Enter, upstage, Simon Schama, eyes narrowed, hair wafting, lips lingering on every syllable.
His new programme is about Shakespeare, which is perfect for Schama because he's a bit of an old actor himself: effete, affected, every mannerism thought through. In the opening minutes of Simon Schama's Shakespeare (Friday, BBC Two, 9pm), he materialised from the dark, like Hamlet's father, and delivered a soliloquy on the Bard and history. His eyes were on the gods; his mind, no doubt, was on posterity.
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