For the last couple of nights, I've been settling down after dinner with Shakespeare's Henry VI trilogy, the latest tranche of the BBC's utterly thrilling series The Hollow Crown which is coming next month. (Is it really three years since the last instalment? It can't be!)
Why wasn't Shakespeare like this when I did it at school and always found the history plays dreary?
Everybody you've ever heard of is in it ... and you're on the edge of your seat even though you know what's coming next. Sophie Okenedo is a brilliantly evil Margaret of Anjou and if I'd been at the Rose Theatre in 1592 I'd have been hissing.
I get very excited these days when I see Edward IV ever since spending a night in his bedroom last summer in the tower where he was imprisoned at Warwick Castle.  I sat up until the early hours curled up in the window seat hoping for a ghost. Actually,  this Shakespearean Edward is greasy-haired and shaggy, and the ghost I'd packed my best M&S nightie for was the handsome chap from The White Queen series.

Next up, Richard III - and Benedict Cumberbatch is shaping up nicely as a blood-chilling villain creepily kissing those babies...