I saw The Favourite, Yorgos Lanthimos’s film about Queen Anne, at the cinema when it came out, and I remember the loud tutting of some people sitting nearby who seemed outraged by every rude word and sex scene. Clearly, they had expected a period drama in a more traditional sense, and its bawdy take on history wasn’t for them. The Favourite’s co-writer, Tony McNamara takes another cock-eyed look at history with The Great, debuting its third season in the UK at last. I suspect those cinema-goers would approve of this even less than The Favourite.
It’s their loss. For those yet to fall for its ample charms, The Great plays hard and fast with the rise of Catherine the Great, Empress of all Russia, and her attempts to modernise the nation. But newcomers should not start with season three, and in fact should stop reading now. It is well worth going back to the start to see how everybody got to their positions, and almost requires notes to keep up. It is impossible to accuse The Great of being boring, as every episode romps along at speed, fuelled mostly by those twin engines of every good story, sex and death.
