Cromwell is known for many things...but keeping watch while his general Thomas Fairfax gets his leg over after the Battle of Naseby isn't one of them.

The scene is one of many that director Thomas Barker has imagined in this grimy and gory dramatisation of the events of the mid 17th century.

After three years of bloody civil war, the New Model Army led by Fairfax (Scott) has defeated the Royalist forces of King Charles I (Everett).

Despite his rebel credentials, the aristocratic Fairfax seeks moderate reforms while his deputy Cromwell (Roth) has other ideas.

There's intrigue - the Speaker of the House Denzil Holles (James Bolam) secretly does a deal returning the king to the throne for a few sacks of swag.

There's romance (sort of) - Fairfax finds himself betraying his class in the form of his wife Lady Anne (Williams), who is still loyal to the king.

But there's precious little dramatic tension - the mood is one of a pub darts team discussing the football results rather than pondering weighty matters of state.

"Oliver is shouting at the king," is one of Lady Anne's more risible slices of dialogue, when she is not hey nonne nonneying with Charles on the spinet.

Bolam's Holles has the feel of a treacherous Pam Ayres while Roth lacks the puritanically menacing presence you imagine of Cromwell.

Scott brings a gravitas and basic decency to Fairfax while the grime and gore of the period is disturbingly evoked.

Indeed, there's more corpses swinging from gibbets and sliced-up battlefield casualties than you can shake a pikestaff at.

It's a movie you admire more than enjoy but certainly beats the dusty history lessons of school to provide an insight. Verily.

Tim Evans