Robert Graves’ historical novel is one of the classics of the genre, helped by it’s wonderful premise – a look at the history of Rome through the eyes of Claudius, who everyone thought was a bumbling fool but who actually proved to be quite capable. This is probably as good an adaptation as you could have, distilling a complex story down to about two hours. It gets through all the main plot points but inevitably has to discard much of the emotional content, character descriptions and key themes like religion. Claudius, Livia and Caligula still leap to life. Derek Jacobi is on hand to recreate his most famous role.
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