It’s been compared to Game of Thrones, but the BBC’s new Viking drama The Last Kingdom actually gives an insight into the true story of the birth of England… It is the late ninth century and much of the country has fallen to the Danes – leaving just a single kingdom holding out against the invaders, in the country we know today as England. Enter Uhtred of Bebbanburg, the colourful and full-blooded warrior, son of a Saxon nobleman. As we follow Uhtred’s story, so we follow the story of the birth of a nation. A different game of thrones In the Dark Ages, what we now call England was a series of separate kingdoms, each of which was run by individual kings – and each of which was threatened by the invasion of the Norsemen, those ravaging warlords from the North. Although billed as the ‘next Game of Thrones’, The Last Kingdom is rather less salacious and more realistic in nature. The series offers a down-to-earth account of the history of our little island, with plenty of sword action, shield walls and marauding Vikings on offer.

Based on the first book in the popular series of Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell (of Sharpe fame), the BBC series captures the spirit of the novels and (albeit with a bit of poetic license) gets under the skin of the Anglo-Saxons’ cultural values and way of life. This is an age of heroism and hall-burning, where valiant warriors fight, drink and feast, and where the end of life for a Viking means taking their seat in the hall of Valhalla – where they pretty much carry on doing the same sort of thing. Saxons vs Danes For our hero Uhtred, played by Alexander Dreymon [above], the battle between the Saxons and the Danes is also something of an internal one. The story begins when he is just ten years old – at which point he is actually called Osbert. After witnessing the murder of his older brother (Uhtred), his father (also Uhtred!) renames the young boy Uhtred in place of his dead brother, thus carrying on the family tradition.

(Think of Magnus Magnusson and you get the idea.) Shortly after his brother’s death, his father (played very convincingly by Matthew Macfadyen) meets his own violent end at the hands of the Danes. Young Uhtred is kidnapped from his family stronghold of Bebbanburg (Bamburgh in Northumbria) and becomes a slave to the Danes, and Uhtred’s own uncle usurps his rightful position as Lord of Bebbanburg. However, inspired by the obvious bravery of the boy, the Danish chieftain – with the suitably fierce epithet Ragnar the Fearless – raises Uhtred as his own son, and it is with the Earl Ragnar that Uhtred receives his training as a warrior. Thus Uhtred becomes Uhtred Ragnarson, and to all intents and purposes considers himself a Dane. However, his mixed upbringing leaves him with something of an identity crisis.

So it is that when the lively and much-loved Ragnar dies in a revenge hall-burning incident, Uhtred makes the choice to follow Alfred of Wessex and offer his services in protecting the last remaining kingdom of Wessex against the Danes – with the ultimate aim of reclaiming his birthright at Bebbanburg. Alfred’s Great British Bake-off Alfred of Wessex is, of course, Alfred the Great – the king who famously burnt the cakes. Legend has it that when Alfred fled to the Somerset Levels, he was offered shelter by a peasant woman who asked him to keep an eye on some cakes she was cooking. However, with his mind on other things Alfred neglected to do so and the cakes were ruined, leading to a right royal ear-bashing from the peasant. So did Alfred the Great’s British Bake-off really happen? It’s likely that the story is no more than a legend. However, we do know that Alfred was responsible for promoting the education, in English, of all free-born men and that he arranged for many important works to be translated into the English language, thus protecting our early English culture.

In The Last Kingdom, it is under King Alfred of Wessex that Uhtred learns to read and write, and we see the beginnings of the birth of a nation in Alfred’s vision of a single, united kingdom. A clash of cultures The series offers an earthy vision of life in Anglo-Saxon times. Concepts that were central to the Anglo-Saxon warrior culture, such as honour, bravery and fate, drive the story – peppered with an abundance of, well, ‘Anglo-Saxon’ language as the warriors enjoy making no end of bawdy jokes at each other’s expense. Uhtred’s feisty sidekick Brida, played by Emily Cox [above], also has a spirited retort for each of the insults levelled at her by her companion and lover Uhtred. In Anglo-Saxon times, women actually enjoyed an almost equal status in many areas of public and private life – more so in fact than in later eras. Honour, glory and destiny are far more important to Uhtred than piousness, leading to many a joke against his friend Beocca the priest and his steadfast devotion to a single god.

Uhtred often makes reference to the three spinners – three women who were believed the weave the thread of a man’s life, and to cut it when it was his time to die. Fate is a recurring theme in many Old English poems, including the epic tale of Beowulf. Despite Alfred’s best attempts to persuade Uhtred to convert to Christianity, the pagan warrior continues to wear his Thor’s hammer pendant close to his heart, and his heathen warrior values hold fast. As the first book puts it: ‘It is a terrible thing’, Beocca said to me. ‘War, it is an awful thing.’ I said nothing. I thought it was glorious and wonderful. So, as the series continues to unfold, we can anticipate a lot more drama and adventures to come, as Uhtred’s reputation grows and Alfred’s army rises to meet the Danes. And, if fate should have it, there are plenty more stories available in the Saxon Series to entertain us on a Thursday night.

Image source: BBC As the Saturday nights draw in, nothing beats settling down on the sofa for a bit of Strictly Come Dancing, says Nigel Andrew… Once in a while the BBC gets something totally, triumphantly right – even that most tricky of formats, the Saturday-evening mass-appeal entertainment show. So it was – and is – with Strictly Come Dancing, an inspired reboot of an old BBC warhorse, the hopelessly old-fashioned Come Dancing. The clue’s in the word Strictly: this new show was channelling the glitzy, high-energy modernism of Baz Luhrman’s film Strictly Ballroom. It was also plugging in to the new celebrity culture – this was to be a celebrity dance contest, featuring not the accomplished ballroom gliders of Come Dancing days but celebrities from all corners of the celeb world who had never seriously danced before. Photo credit Strictly began in 2004, and the wonderful thing is how little the show has changed – the formula worked first time. Even the judging panel has barely changed.

