RULE BRITANNIA

History doesn’t record what happened after the Romans invaded – so the creators of Sky drama Britannia had free rein...

Spaced-out soldiers, a castle bombarded by truly horrific missiles and a Druid inspired by David Bowie. While the first series of Sky Atlantic’s drama Britannia certainly gave a different spin on the Roman invasion of Britain, series two is fabulously off the wall.

The show’s creators have taken full advantage of some blank pages in British history to imagine how life would have been in the years immediately after 43AD, when the Roman army sailed across the English Channel.

The show’s co-creator Tom Butterworth says, ‘We spent time with historical experts who all said they didn’t really know what happened. When we heard that, we grinned and thought, “Cool! Let’s use our imaginations!”’

General Aulus, a real-life figure played by David Morrissey, remains a major character. He was the leader of the Roman invasion and as we return to the story two years on, he’s grown obsessed with finding young Celtic girl Cait, who, according to superstition, is the key to saving Britannia from the Romans. Not even an order from Emperor Claudius (Steve Pemberton) will deter him.

‘Claudius visits, on an elephant, and wants Aulus to return to Rome,’ explains David Morrissey. ‘You wouldn’t normally resist the will of a powerful man like Claudius but Aulus has good reasons for doing so. He wants to find

Cait, but he is also now in a passionate relationship with Amena, queen of Celtic tribe the Cantii.’

The Celts, meanwhile, continue to resist the Roman invasion – but they could do with a bit more leadership from their spiritual talisman, the Druid Veran. ‘There is restlessness among his followers,’ says Mackenzie Crook, who plays Veran. ‘They believe he might be hiding some truths from them.’

To make things worse for him, there is the arrival of Veran’s cooler twin brother, Harka, a character also played by Mackenzie and inspired by the young David Bowie’s striking pop image.

‘He was one of the people I looked at when I was preparing to play the role. Bowie and another