Holy Godfathers !

Remember when a short time ago I was bemoaning the lack of good historical drama series on TV, and how I have had to make do with a fantasy tale starring Sean Bean ?

Well since poor old Sean lost his head near the end of series one of ‘Game of Thrones’ I’ve had bugger all to watch in the way of ‘swords and sandals’ or royal ‘rumpy-pumpy’, and I’m afraid some boring old fart on the ‘History Channel’ telling me about bloody Tutankhamun for the umpeenth time, or that squeaky little twit Tony Robinson looking down another empty hole for that elusive Roman villa, does not compensate for the drama of dark deeds, flashing blades, ripping bodices and men in tights.

So you can imagine how pleased I was then, when this week, I caught up with the first three episodes of  ‘The Borgias’, for it’s full of “dark deeds”, has some blood stained ”flashing blades”, shows plenty of “bodices” ripped, and missing completely in some cases; but is a bit light on “men in tights”, as most of the characters appear in the scarlet robes of cardinals or other clerical outfits.

As with ‘The Tudors’ Jeremy Irons looks nothing like the main character Pope Alexander VI, and seems to spend most of his time being dressed in his Papal clobber and then undressed by young choir boys. Umm … sounds familiar ! Oh ! .. and he does quite a bit of running about in his nightshirt, as you do, when visiting his mistress via the tunnels under The Vatican.

His far from holy ‘Holiness’ makes his son Cesare a cardinal, although his main role seems to be that of the Pontiff’s ‘consigliere’. He in turn employes the professional assasin Micheletto to ensure that as many of the Pope’s enemies as possible end up “sleeping with the fishes” in the Tiber.

I don’t know too much about 15th century Italian history, and this TV show may be a load of old “Duos habet et bene pendentes”, but so far I have enjoyed it, so I’m looking forward to my Saturday evening ‘date’ with the beautiful Lucrezia, and as I relax, I may have an extra glass of red wine …

… Well, perhaps not !