Chief judge Len Goodman, avuncular, cheery, but touchy and easily narked; Bruno Tonioli, flamboyant, madly camp, but a shrewd judge; and pantomime villain Craig Revel Horwood, the least generous but the most acute – these three have been in place since the very first show, so perfect is the balance. The fourth judge has changed over the years, but the present incumbent of the seat to Len’s right – Darcey Bussell – has proved an inspired choice, perfectly complementing the others, and developing a special rapport with tetchy old Len. Talking of oldsters, original presenter Bruce Forsyth called it a day a couple of years ago, but co-host Tess Daly stayed on to form a winning partnership with the increasingly likeable and funny Claudia Winkleman. The show goes on, and only the contestants change, though each new batch tends to contain a mix of familiar elements, including soap actors, sports people, ex-pop stars, TV presenters and wild cards like Ann Widdecombe and John Sargent – or, in the present series, gangly no-hoper Jeremy Vine.

Even the most hopeless dancers often get quite a long run, simply because the public votes for them in such numbers that the judge’s scores become irrelevant. This is part of Strictly’s charm, though it is hard on the more able dancers who get voted off prematurely. A brilliant format then – but the real key to Strictly’s enduring success is, I think, its feel, its atmosphere. It is a genuine family show (and there aren’t many of those) with a family feel. The judges feel like family to us, and no doubt to each other – as do many of the professional dancers – and it’s clear that what develops among the contestants as they tackle the very considerable challenges of the show is a camaraderie that, for the time they are together, feels something very like family. This is also, in the best sense of the word, a nice show; these people aren’t out to win at any cost. They are not the desperate, emoting wannabes of the musical ‘talent’ shows. They always leave gracefully, and the other dancers always seem genuinely sorry to see them go.

There’s often an element (at least in my house) of ‘Who’s he/she?’ whenever each batch of new contestants is named, but by the end of the series we feel we know these people in a way we never could but for following them through the Strictly experience. (By the way, an unfortunate side effect of the show’s niceness is that the judges – even Len – get booed every time they make a negative remark, however well earned. But that’s a small price to pay.) Of course there’s the look of the show – a veritable explosion of sequins, glitter, Spandex and fake tan. The costumes are outrageous – sometimes to the point of being a serious impediment to dancing (as well as a potential affront to public decency) – and the choreography is often quite mad. The whole thing is indeed as camp as Christmas – and yet every series has moments when the dancing gets seriously good, rising above the glitz to a higher level, briefly achieving real beauty and grace. And there’s the sound of the show too: I must put in a word for the resident singers and musicians, whose cover versions are often at least as good as the originals they’re performing.

Oddly, the guest artists who grace the Sunday evening results show usually sound pretty awful by comparison… To sum up – Strictly is a genuine feel-good TV phenomenon. It does what it does quite perfectly. As the nights draw in, nothing beats settling down on the sofa with a drink at hand and surrendering to its cheering, heart-warming magic. What’s not to like? All together now – ‘Kee-eep dancing…’ Nigel Andrew is the curator of the renowned and much-loved Nigeness culture blog. Photo credits [except where stated]: BBC. As we watch the last ever series of Downton Abbey unfold, Marian Trudgill looks at what makes the high-class soap such an unmissable Sunday night sofa event… Read the plot line of Downton Abbey in isolation, and you might just be forgiven for thinking that you were reviewing an episode of Eastenders. Downton has everything for the avid soap fan, from deadly midnight tête-à-têtes, to attempted elopements, illegitimate babies and blackmail payoffs …and that’s just the gentry ‘above stairs’!

First hitting our TV screens on ITV back in 2010, the initial series of Downton Abbey far exceeded the expectations both of its producers and its writer, Julian Fellowes. It quickly became a favourite time of the week for millions of viewers, who settled down on their sofas ready to enjoy an hour or so of Sunday evening escapism before the rigours of the working week ahead. So what exactly is it about this particular award-winning period drama that has proved to have such appeal? Life in the times Set in a fictional country estate in Yorkshire (but actually filmed at Highclere Castle in Berkshire – below), the series follows the story of the aristocratic Crawley family through the early decades of the twentieth century. In doing so, it takes us from the sinking of the Titanic, through the First World War, and to a society that is gradually becoming increasingly liberalised.

The family is headed up by Hugh Bonneville as a suitably noble Earl of Grantham, with his American wife Cora, Countess of Grantham, and his three headstrong – and rather naughty – daughters Mary, Edith and the youngest, Sybil – who tragically (and dramatically) meets an early demise after bearing the child of the family’s chauffeur. Upstairs, downstairs Part of the appeal of Downton undoubtedly lies upstairs in the big house, amongst the capacious rooms, the exquisite furnishings and the lavish dinner parties, not to mention the rich costumes and immaculate customs of the upper crust. Downton shows us the British class system in all its glory – but it also suggests that in many ways the characters above and below stairs are not all that different, it’s just that the higher echelon of society has the facility to cover it up. Surprisingly, the lives of the servants beneath stairs have just as much appeal, from the troubled times of the poor beleaguered Mr and Mrs Bates, to the twisted actions of the pale-faced under-butler, Mr Barrow.

As we follow the fortunes (or more often, the misfortunes) of the principal characters, we find that we care just as much about Lady Mary’s maid Anna Bates as we do about Lady Mary (and possibly even a bit more). For this is a world where a serving woman can be dismissed for becoming pregnant, while the privileged Edith can bear an illegitimate child in secret and still be known as a Lady. High class soap And then we turn to Lady Mary’s rather sordid encounter with Pamuk, the son of one of the Turkish Sultan’s ministers. Having declared herself to be ‘very interested in Turkish culture’, Mary enjoys a romantic tryst with Pamuk in the dead of night – which turns out to be a little too exciting when he rather inconveniently expires in Mary’s own bed, following a heart attack – necessitating yet another pesky cover-up job. This is high class melodrama, of soap-like proportions.

(And talking of high class soap, in case you didn’t know M&S did actually launch a range of Downton Abbey bath products.) Of course, the drama doesn’t all occur upstairs, and there are plenty of shady goings-on in the servants’ quarter, not least the controversial attack endured by Anna, which shocked a nation of viewers and which triggered a series of events resulting in spells in prison for both her and her husband. Instruments of torture But as well as the serious stuff, the series also displays a great deal of wit and warmth. Nowhere is the humour better exemplified than in the fiery but enduring friendship between the down-to-earth Isobel Crawley and the high-and-mighty Dowager Countess, that delightfully outrageous old bag played so beautifully by Dame Maggie Smith. The Countess provides us with all the best one-liners, including the moment she is introduced to the telephone, exclaiming: “Is this an instrument of communication or torture?” Changing lives As the series progress, many of the great estates are falling victim to the changing times and the Crawley family are increasingly having to learn to adapt their plans and expectations for the future.

