Tightus Pullover

I’m very aware that not many of my readers appear to watch the BBC’s Rome so I am possibly heading for a comments desert on this one but I just can’t resist writing about it.

Quite why more people are not watching this show is frankly beyond me. It is definitely the best thing on TV at the moment and Karen and I are already in mourning that the BBC and HBO have no plans to fund a third series. They must be mad, though – as with Life On Mars – I can respect their integrity in quitting while they’re ahead.

Last night was a huge, sumptuously cooked steak of a show.

Mark Anthony enthralled with Cleopatra knowingly commits political suicide by refusing to admit his Roman wife sent to see him by Octavian Caesar. It is of course precisely what Octavian wants: an unmistakable premise for war. In one ingenious move Anthony has been forced to betray both Rome and the goodwill of the Roman people. The end is nigh.

Lucius Vorenus knows that war is coming but declines the chance to escape it. He knows he no longer has anything left to lose and is too stiff-necked to do anything to change it anyway. He knows this also and accepts it. The end, again, is nigh.

And Pullo!

Well, for me, Titus Pullo stole the entire show. A breath taking performance by Ray Stevenson clearly illustrates that beyond the beefcake thuggery and gory sword work, Stevenson is clearly an actor of the highest calibre.

As his second wife Gaia lies bleeding to death after saving his life she makes a deathbed confession: it was she that poisoned his first wife, Eirene, killing both her and their unborn baby. What could Pullo do but blankly strangle the last remaining drops of life out of her and then dump her body in what appeared to be a cesspool. It sounds callous and over the top but you had to see it. It was handled so well I’m still full of admiration the morning after. The wash of emotions that swept over Pullo’s face was amazing.

Steak?

Rare indeed.

The New Romantics

Cracking episode of Rome last night. Lots of gore, bed-based naughtiness and bags of peaches.

A perfect Sunday night-in, in fact.

The whole episode was great fun.

In one fabulous scene weaselly politician Cicero felt the sharp point of a blade expertly wielded by Titus Pullo. Straight in through the shoulder blade, all the way down to the heart. Cue much fountaining of blood. However, I doubt anybody was ever bumped off in such a polite and deferential fashion. “Do you mind if I take some of these peaches? Be nice for the wife...” What could Cicero do but be magnanimous. It’s not like he’d be having much of an appetite later.

There was more gore towards the end. Poor Brutus got turned into a human colander after the allied forces of Mark Anthony and Octavian Caesar wiped the Greek desert with him during the battle of Philippi. I had to feel sorry for Brutus. He was like a public school boy who just couldn’t quite live up to his mother’s or indeed anybody’s expectations. Bloody awful name too. What was his mother thinking? Like Butch or He-Man, it doesn’t leave much room for poetry or origami. Susan would have been far more fitting.

The best bit of last night’s episode for me though was Agrippa finally getting to grips with Octavia, Octavian Caesar’s tasty little sister. Although I think it was more a case of she got to grips with him.

I had to smile at Agrippa’s sense of style. What do you do if you want to impressively woo and romance a daughter of one of the most powerful houses in Rome?

Answer: you rent a room in a gaudy whorehouse and shag her senseless for three hours solid before donning leather armour and going off to battle. I guess in those days the use of such places for this kind of “romantic” activity was the norm. Kind of the equivalent to a cheap hotel off the M5. A convenient passion pad inside which one may plough the odd wild oat in whatever passing furrow pleases you... and Agrippa seemed intent on planting a whole vineyard.

The choice of location was not a great compliment to Octavia though. But then again she’s not averse to a bit of rough. Having got blatted on dope and attending an orgy last week (though Agrippa hoiked her away before things got properly started) she’s hardly a shrinking violet.

She’s more like a Venus Fly-trap.

No wonder Agrippa had such a big smile on his face.

Anybody care for a grape?

When In Rome

I like Rome.

I admit the first series took a while to grow on me – it’s hard for any production about Roman life not to fall into the clichéd honey-traps of frequent orgies, bedsheet togas, busty slave girls and butch men wearing sandals but the Beeb’s first outing last year, whilst certainly referencing all of the above, still managed to pack in loads of grit and enough punches for the whole series to successfully impinge on my psyche in a positive way.

Hell. I’m wearing a toga as I type. Tentpole Toga. Hmm. Isn’t that the name of a punk band?

Anyway last night’s episode – the first of series two – kicked off immediately where the story had ended last time. Caesar’s crumpled and knifed body lying in a pool of blood and ordure in the Senate and his followers all running for their lives.

Straight in and no messing. That’s the style I like.

Polly Walker is back as the conniving Atia and although she’s looking far more mumsy around the edges than in the last series (and that’s not a complaint by any means) she still retains enough of a predilection for casual viciousness to make her character one of the most interesting on the screen. Her heaving bosom has absolutely nothing to do with it at all. Honest.

With a pushy mother like that no wonder Octavian went on to become one of Rome’s most successful emperors.

It’s also good to see Kevin McKidd and Ray Stevenson back as Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo respectively. They’re both great characters and generally provide the proactive element of the show. While the Senators and the women plot and scheme Lucius and Titus are the ones who go out sword in hand and with the barest of nods lop off a few heads. Plus a few arms and legs. And feet. And anything else that might be dangling loosely. It’s not a good idea to get on their bad side. Heads will roll. Literally.

Like I said: straight in and no messing is the style I like...

Which is not to say that the artistic side of their performance and dialogue delivery is not uniformly excellent too. There is a surprisingly subtle interplay between the two characters which is oddly affecting. This despite their penchant for thuggery and gory sword work. For me they are the engine of the show. Roaring away (not so quietly) in the background, providing the fuel, the motion and inevitably the spectacular car crashes which frequently punctuate the plot development.

The cast and producers of Rome have managed to both capture the flavour of the period and to modernize it sufficiently that it seems socially and politically relevant to today. An achievement that not everyone can accomplish (the producers and writers of the Beeb’s Robin Hood take note).

Bring on the busty slave girls. I’m ready for more.