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PHOTOGRAPHER:Lilja Jons<\/p>\nKing & Conqueror, BBC One\u2019s glossy new historical drama series, starts with a bang. And a swipe, and a thump, and groan, and a yell \u2013 it\u2019s 1066 you see, and the Battle of Hastings is in full swing. There are Normans and Englishmen slicing and dicing each other, even biting each other\u2019s faces off, all to decide the issue that will shape the next thousand years of European history: the succession to the English throne. In amongst them are two fighters whose scalps are more valuable than most: \u201cWilliam!\u201d calls one. \u201cHarold?!\u201d replies the other. The flash-forward ends with a clang. <\/p>\n
It’s possible you haven\u2019t given the Battle of Hastings a great deal of thought since school (I admit I had to ask my 12-year-old for a hasty primer), but the new series, written by Michael Robert Johnson (Sherlock Holmes), aims to make the international political wranglings that led up to this iconic trans-manche showdown as visceral and tangible as possible. Also, as sexy: as Harold Godwinson of Wessex, all tousled hair and voluminous robes, we have James Norton. For William of Normandy we have Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, sporting a surprisingly successful moustache. <\/p>\n
The big news when episode one, directed by Baltasar Korm\u00e1kur (Everest), starts in earnest is that it is now \u201cyears earlier\u201d and the creepy soon-to-be Edward the Confessor, played by a deliciously scenery-chewing Eddie Marsan, is acceding the throne. Edward is William of Normandy\u2019s cousin; Edward\u2019s young bride is Harold of Wessex\u2019s sister, Gunhild (Bo Bragason). The distant family members are congregating in England to mark the coronation, overseen by Juliette Stevenson\u2019s Lady Emma, with an iciness familiar to those who enjoyed Harriet Walter\u2019s Machiavellian matriarch Lady Caroline Collingwood in Succession. Will the coronation be akin to a Roy-style holiday fiasco? Even a Red Wedding? The omens do not look good.<\/p>\n
What to Read Next<\/p>\n
One shouldn\u2019t overstate the Game of Thrones similarities, however: as much as Coster-Waldau is a GoT alum (he played Jaime Lannister, as you surely know), this isn\u2019t a show that goes for smutty dialogue and scenes populated by writhing, semi-clad background artistes. (Also: no dragons.) Harold and William do have love interests \u2013 Cl\u00e9mence Po\u00e9sy as Williams\u2019s wife, Mathilda of Flanders, and Emily Beecham as Harold\u2019s squeeze, Edith of Wessex \u2013 but these are wise women with elaborate hairstyles (they loved a fancy plait in the Dark Ages) who offer strategic counsel as much as conjugal respite. <\/p>\n
PHOTOGRAPHER:Lilja Jons<\/p>\n
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as William of Normandy in \u2019King & Conqueror\u2019<\/p>\n
Where King & Conqueror does share some GoT DNA is in its structure based around a group of ruling families – the Earldoms of Wessex, Mercia and Northumberland \u2013 with agendas to push and power to grab. Despite a supposed peace in England, Harold realises there are dodgy Mercian machinations afoot. The difficulty, though, is to convince his father, the gristly Earl of Wessex (Geoff Bell), for whom the fragile peace is critical and who wishes to keep his fingers firmly in his ears. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just Game of Thrones that it recalls, either: Bell recently played a shady patriarch in Tom Hardy\u2019s modern-day crime-dynasty drama MobLand. In fact, the dialogue can, at times feel a little gangster-anachronistic: \u201cYou\u2019re gonna back me up, got it?\u201d Harold tells his sneering, no-good brother, Sweyn (Elliot Cowan). \u201cWhaddayagonnado? Sue me!\u201d you half-expect Sweyn to reply.<\/p>\n
But these are quibbles. The series looks lush and moody, the plotting exciting, and who doesn\u2019t enjoy the sight of furiously-mewing men stomping through the tide of grey-blue beaches? You might think you know how it ended \u2013 someone got an arrow in the eye? (My 12-year-old says different.) Someone sewed a long tapestry about it? \u2013 but King & Conqueror looks determined to unpick everything you thought you knew about 1066 and all that, one stitch at a time. <\/p>\n
‘King & Conqueror’ airs weekly on Sundays at 9pm on BBC One; all episodes are available now on BBC iPlayer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"King & Conqueror, BBC One\u2019s glossy new historical drama series, starts with a bang. And a swipe, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[70605,70603,70606,874,88,2245,70604,92],"class_list":["post-106742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-but-make-it-hot","tag-content-type-reviews","tag-contentid-47dc7082-497a-4dac-a84b-22fd7bcd8d1b","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-locale-gb","tag-shorttitle-king-and-conqueror-review-1066","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}