Indeed, history. Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Aztecs and such.
In all honesty, I think it’s the reason soap operas are so popular.
You’ve got all the big emotions and the borderline incestuous relationships, utterly appalling catastrophes and threats of vengeance, without the heavy-chested, forehead-mopping of opera. And soaps echo so much of ancient history. It comes down to the iron-handed side of human nature. The wars and passions and horror, it’s in all the history books, but it seems to be at that safe distance of – all these people are dust.
Except they’re not. This is just life.
If you haven’t seen the BBC production of ‘Rome’ from 2005 – good lord, you must.
Let’s take a look at the cast list, shall we?
Kenneth Cranham
Ciaran Hinds
Ray Stevenson
Kevin McKidd
Indira Varma
Polly Walker
James Purefoy
Lindsay Duncan
Ian McNeice
Lyndsey Marshal
The list goes on… and my word, it’s just great. Of course there are gritty moments. Everything was quite brutal in ancient cultures. Life and death were so closely entwined as to be expected, almost with a shrug. And you can learn everything there is in human nature from history. I don’t say that people can’t change. An individual can go through many incarnations in their own life. Just look at Cher.
That said, people have always been people, and the basics of humanity don’t really go away. There’s something comforting about that.
So, there you have it. Day 87 of #365HappyDays – History. How else can we learn?
Petrina Binney - Author 