This learning lessons from the past is a depressing business

Watching the BBC's new history documentary Civilisations: Rise and Fall (BBC2, Mon, 9pm) brought to mind the great philosophers George Santayana and Shirley Bassey.

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George, of course, said: “Those who can't remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”

Shirley - with The Propellerheads - told us that “it seems quite clear that it’s all just a little bit of history repeating”.

And that was hammered home by this glossy new series, which features the combination of expert talking heads and mute dramatised tableaux that worked so well for previous documentaries like The Rise of the Nazis.

An hour-long, this first episode spent the first five minutes giving us an introduction to this instalment’s subject - the fall of Rome - before introducing the series as a whole, telling us it’s about “challenges that are all too familiar today: Climate catastrophe, pandemic, war”.

Not exactly a laugh-a-minute, we then had an illuminating canter through the end of days in fifth century Rome, beset by administration problems, led by a child emperor, and with a refugee crisis of its own to contend with.