Perhaps, the first time I visualized a highly theatrical television drama that included betrayal, sex, jealousy, power struggle, greed, betrayals, conspiracies, murder, lust and politics was with the series Yo Claudio, aired here in Venezuela in 1980, (although this miniseries is from 1976). At that time I was 13 years old, and I remember that it was broadcasted at 10 p.m. on Radio Caracas Television on Sundays and due to its crudeness and the complaints of many viewers it was moved to a time slot around midnight.
The controversy began because in the first sequence of the series we can observe the dance of naked African slaves, something that was very difficult to see on television at that time.
Beyond the nudity, the series tells us about ambition, delusions of grandeur and human wickedness with a soap opera style narration, all of this taking place in Imperial Rome.
In the credits, a viper crawls and shows its viperine tongue, as will many characters in the series.
I, Claudius is a true television classic that in 13 chapters reflects how the bowels of power work. Claudius, played by Derek Jacobi, who according to his mother was an idiot, becomes poor Uncle Claudius (his nephew is Caligula), until he is proclaimed Emperor forced by the Praetorian Guard that took him out from behind a curtain after the assassination of Caligula.
His strategy was to go unnoticed, hiding his intelligence since he was a child thanks to the appearance that his limp and stuttering gave him, according to this fiction, served him to position himself as the best witness and narrator of the historical events narrated in the series.
In addition to Jacobi, other actors in the series include: George Baker as Tiberius, Patrick Stewart as Sejanus, Siân Phillips as Livia, James Faulkner as Herod Agrippa, Fiona Walker as Agrippina the Great, Brian Blessed as Octavian Augustus, Margaret Tyzack as Antonia, Kevin McNally as Castor and John Hurt as Caligula.
There is a very gruesome scene that I will always remember and is when Caligula kills his sister, (with whom he has an incestuous relationship), and eats his own unborn child, although here is not shown such a raw and monstrous situation is used a resource in which we realize this only when we see his face drooling blood, preceded by an agonizing scream off his sister-lover.
Livia Drusilla, the grandmother of Claudius, one of the wives of Emperor Augustus, was behind the deaths of relatives who aspired to power. Already in the twilight of her life, she asks Claudius to guarantee that he will turn her into a goddess. Claudio, despite the fact that Livia has humiliated him all his life, accepts, but on one condition: that she tells him about all her murders, that she helps him tie up all the loose ends, since he is a historian who wants to know the truth. Livia finally understands that Claudio is not an imbecile.
In the end Agrippina and Nero burn Claudius' writings, but the Sibyl (a prophetess sometimes inspired by Apollo) appears to Claudius telling him that it is time to leave, and reveals to him that Britannicus (his son), Agrippina and Nero will die violently, that the Republic will not be restored and that the next emperors will not be so bad. Not all is lost, as Claudius kept a copy of his manuscripts.
This BBC London series adapts the novels: I, Claudius (1934) and Claudius the God and his wife Messalina (1935), written by Robert Graves based on historical facts, being these novels very popular in the 30's. The screenwriter of the series Jack Pulman respected Graves' work almost in its entirety. Herbert Wise. He was the director of such a splendid series.
Hardly at that time I could see it because it ended almost on Monday at 1:00 A.M. and I had to go to school at that time in which I was in my first year of high school. I was never able to watch her finale, which I think the TV station never showed it. It wasn't until 8 years later that I was able to get its 13 episodes on VHS, and years later its DVD version.
I really have to praise the performances of this great English cast, in a unique and unrepeatable miniseries. Highly recommended.
Thank you CineTV community for allowing me to share this opinion with the whole community.
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