Okay, so Horrible Histories was a British kids’ show that did comedic sketches about various historical events. This is a feature-length movie they made about five years after the series ended. I haven’t seen any of the sketch show, so I’m not sure if the film included some of the same actors—I just know that Ncuti Gatwa only appears in this movie.
In ancient Rome, a studious young man named Atti is forced to join the army after he accidentally gets on Nero’s bad side. He’s sent to Britain, where the Celtic warrior Boudicca is urging the different tribes to join together and defeat the Romans. When Atti is captured by an aspiring young warrior named Orla, wouldn’t you know it, the two discover they might not be so different after all.
Knowing that this is an offshoot of a show geared toward kids makes sense. The comedy is fairly broad, relying a lot on character archetypes, easy jokes, and some gross-out humor. It’s fairly silly, and the story is flimsy. There are also a handful of so-so musical numbers that don’t add very much to the proceedings.
There are a number of Roman numeral jokes, like the trainer urging all the gladiators to “give it CX percent” in the arena. There’s a running gag of Nero trying to murder his mother—she’s ruled as his regent since they murdered Nero’s father, but now that he’s come of age, she’s reluctant to step aside and let him take his full power as emperor. One joke I do like is when someone explains to the Celts what a cat is: “It’s a Roman thing—like a small furry dog, only it doesn’t really like you. It just pretends to like you to get food.” Hehe!
A handful of familiar faces here, as there is with most anything British. Orla is played by Emilia Jones, who I first saw as a kid in the Eleventh Doctor story “The Rings of Akhaten,” but who more recently played the lead role in CODA. Her father is played by Nick Frost, while Katy Wix (Barbara from season 3 of Ted Lasso) appears in a small role as a “reporter” covering the Celtic warrior’s growing following. For the Roman characters, we’ve got Rupert Graves (who I know best as Lestrade on Sherlock) as a general who makes very self-important speeches with a lot of contradictory commands, and Warwick Davis pops up briefly as the gladiator trainer. And in another bit I like, Derek Jacobi has a cameo as Emperor Claudius, which is (I assume) a winking nod to his iconic role in I, Claudius.
Ncuti Gatwa has a small supporting role as Timidius, one of Atti’s pals in the army. For most of his screentime, he’s paired with another soldier named Dimidius. They’re the ones who notice Atti’s missing after he’s taken by Orla, and whenever we check back in with the soldiers, we mainly follow Timidius and Dimidius.
In their dynamic, Dimidius is the dumb/dim one—hence his name—so he gets the brunt of the jokes. This leaves Timidius as the slightly long-suffering straight man. But as we’ve seen from Doctor Who and Sex Education, Gatwa can definitely go big, but he can also go small and still be really effective. When they’re looking for Atti and Dimidius frets, “You don’t think he was eaten by a tiger?”, I like Timidius’s gently deadpan response, “I’m not sure there’s tigers in Britain.” He gives good Did you really just say that? face!
Accent Watch
Sounds like his usual Scottish to me.
Recommend?
In General – Eh, not really. Kids who are into historical comedy might be into it, but it wasn’t for me.
Ncuti Gatwa – Not a must. Gatwa’s performance here is cute and fun, but it’s a pretty small role and he doesn’t have that much to do.
Warnings
Violence, gross-out humor, and thematic elements.
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