The Great, starring Nicholas Hoult and Elle Fanning. Photo: Supplied / Hulu
Run out of stuff to watch? Join us as we dig deep into the streamers' catalogues for shows worth your time. This week: The Great.
It's a shame that in the age of peak TV some great stuff tends to go under the radar. Case in point: The Great.
Very, very loosely based on history, this biting comedy about the 18th century reign of Russia's Catherine the Great comes from the pen of Poor Things and The Favourite writer Tony McNamara and like those movies, swerves wildly between slapstick comedy and pitch-black satire.
Elle Fanning stars as Catherine The Great and Nicholas Hoult as her debauched husband Peter III. The two are brought together in one of those royal arranged marriages, but it turns out Catherine has a mind of her own - and is horrified by what she sees in Peter's Russia, and plots to take power.
Fanning and Hoult's stunning chemistry and hilarious, quip-filled performances make The Great more than just yet another dry prestige historical series. They're surrounded by a cast of creepy priests, drunken generals and palace parasites all jostling for their attention. The Great marries a distinctly modern sense of black humour with dazzling palace scenery and fancy frocks.
It's not for the prudish - McNamara paints a portrait of a Russian elite that's spoiled and corrupt, having sex and killing peasants at will. Hoult's marvellous Peter III is a creature of pure id, who loves food, sex and murder - in that order - yet is weirdly adorable, while Fanning sparkles as her idealistic Catherine is slowly ground down by the realities of trying to create change in a country that doesn't seem to actually want it.
Perhaps because it began its 2020-2023 run during the pandemic, or maybe because its very rude and bawdy humour could be an acquired taste, The Great never quite became a massive cultural talking point. That's a shame.
The three seasons of The Great form a solid arc as Catherine moves from naive trophy wife to (historical spoilers!) the Empress of Russia, and her love-hate relationship with Peter III becomes a strangely romantic doomed affair. The insights into the divide between rich and poor and the impossibility of remaining pure when you're in power also make The Great echo an awful lot with life today. As Peter would say, huzzah!
The trailer:
Is it worth a watch?
Story: 4/5 (The characters grow and change over the three seasons)
Production: 4.5/5 (Real-life Italian and English estates provide stunning glamour)
Bingeability: 3/5 (Thirty lush, overstuffed episodes contain so many cutting lines and twists and turns that it's better to savour this one slowly, like one of Peter III's ridiculous royal feasts)
If I liked this one, what shall I watch next?
Veep - Julia Louis-Dreyfus is another woman scrambling for power in a hostile society, with scabrous wit galore.
Succession - There's a lot of parallels here with sleazy people trying to get power, but not as many great frocks.
Game of Thrones - Equally gory, but with almost none of the humour.
The Great is currently streaming on Neon.
