ALIAS GRACE, NETFLIX

AT last. Alias Grace will be getting some attention.

This is my favourite Margaret Atwood novel though, of course, The Handmaid’s Tale has been grabbing all the headlines recently thanks to the brilliant TV adaptation on Channel 4.

There may be a slight lull in Handmania while the second series goes into production, so let’s use this time to remind ourselves that Margaret Atwood has written a zillion other great books, and that this might be her best (at least I think so).

It’s a historical drama set in 19-century Canada, and based on a real-life murder case.

Grace Marks was a servant in the 1840s and was sent to jail for a horrible double-murder which shocked the country. Not only was this nice and placid Canada, but surely women couldn’t commit such violence?

A psychiatrist meets Grace to find out how such a quiet, servile woman could commit such a crime. Is this down to insanity and, if so, can she be pardoned?

EIGHT DAYS THAT MADE ROME, C5, 9pm

LET’S not forget that Channel 5 sometimes produces good stuff, and the presenter, Bettany Hughes, is one to be trusted. She is a historian, an author and has even presented historical series on BBC4! What more credibility can one have?

Tonight she tells the story of the slave revolt led by Spartacus. We all know it from Hollywood, now here’s a fact-based approach. It is 73BC and Spartacus is held in a gladiator school where he is forced to entertain the Roman elites. He breaks out and starts a revolt with his fellow slaves which strikes panic into the heart of Rome: it’d be bad enough having angry slaves after you, never mind slaves who are muscular, superior, and trained to kill.

Beside the drama, Hughes offers her perspective on the revolt, showing that it played a part in the eventual downfall of Rome.