Lord Grantham faces a brave new world – as his endearingly traditional butler Carson puts it, “I feel a shaking of the ground I stand on”. What with his daughters’ shenanigans, the weight of his mother’s iron will, and the pressure of social change, it’s little wonder that poor Lord Grantham recently suffered another event that rocked the nation, when his ulcer graphically burst over dinner – and the attending Minister for Health. And so, with the sixth and final series still in full swing, we can raise a (cut crystal) glass to Downton Abbey. There’s still the Christmas special to look forward to… but after that, well, Sunday nights just won’t be the same. The Great Bath Feast is now in full swing, with all sorts of foodie events happening around the city throughout October. As well as all the cookery workshops, drinks tastings and delicious £10 feast offers, a host of famous chefs will be coming to Bath to share their expertise.

Here are five of the celebrity food gurus in Bath this month – plus details of how you can get to meet them and learn some of their kitchen secrets… 1) Matt Tebbutt – ‘Celebration of Autumn’ cookery course The chef and presenter of Channel 4’s Food Unwrapped will teach you how to prepare and cook classic honest, seasonal dishes (like roasted wood pigeon with figs and sherry, and blackberry and damson gratin). A one day course including lunch and all sorts of good things costs £200. Lucknam Park Cookery School – 17 October. Event website. 2) Richard Bertinet – Cooking demonstration at Waitrose Bath Cafe Richard Bertinet – the renowned French chef, baker and author of bestselling books including DOUGH – will be giving a demonstration at the Waitrose Bath Café, cooking dishes for you to taste that showcase produce from some of Waitrose’s favourite local and regional suppliers. Waitrose Bath Café, The Podium – 21 October. For Waitrose Gold Card members, enquire in store for details.

3) Tom Kerridge – Tom Talks in Bath Topping & Company booksellers present a talk and tasting with Tom Kerridge, one of the best-loved and down-to-earth chefs on the food scene. He’ll be sharing his thoughts on food, cooking, and his new book Tom’s Table. Komedia, 22-23 Westgate Street – 21 October. Event website. 4) Nigella Lawson – An Evening with Nigella Britain’s favourite cook and food writer needs no introduction! Topping & Company welcome Nigella to Bath for the launch of Simply Nigella: Feel Good Food, a sumptuous cookbook that ties in with her new BBC TV series. Tickets are just £26 which includes a copy of the book. The Forum – 26 October. Event Website. 5) Gino D’Acampo – Gino’s Italian Escape Chef, TV personality and best-selling author Gino D’Acampo brings his live stage show to Bath, blending his love of Italy, some delicious signature dishes and some fun audience participation. Gino will take the audience on a journey through Italy, showing how to cook some of his favourite dishes from his TV series Gino’s Italian Escape.

Tickets are from £24.50. The Forum – 29 October. Event website. See more of the fantastic events and offers at the Great Bath Feast website . And if you’re visiting the city, do pop in to our showroom in The Corridor – it’s the comfiest place in Bath and we even dish out free top-notch barista coffee! Jassy Davis takes a look at the very British baking show that has captured the heart of the nation with its naughty but nice mix of saucy gags, strict standards and sponge cake… The benefit of watching anything on your sofa is the cushions. They’re easily to hand, so you’ve something to hide behind when the on-screen action becomes too tense. And there are some shows you just know are going to require a protective wall of soft furnishings as soon as you hear the intro music (the scrape of a horror movie; the sturm und drang of Doctor Who’s theme tune). But for the past five years the cheerful twang of violins as a camera pans over a marquee in a field has also been the – unlikely – warning that there are tough times ahead. Will the pastry case crack? The sponge flop?

And can you bear to watch as an amateur baker from Manchester kneels in front of an oven and watches their vol-au-vent cases melt? The Great British Bake Off , in all its twee pastel glory, has become essential viewing on wet summer Wednesdays. 10 million viewers are watching the sixth series of the baking competition every week, with 2½ million also tuning in to the Friday night Bake Off spin-off Extra Slice . And the country’s keenness on cakes doesn’t end with simply watching them rise and fall. Baking equipment sales spike whenever GBBO on. This month Waitrose reported that sales of bakeware had gone up by 55% in last week of July, while Currys saw sales of kitchen machines go up 35% in July as people got ready to bake along with the show. The inexorable rise of baking Difficult to believe anyone could have doubted a show about cakes would be anything other than successful, but Love Productions, the company behind the format, spent four years pitching the show to broadcasters before BBC Two finally gave in and commissioned it. Series 1, a six-parter screened over August and September in 2010, attracted 2.8 million viewers.

It bobbed around BBC Two’s top 10, which was enough to get it re-commissioned, even if the critics didn’t immediately fall for its charms. Ian Hollingshead in The Telegraph found the whole thing so boring that he wondered if the cameraman would “commit hara-kiri in a giant pool of egg and flour.” While Lucy Mangan thought it was humourless, writing in The Guardian that it had had “the lightness deliberately beaten out of it.” Even so, ratings crept up with every series until series four, screened in 2013, hit an average 8 million viewers. The final episode was the most watched show screened on BBC Two, beating even Top Gear for popularity. No surprise that series five was switched to BBC One. That year more than 12 million people tuned in to watch Nancy Birtwhistle win the show with an icing extravaganza shaped like a giant red windmill. Soggy Bottoms and ‘Bincidents’ Not everyone appreciates the show’s gentle delights, especially Mel & Sue’s laboured Carry On Baking dad jokes. Seven people wrote into the Beeb’s to complain about the “constant smutty remarks”.

The BBC was unfazed, tweeting #BakeOffInnuendo of the week to the general delight of GBBO’s Twitter community, who can dress in Soggy Bottom t-shirts while giggling over hot baps and well-forked biscuits. What does annoy the audience is any hint of foul play. Bingate in 2014 sent the shows fans into meltdown as they raged over a melted baked Alaska. WI Judge Diana Bird was supposed to have sabotaged fellow contestant Iain Watters’ pudding by taking out it out the freezer. The dripping confection was chucked into the bin by Watters, who later had to present the bin to Mary and Paul. Iain was sent home that week for failing to complete the showstopper challenge, the judges evidently unimpressed by his temper tantrum.

