Magazine


TV Week: BBC finds use for an epic set

Conrad Astley
28/10/2005

YOU don't make a series called Rome (Wednesday, BBC2) and not expect the word epic to be used in close proximity to it.

The 11-part drama was filmed in a full-scale model of ancient Rome, built on the outskirts of the real one, and comes with more sex, murder, and debauchery than an episode of East Enders.

And, unlike most Hollywood versions of the ancient city, Rome is presented as a bright, vibrant and thoroughly unpleasant place, which had its fair share of run-down slum districts as well as the beautiful temples they kept preserved for tourists.

The BBC has also approached this in a surprisingly modern way, with characters speaking in phrases like "Brutus, me old cock!". .

They obviously wanted to get their money's worth from all those old pillars, as we also get another pithily-titled historic epic, Egypt (Sunday, BBC1). We don't go back quite as far, with this series taking us to 1905 to look at Howard Carter's famous attempts to uncover the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun, ignoring all those old wives' tales about some curse or other.

There are also narrated flashbacks, going back a couple of millennia further, telling us the story about the boy king. And we also get another look at the acting talents of Matthew Kelly, who's getting himself around these days.

After the surprisingly entertaining Dragons' Den, and the cringing awfulness of The Apprentice, we've got a new series about wannabe Bransons competing to sell their own grandmothers for a quick buck.

Make Me A Million (Tuesday, Channel 4) involves incredibly rich people who have somehow agreed to give their filthy lucre away to young entrepreneurs convinced they're going to be bigger than Weight Watchers or Dyson. The most amusing people are those with bucket loads of self-belief, but nonsensical ideas.


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