Enthralling: BBC4’s Colosseum reviewed

In the year 2023, the Neo-Roman Empire was at the height of its powers. A potentially restive populace was kept in check using a time-honoured technique known as ‘Bread and Circuses’. The ‘Circuses’ part consisted of a remarkable piece of technology in which spectacles could be beamed directly into the homes of the citizenry, filling them with awe, wonder, gratitude and a sense of their insignificance in the sweep of history.

One such spectacle was a docudrama called Colosseum (BBC4), in which no expense was spared to recreate the majesty, power and cruelty of the original Roman Empire, as evinced by that grand precursor to the television: a vast amphitheatre in the Imperial capital, where audiences were encouraged to forget about their quotidian troubles and instead invest their emotional energies in the drama of gladiators fighting to the death.

Eight years in the making, Colosseum was a feat almost unparalleled in the history of popular entertainment. Bolstered by the sort of unimaginably ginormous budget you can only enjoy from international co-productions in which Americans are involved, the series employed state-of-the art graphics to depict an ultra-realistic arena and man-eating hyenas rising up before your very eyes. It also spared no expense to recruit a huge roster of talent from across the world: academics in every hue, gender and age-group from every conceivable US classics department; from Britannica, that most inevitable TV pop historian Bettany Hughes; and from the salons of west London, the charming, erudite, (but not previously known as a go-to Rome expert) Simon Sebag-Montefiore.

Well, I spotted the parallels anyway. Not that I’m complaining. As a general rule, I find sitting down to watch anything made by the BBC about as appetising as being burned at the stake in the midday interval between the wild beasts spectacle and the gladiatorial main event.