Viewers were having none of it, and 800 called the BBC to complain about the ‘bincident.’ Outrage howled across Twitter and Facebook and Diana’s Wikipedia entry was changed to describe her as an ‘Ice Cream Melting Supervillain.’ Eventually Paul Hollywood and Sue Perkins stepped in to insist Diana hadn’t melted Iain’s ice cream, the BBC put out a statement defending her and Iain tweeted that he’d had a meltdown (below). Diana never returned to our screens, seemingly having to leave the show due to illness, saving her from more weeks of bile from the twitchfork mob. ‘I don’t want them to cry’ Diana’s accidental freezer stealing ways seemed all the more outrageous because niceness and fair play are a quintessential part of the show. The bakers are often shown helping each other move a tricky sponge from tin to plate or helping decorate a cake as time runs out. The judges give their opinions but they never try to humiliate the bakers. “I say honestly what I think but I try and encourage people to do better. I don’t want them to cry,” is how Mary describes her role on the show (a stark contrast to certain other reality shows).

Encouraging people to bake and bake better is the driving force behind the show, more than the competition for the terrible looking trophy . And with bakeware sales now at £1.7 billion a year in the UK – up from £523 million in 2009 – it seems that GBBO has had its way with us after all… Jassy Davis is a writer and food blogger – check out her wonderful Gin and Crumpets website . Photo credits: BBC From a semi-serious psychological experiment to a garish tabloid shockfest, the changing nature of the reality show Big Brother is reflected in the evolving design of the famous diary room chair… Now that Big Brother is just a show about minor celebrities being really horrible to each other, it’s hard to remember that when the first UK series launched on Channel 4 back in the summer of 2000 it was presented as semi-serious exploration of human psychology. Adapted from a Danish TV concept, the show set out to to discover what would happen to a group of young people if they were locked up together for a few months and filmed 24 hours a day.

Their prison, the Big Brother House, was relatively luxurious but devoid of any means of entertainment, thus forcing the inmates to spend their time talking to each other or, if they preferred (and let’s face it, sometimes the conversation was more intelligent) to a small brood of chickens. Alternatively, they could go to the Diary Room, sit in a chair, and talk ‘in private’ to the whole world. The Diary Room had three main purposes. It enabled contestants to nominate each other for eviction in secret; it allowed the producers to give contestants individual instructions; and, most importantly, it acted as a sort of confessional or video journal (the ‘diary’ element), where the housemates could express their innermost thoughts and anxieties in a ‘one-to-one’ talk with the disembodied voice of Big Brother. Of course, far from having a one-to-one, the poor housemates were actually confessing themselves directly to the millions of viewers at home, often with jaw-dropping candidness – and so the image of the Big Brother contestant in the Diary Room chair quickly became the emblem of the show.

The changing design of the room and the chair can be seen as reflecting the evolution – or, arguably, the terrible decline – of the biggest and most important reality show of them all. Here are some of the more notable ones… Big Brother 1: The midcentury modern classic Appropriately for its pseudo-scientific ambitions, reminiscent of 1950s psychiatry experiments and futuristic laboratories, the Diary Room Chair in series 1 was a classic midcentury modern piece. It’s a rather beautiful Arne Jacobsen ‘Egg’ armchair in bright purple. In truth, the very first set of contestants – including scouse builder Craig, shaven-headed raver Nichola and ex-nun Anna – were the real guinea pigs of Big Brother. They had no idea how they might be perceived in the outside world, how their ‘stories’ would be edited, or even whether anyone was watching at all. They weren’t sure if they were on a serious programme, a real-life soap, or a game show.

Poor ‘Nasty’ Nick Bateman (top) very definitely thought it was a game show (there was, after all, prize money available) and concocted various schemes and deceptions against his fellow contestants which, when they were uncovered, led to him him being cast as the Public Enemy No.1 in a way that now seems absurdly over the top. Big Brother 2-3: Hyper-reality After Nasty Nick, Big Brother lost its innocence. All future contestants knew they would be tabloid front-page news and acted accordingly. The kind of people who were accepted for the show became increasingly exhibitionist and sometimes unhinged. Furious arguments and outrageous behaviour became the norm as the producers stoked the fires with cruel twists, such as revealing secret nominations and sending evicted contestants back into the melee. Far from being a ‘reality’ show, Big Brother became a hyper reality show. The design of the Diary Room chair evolved accordingly, becoming more weird and dreamlike. The Series 2 chair (above) was a warped, panda-coloured version of the Jacobsen Egg, while Series 3’s effort was a surrealist blob recalling Salvador Dali’s famous Mae West Lips sofa (number 1 in our History of Culture).

Big Brother 4: The Swan After the third series – which launched the infamous career of Jade Goody – Channel 4 briefly attempted to turn down the shock tactics for series 4 and make it a more chilled-out affair. The chair was another Arne Jacobsen-inspired classic, this time a take on the Swiss designer’s Swan chair, in a pleasant cobalt blue. Alas, viewing figures dipped, and after this momentary intrusion of good taste, from series 5 onwards it was hideous garishness all the way. The series 6 chair, for example, was almost impossible to actually sit on: Big Brother 7-8: The Blinged-Up Club Chair and The Tron By series 7, Big Brother was firmly established as an annual tabloid circus event and launchpad for wannabe celebrities. The chair was the most ghastly yet – a sort of golden, bling version of the traditional ‘club’ armchair .

When Nikki Grahame took to it, it witnessed one of the programmes greatest tantrums… And having completely given up on taste or any semblance of reality by series 8, the Big Brother set designers went for a sci-fi monstrosity straight out of the Disney movie Tron… Big Brother 10 – The Proust Geometrica There have been 16 series of Big Brother in total so far (the last five on Channel 5), plus 16 Celebrity versions, and though there have been all sorts of weird and wacky chair variations over the years, including one with enormous angel wings and another shaped like a rollercoaster carriage, none have ever topped the series 1 Egg for taste, nor the series 8 Tron for creative madness. But there is one noteworthy exception to the general decline. Big Brother 10 featured a design variant of the modern Italian classic, the Proust Geometrica armchair. Created in 1978 by Alessandro Mendini for the Palazzo dei Diamanti, it is still manufactured today by the Cappellini company. Given the right room, this one would actually look terrific in a real house.

