This four-part miniseries boasted quite a stellar cast as it explored the life and times of Czar Peter the Great. Throughout his childhood his mother Natalya (Lilli Palmer) and Prince Feodor (Omar Sharif) had to struggle to keep him safe from the conspiratorial aspirations of his sister “Sophia” (Vanessa Redgrave) who controlled the dreaded Strelsky and acted with her lover Golitsyn (Geoffrey Whitehead) on behalf of his half-witted brother Ivan (Nikolai Lazarev). In the end, both boys accede to the throne but even then Peter has to keep his wits about him as plots abound. Luckily, he has befriended the farm-boy Menshikov (Helmut Griem) so has at least one person whom he can trust, especially when his politically expedient marriage to Eudoxia (Natalya Andreychenko) proves to be fairly loveless. She does bear him a son, Alexey, and for much of the rest of this chronology we follow the development of this quite turbulent relationship, as well as see the Emperor adopt policies to enlarge his nation, enhance it’s trading opportunities and learn how to build a proper sea-going navy. To that end he tours the continent, meeting the likes of William III of Great Britain (Sir Laurence Olivier) and Sir Isaac Newton (Trevor Howard) whilst also working closely with his Scottish military mastermind Gordon (Jeremy Kemp) to break the Swedish stranglehold of the Baltic. It’s hard to go wrong wi…

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