by John Plunkett)
He gave the nation a glimpse of his role as Doctor Who on Christmas Day, but before that series returns viewers will first have a chance to re-examine the political machinations of Peter Capaldi, as he takes on the role of Cardinal Richelieu in BBC1's gritty, updated take on the tale of the Three Musketeers.
The 10-part drama, which will begin next month and appears destined for a Saturday-night slot, is a modern take on the Alexandre Dumas tale without doing what its writer Adrian Hodges described as the "full Sherlock".
The feathers and the tabards are gone – fans of the 1973 Richard Chamberlain film will be disappointed – and in their place is a world that is a "bit smelly, a bit dirty", said Hodges. "But it's still about heroes," he said. "There are lots of anti-heroes on TV, and there is always room in the world for heroes."
The ghost of Malcom Tucker, the foul-mouthed spin doctor memorably portrayed by Capaldi over seven years of The Thick of It, inevitably hangs heavy. Capaldi, said Hodges, has an "extraordinary quicksilver mind. He can be funny, mercurial and extremely deadly, often in the same sentence.
"You bring that little bit of people's association with [Tucker's] character. Peter wouldn't have done it if he was just the Sheriff of Nottingham. You've got to give Peter ambiguity, a real character," said Hodges.
"Richelieu was a great moderniser; he wasn't a villain, he was pragmatic. If someone is in the way and the only way of getting them out of the way is to kill them, then that's what he will do, but he won't do it because he likes killing people."
Even Tucker never did that, although there are echoes of the way he dealt with ineffectual MPs as the cardinal inveigles King Louis XIII to do his bidding. "We had one moment where Peter said, 'I can't really say that, it's kind of similar to something I said in The Thick of It'," recalled Hodges. "The truth is you write the character before the actor is cast. Nobody can be unaware of how brilliant he was in that role; he is going to bring a little bit of that to it, just like every great actor does."
Hodges' updating includes a mixed-race Porthos, played by newcomer Howard Charles. "He was born in the 'court of miracles', the 17th-century version of the ghetto," said Charles. A long roll call of guest stars includes Vinnie Jones, Tara Fitzgerald, Ashley Waters, John Lynch and Sean Pertwee.
Unusually for a story about the musketeers perhaps, it also features a number of prominent roles for women. "In modernising the series, we wanted the women to be as equally powerful and impressive as the men," Jessica Pope, its executive producer, said.
As well as Fitzgerald, who plays the king's mother, the cast includes Maimie McCoy, who starred as the young Joyce Hatto in Victoria Wood's BBC1 drama Loving Miss Hatto, as Milady de Winter, and Tamla Kari, who was in The Inbetweeners Movie and BBC3 sitcom Cuckoo, as D'Artagnan's love interest, Constance Bonacieux.
Pope said it was important for modern audiences to have a range of characters they can relate to. "We tried to have women who had a real sense of their own destiny and weren't just add-ons to the main event."
Filmed over six months in the Czech Republic – chosen above rival locations such as Dublin and Canada because it most closely resembled 17th-century Paris – the BBC hopes it will be a global hit. Co-funded by the corporation's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, it will air in the US on the cable channel BBC America.
"The story is known almost everywhere, which helps," said Hodges. "Will it work in America? I haven't got a bloody clue, but what you hope is it works everywhere."
If it is not the "full Sherlock", a modern-day version of the story – "That wouldn't work. Would they be the SAS or something?" said Hodges – then neither is it the "full Game of Thrones".
"It's an adult show that is nevertheless accessible to the whole family," said Hodges. He explained in more detail: "We don't have a lot of swearing, full nudity or Peckinpah levels of blood. But what we do have is a show that feels real, that approaches sexuality and the violence of the age, and where actions have consequences."
Hodges, whose previous credits include BBC1's Survivors and Primeval on ITV, said he hoped the show, which touches on issues such as slavery and domestic terrorism, would resonate with the present day. "It isn't hard to parallel the hatred the Catholics felt for the Huguenots with people of different religious persuasions now," he said
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