----- Original Message ----- From: Iain Coleman ijc@bas.ac.uk
Oh, he was wonderful-- but somehow I rather doubt the Beeb were
promoting "I
Claudius" as a source of sexual fantasy :).
Have you _watched_ it recently? I did, having got the tapes from Santa, and it's pretty steamy stuff for its time. Sejanus, in particular, is scripted and performed as the sexiest man who ever lived -- and he knows it.
Watched it recently? Oh, yes :). But what I was talking about wasn't the *programme* (which was very sexy, and not just Sejanus either) but the way the programme and its actors were marketed. The contemporary publicity I've seen for it markets it as kind of a Roman Forsythe Saga-- it seemingly wasn't until The Borgias that the historical drama began being marketed on sex alone (in the UK anyway, but the limited exposure I've had to the American publicity for I Claudius suggests that they marketed it purely as highbrow stuff).
So Sejanus may have been sexy as a tomcat in season, but he wasn't actually being marketed as a rival to Robert Redford.
ObB7... well, Brian Blessed was in both.
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net
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