Derek Jacobi leads a political family drama whose wit makes its cruelty more disturbing. The sets have aged, and some performances lean towards the stage, but the writing and acting make this an easy recommendation.
I, Claudius makes political intrigue worth following because the people conducting it are such good company, even when they are behaving appallingly. Herbert Wise’s series is funny, cruel and exceptionally well acted, and we recommend it despite some conspicuously dated presentation. There is no need to pretend the sets are convincing or every performance restrained. The attraction is the chance to listen to people being clever at one another’s expense, with considerably more at stake than wounded pride.
Jack Pulman, adapting Robert Graves, gives the actors dialogue in which courtesy does little to conceal malice. We laughed more than we expected at the courteous threats, then felt uneasy about it. The cast make the polite savagery so enjoyable that it takes a moment to notice how readily we have accepted the cruelty as entertainment. Pulman keeps the characters recognisable beneath their wickedness, which prevents the writing from becoming a succession of clever insults.
Derek Jacobi’s Claudius is the strongest reason to stay. There is an intelligence to his performance that makes following a complicated family feel like a pleasure instead of an examination, and he does not need to be the loudest presence to hold our attention. Brian Blessed’s Augustus, Margaret Tyzack’s Antonia and Patrick Stewart’s Sejanus belong to a company whose distinct personalities keep the intrigue from becoming a list of names. The performances give the political manoeuvring its human interest.
Wise’s trust in the actors pays off most when the drama relies on conversation. He makes listening to an exchange feel consequential, and David Hillier’s editing keeps those exchanges easy to follow. Some of the playing is too emphatic, particularly when the wickedness is already obvious from the writing. A little less insistence would let us do more of the noticing ourselves.
Tim Harvey’s production design is the more immediate difficulty. The dated sets can make it harder to accept the characters’ surroundings, and their limitations are not automatically charming because the programme is old. Once the dialogue takes hold, we stop inspecting them, but they remain a fair obstacle for anyone who needs a costume drama to look persuasive. Wilfred Josephs’s score suits the formality of the drama; the cast’s delivery of polite speech supplies much of the menace.
Political dramas can demand a good deal of remembering names before offering much pleasure. Here, the individual voices do much of that work for us, and the comedy makes even appalling behaviour worth attending to. The family setting also keeps the struggle for power recognisable, rather than leaving it to titles and formal speeches. We remain interested in how these people treat one another long after any sympathy for them has run out.
We would recommend it even to someone who usually avoids costume drama. There are 12 episodes, so a viewer who cannot tolerate theatrical acting has a fair reason to decline. For everyone else, there is considerable pleasure in getting to know these voices well enough to hear the threat inside a courtesy. Start for Jacobi, and allow the family time to become disagreeably familiar.
