GLOSSY yet grimy - and sometimes gory - history comes to life in this excellent collection of dramatised documentaries from the Beeb.

Six spectacular stories reveal the lives of some of the most famous men of the past, including Spartacus, Napoleon, and Richard the Lionheart.

It's all done on a massive scale, with liberal scatterings of well-known names, familiar faces, and very good scripts, plus CGI effects to add to the epic nature.

Someone in the production team has obviously decided the past was a dirty place, because everyone seems to spend most of their time in need of a good wash, but that only emphasises that this is a world away from sanatised Hollywood history.