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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Sarah Dempster

TV’s best (and worst) historical epics: from Wolf Hall to I, Claudius

Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light.
Prestige drama … Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light. Photograph: Nick Briggs/BBC/Playground Entertainment

Inflate thy balloons and unsheathe thy Party Rings, for here is Chief of War (Apple TV+) to remind us of the joy of the scowling historical epic. Here too, almost, is Battle of Hastings belter King & Conqueror (BBC, August). And Spartacus: House of Ashur (Starz, this winter). Also in the period-specific pipeline are second series for Disney+’s brilliant Shogun and Amazon Prime’s terrible House of David.

Historical epics, it would not be unreasonable to say, are everywhere.

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