And given its regal, throne-like feel and eye-popping colours, it seems perfectly apt for Big Brother contestants: those bright, technicolor show-offs who might make themselves the 21st century culture’s kings and queens, if only for a day…. You can read more of culture editor Andrew Nixon’s History of Culture in 100 Sofas (and other furniture) here… This is it: the big one. So big in fact that our culture editor Andrew didn’t feel worthy of covering it, so he invited writer and Austen expert Marian Trudgill to explain why the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice – now 20 years old if you can believe it – is the ultimate entry to our What to Watch on Your Sofa series… First impressions Initially given the title First Impressions by Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice was published by Thomas Egerton in January 1813, and received a more than favourable reception in its day. Austen herself referred to it as ‘my own darling child’ and it went on to become one of the most popular novels in English literature. I first fell in love with Pride and Prejudice while studying it in the school sixth form.

Austen’s incisive social satire, played out via the wit and warmth of her expertly crafted heroine Elizabeth Bennet, had an instant appeal. Then along came 1995, and the BBC version hit our screens in the form of six delicious 55-minute episodes, and I fell in love all over again. Now at university, I eagerly sought a space alongside my fellow post-grad students on an increasingly crowded sofa… and we were joining more than 10 million others across the country as we settled down for our weekly Sunday evening treat. The very first episode exceeded my expectations. Expertly adapted by a production team consisting of scriptwriter Andrew Davies, producer Sue Birtwhistle and director Simon Langton, the new series propelled the relatively unknown faces of Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, as the brooding Fitzwilliam Darcy and the sparkling Elizabeth Bennet respectively, to instant fame. A perfect combination So, what was it that made the BBC series such a success? As all true fans of Pride and Prejudice know: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife”.

Jane Austen’s original novel satirises the social mores of the landed gentry in Regency Britain. For the upper middle and aristocratic classes, marriage to a man with a steady income was one of very few life options available to women, a fact that is made abundantly clear in the book’s well-known opening line above, which is given to Elizabeth Bennet in the BBC series. However, the BBC series did more than simply portray the social issues of the time – it managed to generate a universal appeal for a modern day audience. First, in its superb casting. The dark and smouldering Mr Darcy. The witty and vivacious Lizzie. Benjamin Whitrow and Alison Steadman perfectly cast as the perfectly mismatched Mr and Mrs Bennet… And from Adrian Lukis’ dastardly but charming George Wickham to David Bamber’s disgustingly simpering and superficial Mr Collins, the BBC series encapsulated and amplified the core qualities of Jane Austen’s original characters. Then there was the production. In making the series, the team wanted to create a ‘fresh, lively piece’ while maintaining the spirit of the novel.

They achieved it by sticking closely to the storyline and keeping much of the original dialogue, but lavishing on top of it sumptuous layers of memorable music, period costumes, authentic choreography and dreamy cinematography. It made for a winning combination: BAFTA and Emmy-winning, in fact. But though they stuck closely to the book, the Beeb also introduced some pertinent additions, emphasising Austen’s motifs while providing us with a visual feast. Take, for example, the new scenes in which we see the young Bennet girls parading themselves in front of a stream of eligible (if morally undesirable) bachelors. Or the undeniably romantic moment when Lizzie rescues young Georgiana from the cutting remarks of Mr Bingley’s evil sister and Darcy sends her a smouldering look of gratitude, with the image of his love-smitten face being freeze framed for just a moment, in order to amplify the dramatic intensity. With such touches the BBC series allows us to explore the character of Mr Darcy in more depth than the novel.

We see him trying to to master his passionate feelings for Elizabeth through pure bodily exertion, such as the fencing scene, which gives physical expression to his emotional turmoil as he proclaims: ‘I shall conquer this. I shall!’ A nation swoons Which brings us rather neatly – and somewhat inevitably – to the side of a certain lake. We really can’t go any further without mentioning that scene. You know the one. Dubbed by The Guardian as ‘one of the most unforgettable moments in British TV history’ – in which a sodden Colin Firth emerges from his swim in the lake, complete with clinging white shirt and breeches, to be met by a startled and slightly breathless Elizabeth, and both are then lost in a series of mutually embarrassed bumbling enquiries about the health of various members of Elizabeth’s family. So here it is, in the interest of completeness. However, notwithstanding the cult status that was later afforded to the lakeside encounter, the BBC series was not just attractive to the ladies.

While the male members of my family are not known for being avid watchers of period drama (in the words of Lizzie, ‘quite the opposite’), even they appreciated its humour and sophistication, and chortled along to Mr Bennet’s wise observations on the state of the nation, and his wife’s latest match-making schemes. One even proclaimed Pride and Prejudice to be ‘the finest BBC series ever made’, a sentiment with which I am inclined to agree, even twenty years on. It is, quite simply, a national treasure. No comparisons There have indeed been numerous P&P adaptations, versions and sequels, from the older and comparatively stuffy BBC studio affairs, to the more recent film adaptation starring Kiera Knightly and Matthew MacFadyen – which despite being more dizzy and at times more overly dramatic than the TV series, rather lacked the depth, subtlety and finesse achieved by the Beeb. Or take the even more recent three-part drama Death Comes to Pemberley. That featured more of the sex but had none of the sparkle. Sadly the lack of electricity and verbal sparring between the two main characters means that they lose much of their appeal. You see, the secret is the implied sexiness.

Subtlety rules, in true Austenian fashion. Less is more. A damp white shirt is racier than no shirt at all. Hence the kiss between the newlywed Mr and Mrs Darcy at the end of the final BBC episode means far more than the sight of Matthew Rhys and Anna Maxwell Martin getting active in the marital bed while otherwise appearing to not want to talk to one another. Besides, we don’t need to see, when we can dream… Top Five Quotes from the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice 5) “Shelves in the closet!

A happy thought indeed” – Lizzie, endeavouring to respond to Mr Collins’ enraptured unveiling of his refitted wardrobe – inspired, of course, by the indomitable Lady Catherine de Bourgh 4) “May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?” – Mr Bennet, mischievously inquiring after the origin of Mr Collins’ treasury of female flattery 3) “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?” – Mr Bennet in classic form 2) “A whole campful of soldiers!” – Lydia Bennet’s wistful (and as usual, deeply inappropriate) exclamation following Lizzie’s criticism of her indiscreet relationship with the local militia 1) “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you” – Mr Darcy, proclaiming his love to an astonished Elizabeth Video and images copyright of BBC Drama – bbc.co.uk/drama The Simpsons is the most successful animation in television history and it seems to have been around forever – and its famous ‘couch gag’ is a cultural phenomenon in its own right.

