Grace Dent on TV: The Musketeers, BBC1

I tried very hard on three separate occasions to enjoy BBC1’s new much heralded buckle of swash The Musketeers. And by the third attempt realised I’d written one note on my pad which said, “Musketeers? Bored to tears, more like! AM I RIGHT?”, which is neither a terribly pithy joke or particularly constructive smite, but was simply all I could muster.From my first viewing, last Sunday evening, all I gathered was that this was a tale of a lot of very thin-skinned French men with British accents, clad in billowing pantaloons, with epidermis that required a good steam-clean. And blimey, were they all narked about something. Something about Louis XIII. Something about avenging the death of someone. Well, whatever it was, there was a whole heap of chasing one another through cobbly sets filled with extras titivated to be French peasants. Much falling into hay and galloping about on ponies, much kissing of wenches, Peter Capaldi clipping about being scurrilous in a codpiece, very, very loud orchestral accompaniment to denote great tension, even when none is apparent.

I had, and continue to have, no strong feelings about the actual four musketeers themselves. Aside from that Luke Pasqualino playing D’Artagnan is very, very pretty. But this we all knew already as he was handsome in Skins and had blossomed into even more of a joy in The Borgias. The remaining musketeers are a knobbly, warring cacophony of testosterone. A walking ongoing paternity suit. This show should be sponsored by Lynx Apollo.