It is 1066. We are on a battlefield in black and white. Colour has yet to be invented. “William!” shouts the leader of one army. “Harold!” shouts the leader of the other, creating a Proustian rush of Madge Bishop roaring across Ramsay Street at her husband during the glory days of Neighbours. But I wonder what happens next?
History, that’s what! But to explain the history that is about to happen we must first go back a bit to, a caption informs us, “years earlier”. This is a little after “bygone times”, a bit before “days of yore” and, as it appears that Edward the Confessor (Eddie Marsan, having the time of his life playing the last monarch of the house of Wessex as a religious fanatic) is about to be crowned, probably around 1043. They can’t say that, though, because then people who know their Harolds from their Haralds, instead of just wanting to make jokes about Cnuts and Harthacnuts, will start getting upset about tweaked timelines. As if an eight-part drama from the BBC with CBS is the right place to be looking for detailed understanding of the reshaping of English society the like of which has never been seen before or since, but anyway, on we go! Colour has been invented, by the way. Apparently, it was just a stylistic choice before.
