My local PBS station is showing I, Claudius again now (they must really be hurting for funds!),
and it’s wonderful to see it again! I bought it for my parents on DVD about 12
years ago after hearing them raving about how their parents used to love to
watch it back when it was new in 1976. Apparently, back when I was a tiny tot,
my grandparents and all their friends used to huddle around their TV-sets once
a week for this little murderous mini-series, showing as it did the pernicious
and lethal escapades of the early Roman emperors and their back-stabbing
(literally) families. (They were directing Machiavellian machinations 1,500 years before Machiavelli!)
Yes, it was I, Claudius
that started it all! If you’ve loved The Tudors, The Borgias, or Game of Thrones, you
really ought to know that none of these mini-series shows of murderous
inter-familial power struggles ever would have existed if not for this, the
father of them all: I, Claudius!
This was produced by the BBC, and if you are a fan of any of
their programming, British Cinema, or even Masterpiece Mystery, you’re bound to recognize many, if not most of, the
players here in I, Claudius!
Yeah, Patrick Stewart: check. Ian Ogilvy: check. Bernard Hepton: check. Brian
Blessed: check. Siân Phillips: check. John Hurt: check. Derek Jacobi: check.
Margaret Tyzack: check. Fiona Walker: check. John Rhys-Davies: check. Bernard
Hill: check. George Baker: check. Simon MacCorkindale: check. In fact, there
are so many characters, they
don’t even bother to credit all of the actors, even on IMDB in the extended
cast and crew section (!). But you’ll recognize them all the same!
And okay, there’s not as much pornographic sex and
slasher-style violence, and it’s really more like a really big stage play on
film than it is like a big-budget movie, but it’s very well accomplished for
what it is. Plus, it was directed by the same man who directed the now almost
legendary BBC version of The Woman in Black:
Herbert Wise. So you know it’s got a royal pedigree! Plus, it’s based upon the
novel that TIME magazine said is
one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923-2005 (an odd time period
to chop off, I know: 82 years; but whatever. Maybe they had to figure out how
to get some of their favorites in there without seeming too obvious. You know,
like the news does with political spin: just set the parameters so you aren’t
so obvious in your biases.)!
Now I’m not suggesting that young kids would enjoy I,
Claudius (after all, it’s shot on video
tape, and it’s not even in 3D!), but if you love Masterpiece Theater, and you loved those pseudo-historical mini-series I
mentioned above from the pay cable channels, you might just want to see I,
Claudius someday: the one that started it
all! It’s the Ramones to punk rock of the homicidal historical TV mini-series; it’s the
Black Sabbath to heavy metal of the homicidal historical TV mini-series. So check it out,
you just might love: I, Claudius!
Here’s the IMDB page for I, Claudius:
And here’s the Wikipedia page for the novel:
