The bygone era of the historical drama is officially over. Instead, we have entered the age of the historical romp.

Take My Lady Jane, Prime’s latest historical series, which offers up a revisionist, fantastical version of Lady Jane Grey’s doomed rise to power in Tudor England. “This is an epic tale of true love and high adventure set in an alt-universe of action, history, fantasy, comedy, romance and rompy-pompy. Buckle up,” reads the official description. Then there’s The Decameron, an upcoming Netflix show that is based on mid-14th century short stories about a group of wealthy Italians who took refuge in a villa outside of Florence as the Black Death swept across the country. Naturally, this will be, as Netflix states, a “wine-soaked sex romp in the Italian countryside”. Sky’s Mary & George, another historical retelling, was billed as “an audacious historical psychodrama”. There are many, many others: Netflix’s Bridgerton and, more recently, The Buccaneers; Hulu’s The Great; and Prime’s The Serpent Queen, to name a few.

Why is every historical drama a ‘romp’? Unpacking the TV trend