Prof Mary Beard says historical reconstructions are “excruciating” and she agrees to front TV documentaries only if there is a ban on anyone appearing in period costume.

The TV presenter and historian said she would tell producers there must be “no drama reconstructions in any programme made by me; no B-list actors dressed up in sheets, saying ‘Do pass the grapes, Marcus.’

“I insisted … there should be none of those awful scenes where some none-too-good actors pretend to be Romans at a banquet or recreate the scene of the death of Socrates or whatever,” Beard will say in a speech to the Voice of the Listener and Viewer, a consumer group that champions public service broadcasting.

“I’m not talking about the excellent [broadcaster] Lucy Worsley here; Lucy trying clothes on is rather different.”

Beard, a professor of classics at Cambridge University, will say she finds drama reconstruction “excruciating to watch”, adding that there is a “bigger historical issue at stake”.

She will tell the audience: “It can show you that rich Romans sometimes had posh dinners lying down. But it does so at a great historical cost. Because it simply offers the viewer a version of the past that is readymade for them.”

Beard will also speak about how she was edited out of more of the US broadcast of the BBC series Civilisations than the two men who fronted other episodes. “What they were really doing was removing the argument, and as almost all my pieces to camera were driven by the argument, they just went,” Beard will say.

• Prof Mary Beard will deliver the Jocelyn Hay Lecture 2018 at 6.30pm on Tuesday 23 October to The Voice Of The Listener And Viewer conference.