In the latest instalment in our History of Culture in 100 Sofas , culture editor Andrew Nixon looks at the Simpsons’ sofa… It must be the most famous opening sequence in television history. White cumulous clouds sit in a bright blue sky, and as the choir sings ‘The Siiiiimpsons’ the words appear in yellow and we zoom through the hole in the letter ‘P’ over the town of Springfield and through the window of the Elementary School, where Bart is writing his lines on the blackboard. Then the familiar theme plays and we follow the Simpson family members home: Bart causing havoc on his skateboard; Homer clocking off from the nuclear factory and accidentally taking some glowing green toxic rod in his coat; Marge with baby Maggie at the supermarket then in the car home (apparently with Maggie driving, though it turns out to be a toy steering wheel); Lisa playing some crazy jazz on the sax as she escapes band practice. They all converge on the house at the same time, rush through to the living room and jump on to the sofa to watch TV. And then, something crazy happens. The couch gag The Simpsons’ running ‘couch gag’ is legendary.

In the first few episodes, way back in 1990, the gags were relatively simple slapstick jokes: the family all sits down together and Bart is squeezed out onto the floor; or the arms break off from the couch; or Homer falls off and says ‘D’oh!’. By 2014 they have become surreal adventures, with the Simpsons morphing into characters from Frozen (episode 561); or appearing as pieces of sushi which get eaten (ep 565); or re-enacting the entire story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears (ep 563). In some of the gags, the sofa itself does something strange, such as deflating like a balloon (ep 65), or turning into a monster and eating the family (ep 61), or suddenly becoming the guest couch on The David Letterman Show (ep 90). In others, something strange happens to the Simpsons themselves. They are bouncing balls pinging around the living room (ep 99). They get their heads mixed up with each others’ bodies (ep 66).

They are marionettes, or zombies, or made of lego (episodes 283, 86, 403 respectively). The gags first started getting really weird at the beginning of season 5 in 1993 (ep 83), with a director doing three couch gag takes: in take one the Simpsons run into the living room and shatter like glass; in take two they merge into a five-headed blob; and in take three they run in and explode on contact. Epic gags An advantage to the producers of the sofa gag is that it can be made longer or shorter depending on the running time of the rest of the show. The first long sofa gag was as early as episode 69 in 1992, when the family forms a chorus line and are joined ‘on stage’ by high-kicking dancing girls before the living room walls lift to reveal a large glitzy production number complete with magicians, a ring of fire and handstanding elephants. In later years, the sofa gags became whole mini-episodes in themselves featuring funny pastiches of other shows and films.

These include send-ups of The Hobbit (ep 533), Breaking Bad (ep 525) and Game of Thrones (ep 501). One of the best extended couch gags is the Evolution of Homer joke from episode 394, while the longest to date is the two-and-a-half minute “MusicVille”, a “Silly Simpsony” cartoon featuring every character as a musical instrument (ep 536). Guest animators The Simpsons’ couch gag has become such a cultural icon in America that a host of guest directors have been invited to contribute to it. Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro contributed a horror-themed one in 2013 (ep 532) but some of the best have been by animators who usually work in a very different style. The French cartoonist Sylvain Chomet of Belleville Rendezvous fame contributed a Gallic-flavoured opening for episode 542 in 2014, while animator Bill Plympton has created a few interesting couch gags including this love story between Homer and his sofa (ep 504). However, some couch gags are virtually artworks.

The surrealist filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt contributed a gag to episode 553 in which Homer travels forward in time to the year 10,535 A.D. and we see a strange, frightening version of what The Simpsons will look like in the far future – it seems to be a comment both on the commercialisation of entertainment, and the incredible longevity of the show itself. Will The Simpsons ever actually end?… Seven Remarkable Facts about The Simpsons Since starting on December 17, 1989 The Simpsons has broadcast over 570 episodes and became the longest-running American sitcom, then the longest-running American animated program, and in 2009 it surpassed Gunsmoke as the longest-running American scripted primetime television series in history, and still shows no signs of finishing. Creator Matt Groening invented it almost by accident. Pitching concepts for animated shorts to be used in The Tracey Ullman Show, he hastily came up with the idea of a dysfunctional family while in the waiting room ahead of his meeting with the producers when he realised that his original ideas wouldn’t work. The series has won countless awards, including no less than 31 Emmys.

In 1999 Time magazine called it the greatest TV show of the 20th Century and it has a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There are just six main voice actors playing the vast majority of the characters: Dan Castellaneta (Homer, Grandpa Simpson, Krustie and others); Julie Kavner (Marge, Patty and Selma); Nancy Cartwright (Bart, Nelson and others); Hank Azaria (Moe, Chief Wiggum, Apu and many more); Harry Shearer (Mr Burns, Ned Flanders, Smithers and many more); and Yeardley Smith, who just plays Lisa. Every one of them has won an Emmy for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance. It is popular all over the world and has been dubbed into Japanese, German, Spanish, Luxembourgish, Portuguese, Italian, Punjabi, Hindi, French and Quebec French, among others. It has been banned at various times in China and Venezuela. It holds the World Record for “Most Guest Stars Featured in a Television Series”, with seemingly every celebrity from Tony Bennett to Tony Blair appearing at some point in its long history.

The Homer-coined word “d’oh” was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2001 (although it’s spelled “doh”) and is defined as “Expressing frustration at the realization that things have turned out badly or not as planned, or that one has just said or done something foolish.” Read more about the clever ways that TV uses couches in comedy in our post Sitcom Sofas . In the latest of our suggestions for books to read on your sofa , culture editor Andrew Nixon recommends the wickedly funny Mapp and Lucia novels of E.F. Benson, recently adapted for television by the BBC, in which two great rivals try to out-snob each other… ‘Elizabeth was gazing out of the window with that kind, meditative smile which so often betokened some atrocious train of thought.’ That’s Elizabeth Mapp, anti-heroine of E.F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia novels, doing what she does best: spying on her neighbours and devising a scheme to make their lives slightly less pleasant. Miss Mapp is the social queen bee of Tilling, a picturesque village in the Home Counties.

