What time is Troy: Fall of a City on TV?

Up to now Achilles hasn’t had much to do. Like the other great mythic heroes in this adaptation, he spends his time looking moody and cheesed off, brooding about this or that. Still, at least he knows how to have a good time – as that ménage à trois on the beach made clear.

But now the hero of The Iliad comes into his own and for a while the script shakes off its lethargy, too: the climax – as Achilles and Hector face each other below the walls of Troy – reaches a real bruising, emotional intensity (a bit late, mind: we’re six episodes in and half the audience have left).

In the last big-screen version of the myth, Achilles was memorably played by Brad Pitt; here, David Gyasi makes him believably charismatic and brutal. At one point, an Amazon warrior curses him, “You son of a whore!” He replies coolly, “Son of a goddess, actually,” and cuts her throat.