Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Elle Fanning, Nicholas Hoult, Phoebe Fox, Gwilym Lee, Adam Godley, Belinda Bromilow, Bayo Gbadamosi, Charity Wakefield, Douglas Hodge, Julian Barratt, Freddie Fox, Emily Coates, Florence Keith-Roach, Sacha Dhawan, Jane Mahady, Alistair Green, Grace Molony, Henry Meredith, Ali Ariaie, Dustin Demri-Burns, Richard Pyros.
Viewers of the off-beat comedy drama starring Elle Fanning, Nicholas Hoult, and Pheobe Fox, The Great, will have much to cheer as the tales of Russian Court life under the rule of Catherine II finds its final series to be one of absolute integrity to the alter of satire and invective wit.
To cancel a series which has been lauded to the hills from critic and viewer alike is a perpetual shame, but one in this particular case is almost a travesty, for as with any royal story of conniving machinations and intrigue, history is ripe for ridicule, and as with Armando Iannucci’s fabulous The Death Of Stalin focuses on area of the world which at times has been its own worst enemy, like Britain, its own caricature.
The third series of The Great sees the lead up to the circumstances of Peter III’s death, the strangeness, the conflicting reports of his passing from various happenings, and the fallout and consequences which lead to Catherine II’s effectively successful reign. It is in the madness posing as sober conquest that the script and actors alike throw themselves into this humorous, sarcastic, irony driven observation of mid-18th century luxury and lampooning of events that shaped the Russia that was to become an anathema by the time of its own revolution in 1917.
The sheer scrutiny on decadent opulence in the face of Catherine’s attempts to bring the country into the modern enlightened age enjoyed by most of Western Europe at the time, her own sparkling intelligence, portrayed impishly and with a certain maniacal charm by Elle Fanning, is deserving of its reflective tale, and with every moment of success, so the direction of the piece affords its counterbalance of mislaid disaster. It is near faultless in its delivery, and with such acting ability as Nicholas Hoult, Phoebe Fox, Gwilym Lee, Adam Godley, Belinda Bromilow, and Charity Wakefield playing up to the preening sympathies of court and the conspiracies in order to gain and curry favour; the reign of Russia’s fiercely proud and prominent queen is highlighted with a sense of bold urgency…and it is a fantastic sarcastic delight.
The shame of a series ending far too early is expressed in the culmination of this terrific tale of 18th Century Russian court, cynicism and derision poured over the history books in style and celebration; a treat finished far too early.
Ian D. Hall