But if there’s one thing we learn from Benson’s extremely funny series of books, it’s that beneath the idyllic veneer of well-to-do 1930s English society, with its garden parties and high teas and games of bridge, there lies a hissing snakepit of seething resentment and vicious competitiveness. ‘Stinging pleasantries’ It’s well documented that human affairs and politics are always at their most venomous when the stakes are low, and with absolutely nothing better to do with their time the leisured classes of Tilling live for their daily battles with each other. The chief weapons in their endless war are thinly-veiled sarcasm and cutting criticisms disguised as compliments. The women have, as one male character ruefully puts it, ‘a pretty sharp eye for each other’s little failings’ – though the men are just as bad. Elizabeth Mapp is the most ruthless and skilled operator in the village – hers are ‘the most penetrating shafts, the most stinging pleasantries’ and thus she is feared and admired by all in her tiny social circle.

She terrifies shopkeepers and tradesmen with continual niggling disagreements: ‘Quarrelsome errands were meat and drink to Miss Mapp: Tuesday morning, the day on which she paid and disputed her weekly bills, was as enjoyable as Sunday mornings when, sitting close under the pulpit, she noted the glaring inconsistencies and grammatical errors’ in the sermon. Entering middle-age, the constant conflict keeps Mapp youthful: ‘Her face was of high vivid colour and was corrugated by chronic rage and curiosity; but these vivifying emotions had preserved her to an astonishing activity of mind and body… Anger and the gravest suspicions about everybody had kept her young and on the boil.’ In short, Mapp is a master of what we might now call ‘passive-aggressive’ behaviour: never quite saying anything overtly insulting, but nonetheless making sure that everyone in the room feels jolly uncomfortable. However, into Tilling life one day comes a Mrs Emmeline Lucas, aka ‘Lucia’, who proves to be more than a match for Mapp.

Prunella Scales as Mapp and Geraldine McEwan as Lucia in the 1980s Channel 4 adaptation Queen Lucia As great a character as the monstrous Mapp is, Lucia is even greater. She is, in many respects, an undeniably appalling person: a shameless social climber, a snob, and wildly pretentious. The bedrooms in her house have names like ‘Othello’ and ‘Hamlet’, while in the garden ‘there was not a flower to be found save as were mentioned in the plays of Shakespeare; indeed it was called Shakespeare’s garden, and the bed that ran below the windows of the dining room was Ophelia’s border’. She lets it be widely thought that she is a brilliant pianist (in fact she can only play one tune: the slow movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, which she performs ad nauseam at her little evening ‘entertainments’) and that she can speak fluent Italian (when really she has but a smattering, as is embarrassingly exposed in a hilarious episode involving a visiting Italian composer). Just as Mapp rules Tilling, so Lucia lords it over the nearby village of Riseholme.

Yet as ghastly as Lucia can be, she is at root a decent sort who never wants to completely destroy her enemies so long as they recognise her superiority, and when she moves to Tilling and the two alpha females begin their battle for social supremacy, our sympathies are generally with her. ‘Paralyzing politeness’ Mapp and Lucia, where the two protagonists come together, is actually the fourth book in a series of novels and short stories by E.F. Benson which are usually collected together under that title. The first two novels feature Tilling and Riseholme life separately, while Lucia in London is a wickedly funny account of Lucia’s tireless social climbing as she hobnobs with duchesses and Prime Ministers in the capital. But the series really comes alive when Lucia rents Mapp’s house for the summer (while Mapp moves to another house just across the road) and hostilities commence.

For it soon becomes clear that only one of them can rule Tilling, and when Mapp tries to assert her authority through the usual ‘stinging pleasantries’ she finds that Lucia is not easily cowed (‘I see I must be a little firm with her,’ thought Lucia, ‘and when I’ve taught her her place, then it will be time to be kind.’) There follows over the course of three more novels a glorious rivalry, with first one woman then the other gaining the upper hand. The social circle of Tilling, in the 2014 BBC adaptation E.F. Benson is a wonderfully waspish and cynical observer of human nature. The Tilling over which Mapp and Lucia do battle is a fully realised micro-world, with a small but vivid cast of supporting characters.

These include the camp bachelor Georgie Pillson, with his daring trousers and precious cabinet of ‘bibelots’; Reverend Bartlett who despite being from Birmingham talks in ‘a mixture of faulty Scots and spurious Elizabethan English’; and the Bohemian artist ‘Quaint’ Irene, who wears men’s clothes and is always doing preposterous arty things (‘she sat for half an hour at Lucia’s piano, striking random chords and asking Lucia what colour they were.’) The author also has an almost Oscar Wilde-like gift for a witty turn of phrase, often to describe the kind of passive-aggressive tactics of the characters. When being given the cold-shoulder treatment, Lucia receives only ‘short replies of paralyzing politeness’, and when she devastates defeated opponents by being unexpectedly nice to them, she employs a tactic of ‘vindictive forgiveness’. Planning a put-down, one character muses that ‘she would have to frame some stinging rejoinder which would “escape her”… it would have to be short, swift and spontaneous, and therefore required careful thought’.

‘Supplying the salt to life’ The Mapp and Lucia books were a huge success for Benson in the 1920s and 1930s, and he was also known for some particularly chilling ghost stories as well as many more novels, memoirs and biographies. And while he isn’t quite a household name these days, Mapp and Lucia have enjoyed regular resurgences in popularity. E.F. Benson There have been two major television adaptations: a Channel 4 version shown in the 1980s starring Geraldine McEwan and Prunella Scales (and you can see it on Youtube , though the quality is a bit dated), and a rather brilliant BBC one just last Christmas with Miranda Richardson and Anna Chancellor [pictured top] in the title roles. It’s not hard to tell why Mapp and Lucia have stood the test of time. That quintessentially English interwar world of croquet lawns, Rolls Royces and housemaids may have disappeared forever, but human nature doesn’t change, and wherever there are people living in relative comfort, there will be rivalry and one-upmanship over the most trivial concerns.

As Georgie Pillson muses after a falling-out with Lucia: ‘he realized how completely Lucia and her manoeuvres and her indomitable vitality and her deceptions and her greatnesses had supplied the salt to life’. In other words, life might be a bit nicer without the Mapps and Lucias, but it would also be an awful lot duller. E.F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia novels are, in chronological order: Queen Lucia (1920); Miss Mapp (1922); Lucia in London (1927); Mapp and Lucia (1931); Lucia’s Progress (1935) and Trouble for Lucia (1939). These along with some short stories can be found in various collected works (including one by Penguin Modern Classics) widely available online and in bookshops. Continuing our series A History of Culture in 100 Sofas (and other furniture) , culture editor Andrew Nixon looks at the Iron Throne – the seat of power in the cultural phenomenon that is Game of Thrones… Have you ever seen the Iron Throne?

