I, Claudius, the TV series: it's good!

If you have 648 minutes to kill and £15 to burn then I suggest you buy I Claudius because it's really good. It's got incredible acting along with large amounts of rich dialogue, sex, double-crossing, violence and bizarrity. Best of all, it is long enough to do justice to its epicness but still taut and suspenseful, which is quite unusual.

The general idea is that Rome has just stopped being a republic and started being ruled by a rumbunctious Imperial family of RSC actors. While most of them busy themselves with debauchery, enunciation and murder, Claudius keeps his head down and acts the fool, quietly observing and judging and duly winding up sort of having the last laugh.

Highlights include John Hurt dancing, Brian Blessed raging and Patrick Stewart having hair.

One of the characters - Tiberius - is identical to Gordon Brown in his appearance, personality and story, being a dour dark-haired clunker ( 'his drills are bloodless battles and his battles bloody drills'), who seethes and plots in the background for most of his political life before becoming a paranoid emperor who lets himself be manipulated too easily. The only differences are accidents of history: as a pre New Labour Roman, Tiberius expresses his hate and insecurity through murder and sexual perversion rather than through negative press briefings.

Also, I Claudius is apparently massive in Bulgaria, so you get a bonus culture to learn about on top of the Roman and 1970s thespian ones.