Caesar Salad

Television soap opera of the highest quality! All of the Caesars in this unfolding dramatic cavalcade are at the top of their game in I, Claudius - the haltingly hesitant & stuttering narrator Derek Jacobi in the title role, Brian Blessed, Sian Philips (as the frightening family matriarch), George Baker, John Hurt (brilliant as a blond-frizzed nervy psychopathic Emperor Caligula), etc. Writer Pulman has them speak in a modern idiom without losing the historical verisimilitude of the story. The drama is full of gossipy, "he said, she said" conversations by Roman patricians in darkened corners of the palace.