I'm Spartacus, I'm Spartacus (Blood and Sand)...

I know, I've been neglecting you lovely people with all my talk of politics (boring) etc. So today I've decided to return to what I know, namely 'taking the piss out of television'.

Ok, I caught Bravo's Spartacus: Blood and Sand in my mildly delirious, dehydrated, post-rehearsal haze and well, well... where to start? I'll confess that I missed the first episode (although at no point did this seem to matter). Our hero Spartacus has ended up in gladiator school. He's given a bath (which apparently consists of a man pouring water over you with a ladle) and some of the senior gladiators explain the ropes. "It's the truest form of brotherhood" proclaimed the bastardy one (something mildly hilarious about saying this, wang swinging in what appears to be the Roman equivalent of a locker room full of jocks). It's horseplay ahoy. "This gladiator's been killed, the useless fuck, ha ha ha ha ha" "Work harder, cunty cunterson, or I'll sit on your face" and "Want some food, eh? Well, you shits, you can eat it off the floor" are just three of the quotes that I've made up because I can't actually remember any real ones, but you'll just have to take my word for it that a lot of the dialogue is basically that with different swear words and situations... and wangs... too many wangs.

John Hannah plays the Peter Ustinov role and bless him, he's trying his best, but Ustinov he ain't (but then neither is anyone) but he does at least attempt something towards gravitas on-screen. This reminds me of another point. I'm not entirely sure why this has been made. As far as TV goes this is a kind of stylised sub-'Rome' and as far as the Spartacus story goes, we already have a perfectly serviceable film. The script is ludicrous with more "cunts" than a German football league (by which I mean 'Kuntz' is a not uncommon surname, rather than any kind of personal attack) and it veers wildly from attempts at 'period' dialogue to what you'd hear from a youth in an underpass if you told him that he looked ridiculous with his trousers around his knees and he should bloody well put his hat on the right way, shouldn't he...

I digress, from what I can tell almost everyone in the Roman Republic spoke with slight Antipodean accents (this is never explained), foreplay was effectively sorted out by servants (particularly if it involves Xena: Warrior Princess) and don't get me started on the Legionnaires wearing Lorica segmentata in that period... (I know, I've turned into my Dad. What of it?) It's also worth noting that Spartacus: Etc. subscribes to the 'the bigger your six-pack, the more you're compensating for your acting ability' school of performance. (Also see: 300)

The story is spread criminally thinly, the performances (with the exception of John Hannah) could keep a carpenters stocked for years, the script is frankly ludicrous and the gratuitous sex and violence are... well... gratuitous and yet it is actually quite entertaining. If only for sitting and tutting at it (some of the dialogue is laughable... we're talking Twiglet ((the first one, not New Moon)) laughable here). I'm reliably informed by people far wiser than me (Charlie Brooker) that it gets better towards the end, though I imagine much of the charm will be lost if it even approached competence.

It's worth a look though, particularly if you're a teenage boy who doesn't understand the phrase 'homoerotic subtext'.