King & Conqueror, the BBC’s new series telling “the epic story of 1066 and the brutal battle for a kingdom”, began on BBC One on Sunday, 24 August, 2025. The historian Annie Whitehead reviews the first episode and finds it “a wasted opportunity to tackle the subject”. For years, Anglo-Saxon history languished in the film […]
Review: Les Miserables
Everything about Les Miserables is built on an epic scale. At around 1500 pages, depending on which edition is making your bookshelf sag, Victor Hugo’s novel (published in 1862) is not only physically enormous, but also it deals with MASSIVE themes: love, obsession, redemption, justice, fate and the nature of good and evil. It’s human […]
Poldark: BBC’s Crowd-Pleaser is Back with a Bang
We last saw Ross Poldark (Aiden Turner) atop a windswept cliff, arrested for looting a wrecked ship, inciting a riot and murdering his rival’s cousin. Season two opens without missing a beat (there’s a story so far preview available on BBC iPlayer if you want to jog your memory) as Ross is dragged away from […]