Romans’ history brings gags aplenty
Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans (PG, 92mins) Directed by Dominic Brigstocke Reviewed by James Croot
★★★
After countless books, five TV series (including an adult-oriented show hosted by Stephen Fry), two magazine runs, stage shows, exhibitions, and audiobooks distributed with breakfast cereals, a generation of children grew up with Horrible Histories’ anarchic takes on where we’ve come from.
No pun or puerile gag has been left unexhumed, as the ‘‘funniest, yuckiest and most gruesome bits’’ of human civilisation past have been brought to life for the edification of youngsters obsessed with battles and bodily functions.
Now, more than a quarter of a century after Terry Deary delivered the first literary one-two punch with The Terrible Tudors and The Awful Egyptians, Horrible Histories finally has a film. Opening in 54AD, we begin by witnessing the protracted death of Emperor Claudius I (Derek Jacobi, brilliantly reprising his role from the much loved 1976 I, Claudius TV series), seemingly at the hands of his scheming wife Agrippina (Kim Cattrall) and her odious son Nero (Craig Roberts). After being forced to sit on the sidelines until he comes of age, once Nero assumes power he’s keen to consolidate and expand the Roman Empire, starting with ‘‘stainy bit’’ at its edge – the British Isles.
However, his commanders and centurions haven’t reckoned on a growing resistance led by charismatic Boudicca (Kate Nash). Gathering supporters from around the land, she now has an unlikely army that could overwhelm Rome’s finest, unless Governor General Paulinus (Rupert Graves) can come up with a cunning battle plan to make his opponents’ superior numbers work against them.
Right from the initial sight of an MGM logo parody of a rat puppet in a toilet bowl, sets out its (toilet humour-obsessed) stall straight away and doesn’t really let up. The result is a fitfully funny trawl through key moments of the British resistance to Nero (with the historical accuracy helpfully explained by the aforementioned felt rodent over the end credits), punctuated by pratfalls, weird and wonderful wordplay, and strange segues into musical numbers that don’t always work.
At the centre of it all is a tale of star-crossed ‘‘friends’’ Atti and Orla (winningly played by Sebastian Croft and Emilia Jones), who have to help each other just to stay alive. Those hoping for Blackadderlevel humour may be disappointed, this is closer to a Carry On film for kids, or a live-action version of Asterix in Britain.
Still, that means the gag quotient is high, even if the hit rate is middling (a possible side-effect of having six writers working on the project). Plus, there’s a certain delight in seeing Sherlock’s Graves playing a pompous general,
Pointless host Alexander Armstrong a fleeing governor and Lee Mack a wistful warrior.
Contemporary references mingle with historical ‘‘recreations’’ (Paulinus wants to be ‘‘top of the populous’’, a key battle is presented like a Glastonbury-esque festival livecross), while jokes about Britain’s weather, food and personal hygiene habits abound.
Likely to appeal to kids of a certain age, your enjoyment of
Rotten Romans will depend how much you like references to giving ‘‘CX per cent’’, Spartacus parodies, and japes involving horse pee.
Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.