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Roman epics nudge two sliders up and down on their dramatic mixing desk: the one that controls political machinations, and the one that dispenses violence and debauchery.
Go too far towards I, Claudius and the audience gets bored; veer the other way and a different demographic will flush crimson and cover their eyes with a Mary Beard hardback.
Those About to Die, a grand 10-part attempt to make ancient Rome as exciting as the fictional histories of Game of Thrones, hovers somewhere in the middle. It ends up as a fairly satisfying binge, not raucous enough to be a guilty pleasure but not in enough control of its characters to be seriously good.
Rome in the first century CE is a busy place. A group of young Andalucíans have arrived to make their name as horsemen, just as a Numidian woman called Cala (Sara Martins) has come to town to rescue her three children from slavery. Patricians are plotting against the empire, the Judaeans are plotting against each other, and the ailing Emperor Vespasian (Anthony Hopkins) is choosing whether to hand his throne on to his soldier son Titus (Tom Hughes) or his politician son Domitian (Jojo Macari). Street-smart bookmaker Tenax (Iwan Rheon), meanwhile, is looking for one big move that will seal his place in society’s elite.
Sport is the city’s and the show’s main source of entertainment. Chariot-racing, and betting on chariot racing, takes up a surprising amount of screen time. Someone on the writing team obviously likes to have a bet on the gee-gees: the authentic flutter-related details include the Roman equivalent of a bet builder, a punter who thinks a certain team will fare better if overnight rain makes the track slower, and the question of whether bookmakers should boost their revenue by accepting in-play bets. And if the Romans aren’t gambling on chariot-racing, they’re enjoying gladiatorial combat. We root for Numidian lion-catcher Kwame (Moe Hashim), who will one day have to face the champ – a giant of a man who kills everyone he fights.
While that setup could be lifted from a 1980s Sylvester Stallone or Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, more august drama is meant to come from the power struggle over who rules Rome. The central idea is strong: Titus wants to be a level-headed leader, and if he lets his brother’s psychopathic cruelty, pathological lying and shameless populism run free, he will be trampled. Killing him would be stooping to Domitian’s level, but the longer he leaves his sibling free to operate – this is a man who will happily steal gold from the treasury to bet on a fixed horse race – the harder he is to stop.
The political point is clear, just as it is in the chariot arena – a surrogate Senate where teams of riders are owned by rival factions of the corrupt elite. But in practice, Hughes’s quietly appalled Titus comes off as dull and inert, leaving Macari caricatured in comparison as the sneering Domitian, who organises the games and uses them as a political tool and an outlet for his bloody urges. That a preening deviant is the only gay lead character is a little uncomfortable; when Domitian’s racism leads him to orchestrate a grotesque spectacle in the Circus Maximus that involves capturing, incarcerating then humiliating and killing Judaeans, that’s more unnerving.
Those About to Die leans on big outrages because it’s not so good at small conflicts. Dramas about scraps for power and status need a series of zinging verbal showdowns: we want Succession in togas, or at least Suits in sandals. But with so many storylines running, only Martins – as the fierce, resourceful mother Cala, whose own ambition hasn’t been snuffed out by her devotion to her children – develops her character enough for her dialogue to crackle. Everyone else rushes perfunctorily through basic threats and simple schemes.
So we are left with the cheaper thrills. The perilous chariot races are spectacular – Roland Emmerich directs several episodes – and some of the arena fights are disgustingly effective. And while Those About to Die is not above indulging in regular gratuitous brothel tours, there are signs of a show that knows how to wield lewdness more cunningly: for instance, an uproarious scene where the smoothly ambitious Consul Marsus (Rupert Penry-Jones) and his Lady Macbeth-ish wife, Antonia (Gabriella Pession), signal that a pay negotiation with a jockey is over by starting to have sex while the other guy is still in the room.
In a second season, the show would need to ride the light or the heavy moments harder. If it can, that crown is not out of reach.