The barbs along the back, the ribbons of twisted steel, the jagged ends of swords and knives all tangled up and melted? It is not a comfortable seat, ser. Stannis Baratheon, in George R.R. Martin’s novel A Storm of Swords The most coveted seat in Westeros – the fantasy world created by American author George R.R. Martin – is also the least comfy. The Iron Throne, upon which sits the ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, is a forty-foot tall monstrosity, hammered together in crude fashion from the swords of a thousand conquered warriors. Such are the jagged edges and jutting metal fangs that it is impossible to sit back on it without slicing yourself to ribbons. In short, it’s not a chair for snuggling on. But before we examine the Iron Throne itself, it’s worth taking a moment to consider the sheer scale of the phenomenon that is Game of Thrones. Here are four pertinent facts: 1) It’s very big. Originally planned as a trilogy, George R. R. Martin’s series of novels A Song of Ice and Fire is now expected to have seven parts (and may even go beyond that).

Five have been published so far, while Martin is still writing the sixth, The Winds of Winter. Each of the parts is an enormous fat tome recounting in minute detail events in a vast, complex, violent fantasy world with its own full history and mythology. Told from the various viewpoints of dozens of characters with interlocking stories, the world of Westeros has grown so large in all directions that there must be some doubt as to whether Martin is really in control of it. So bewildering was the plot and so vast the cast that it took him five years to write the fourth part, and a further six years to write the fifth. Adding the delays to the publication dates together, he’s about a decade behind deadline. The HBO television adaptation Game of Thrones, meanwhile, is into its fifth season, and despite the big budgets and movie-scale production, is rapidly catching up and may soon overtake Martin’s writing.. 2) It’s very popular. The books have sold more than 58 million copies worldwide and have been translated into at least 45 languages, with the fourth and fifth volumes both going straight to the top of The New York Times Best Seller lists.

Meanwhile, HBO’s average gross audience for the fourth season of the TV series was 18.6 million viewers, beating the viewing record previously held by The Sopranos. Game of Thrones has also been the most-pirated TV series every year since 2012, with an estimated 7 million illegal downloads in the first quarter of 2015 alone. Then there’s the numerous boardgames and video games and the avalanche of merchandise from replica dolls to Game of Thrones-branded beer. In fact, the franchise has been credited with being responsible for bringing the fantasy genre into the mainstream. The Queen admires the Iron Throne on a visit to the Game of Thrones set in Belfast [ photo credit ] 3) Its fans are obsessive. In 2012, Vulture magazine ranked the series’s fandom as the ‘most devoted’ in popular culture, ahead of fans of Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lady Gaga and Justin Beiber. Various wiki sites devoted to A Song of Ice and Fire detail Martin’s world in meticulous detail, while millions of fans worldwide write spin-off fiction, dress as their favourite characters at conventions or name their children after them.

In 2012 “Arya” (a key character) was the girl’s name rising the fastest in popularity in the US. In Britain there has even been a reported surge in ownership of huskies as domestic pets after their appearance (acting as ‘direwolves’) in the TV series. 4) It’s not for the fainthearted. There is a brutal, ugly reality in Martin’s work that you don’t normally find in fantasy works, with the wicked characters vastly outnumbering the few who pass for ‘goodies’. And of course the levels of sex and violence are notorious – particularly in the television series, which has infamously spawned the concept of ‘sexposition’, whereby viewers are distracted during lengthy explanations of the plot by onscreen nudity. There’s also plenty of unpleasant torture to endure, and the viewer or reader is never allowed to relax because Martin has a nasty habit of bumping off your favourite characters just as you’ve got to like them. Ned Stark on the Iron Throne in the HBO series [ photo credit ] The seat of power The key emblem in all this – the central point around which the action revolves – is the Iron Throne.

According to the mythology, the chair was constructed by Aegon the Conqueror, the first king of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. He had it made from a thousand swords taken from his surrendered enemies, the blades heated in the breath of a dragon and hammered together by blacksmiths over a period of 59 days. In the television series the Iron Throne is spectacular piece of craftsmanship but essentially a recognisable chair. However, in Martin’s books it is much cruder and much bigger: towering over forty feet in height and accessible only via its own flight of steps. Crucially for the story, the chair is so big that it is physically impossible to move it – which means that during all the Civil Wars and dynastic twists and turns in Westeros, those who wish to be the King – and there are many – must conquer and occupy the city of King’s Landing to claim the throne. Artwork by Marc Simonetti which George R.R.

Martin has said best represents the scale of the throne room and Iron Throne in the books [ photo credit ] As to its dreadful uncomfortableness, that was quite deliberate in the design: Aegon decreed that no ruler should ever sit on the throne carelessly, just they must not rule carelessly. That proved a problem for many of his heirs, with the mad King Aerys II absentmindedly cutting himself so often on its jagged edges that his enemies referred to him as ‘King Scab’. The uncomfortable truth Whatever you think of the Game of Thrones genre, there’s no denying that the Iron Throne is a powerful symbol. England’s Wars of the Roses were a key influence on George R.R. Martin’s writings, and just as the Coronation Chair at Westminster Abbey has been an extremely important emblem through the history of Britain, so the Iron Throne acts as a physical manifestation of the power that men and women greedily seek, and will plot and murder and go to war with each other to win. Indeed, the term ‘Game of Thrones’ has come to be used to describe any fiendishly complex situation of political intrigue, from the conflict in Syria to the US healthcare debate.

In 2013, Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans even gave a speech in which he outlined the ins and outs of European politics in terms of quotes from the Song of Ice and Fire novels. And that’s perhaps where the true appeal of Game of Thrones lies. For all its dragons and direwolves and fantastical landscapes, Game of Thrones shocks us, and hooks us in, because it is all too realistic. A History of Culture in 100 Sofas (and other furniture) – 10. The Iron Throne in Game of Thrones What: A forty-foot high metal monstrosity constructed from 1,000 swords When: 1996 – present

Question: The title of TV show Strictly Come Dancing is based upon the name of a previous BBC show and which 1993 Baz Luhrman film?
Answer: Strictly Ballroom