There is nothing more intimidating on a DVD pile than the thick box set of a 27-year-old British television series chronicling a moment in time for seven different foreign heads of state. 351 minutes of staged teleplay about prime ministers ranging from the Napoleonic Era to the Roaring '20s (which were not so roaring in Merry Old England.) Doesn't that just get your blood pumping? Doesn't that get the synapses firing? I mean, it sure sounds to me like watching Michael Bay cranked to 11 on a bucketful of meth after downing a sixer of Red Bull, right? Yeah.

I made an extra pot of coffee, just in case the first one didn't keep me from nodding off.

But wouldn't you know it, I didn't need it. As frustratingly dull as it appears, each tale of Number 10 was chosen carefully, woven perfectly and managed to boil down the service of each of these individuals into the crisis or scandal that defined them. The stories range from that of a prime minister (PM) roving the streets of London at night -- picking up prostitutes in order to share the word of Christ with them and offer them a chance at a a halfway house and a new life -- to the story of the half-mad William Pitt the Younger, a brilliant man touched with some hereditary form of mental illness that kept him from marrying the woman he loved out of fear of crazed progeny. Interested now? You should be. It's actually quite riveting stuff. My favorite story was of PM Ramsey MacDonald, the first Labour Party PM who came to power just after the rise of the Bolsheviks and the push toward socialism in Europe. Struggling with his own humble beginnings, MacDonald had to deal with a statehouse he was financially responsible for and dirty politics during an unsure, postwar Britain.

The only downside of this enthralling show is that it is shot in the standard, classic British teleplay format, which means stage acting, limited camera work, and no score to speak of. Each episode is like watching a 50-minute play with the occasional scene shot outside. But the incredible acting and fascinating history lessons -- even for us Yanks stateside -- more than compensate for the lack of what we would call production value today.

The only special feature to speak of is a series of short biographies in printed form that you can scroll through. These prove kind of important (if you don't have a laptop with Wikipedia at the ready on hand) as the show does little to fill in the blanks. Made for British audiences, it was understood that you should probably know the backstories of the characters involved, much as we would know the lives of Kennedy, Lincoln, Washington, Nixon, or either Roosevelt. These are the stories of some of Britain's greatest or most notorious heads of state, treated in a loving, patriotic manner. These episodes make for wonderful viewing and are far better than they appear to be on the surface.

Number 10 is available now from Acorn Media.

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us