you wouldn't guess it from this comic book version) and which he recognised as fiction even if some of readers could not.
This confusion seems to have increased.
The real Augustus, to take just one example, was physically slight, intellectually subtle and personally formidable so casting Brian Blessed (of all people - was it some kind of grotesque joke? - he looks like a butcher on his day off) in that role in "I Claudius" was grotesquely wrong. (Roland Culver in the old B&W "The Caesars" was an infinitely better choice.)
George Baker simply cannot hack it as the dark, malignant and interesting Tiberius and John Hurt is truly appalling as a totally loony Caligula - perhaps the worst performance of his otherwise substantial career.
This is by no means "real" history and shows almost no understanding of tyranny, empire and the realities of exercising power in any period.
Watch "The Caesars" instead - if you can get hold of a copy.
I still cannot understand the delirious praise heaped on this version of "I Claudius" which is overwhelmingly superficial, inaccurate and a kind of infantile, tabloid version of the far better novels by Robert Graves (who had a sense of humour though you wouldn't guess it from this comic book version) and which he recognised as fiction even if some of readers could not.
This confusion seems to have increased.
The real Augustus, to take just one example, was physically slight, intellectually subtle and personally formidable so casting Brian Blessed (of all people - was it some kind of grotesque joke? - he looks like a butcher on his day off) in that role in "I Claudius" was grotesquely wrong. (Roland Culver in the old B&W "The Caesars" was an infinitely better choice.)
George Baker simply cannot hack it as the dark, malignant and interesting Tiberius and John Hurt is truly appalling as a totally loony Caligula - perhaps the worst performance of his otherwise substantial career.
This is by no means "real" history and shows almost no understanding of tyranny, empire and the realities of exercising power in any period.
Watch "The Caesars" instead - if you can get hold of a copy.