By Ben Felsenburg
Is it the greatest story ever told? Perhaps, but when Homer spun his immortal yarn of the Iliad and the Odyssey nearly 3,000 years ago, I would guess he never imagined anything quite like Troy: Fall of a City (Saturday, BBC1, 9.10pm). To tell the truth, you have the feeling that the makers of this epic eight-part blockbuster – the BBC and Netflix producing, with The Night Manager’s writer David Farr responsible for the script – had in mind less the literature of Ancient Greece than the bloody battles and busy politicking of Game of Thrones. Anyway, we now get, as you might expect and even hope, a thoroughly modern makeover for the old myths. So, the three goddesses, whose beauty Paris must judge, are now left fully clothed, presumably to prevent any accusations of exploitation, but it’s a scene that will come as a surprise to anyone who’s read the original or even seen the trio of naked ladies desporting themselves in Rubens’s painting of the scene. Then there’s Helen, of whose exquisite pulchritude there can be no disputing, but you do decidedly feel the cold, humourless hand of 2018 upon her shoulder when she’s made to spout out the line: ‘I’ve a mind of my own.’ Still, the opening episode is colourful and entertaining in a bland sort of way, and no doubt things may get better if we give it time. And we surely can be patient for a little while longer after all these centuries.
