The Henry VI trilogy comprises the least loved of Shakespeare’s histories. In the theatre their contorted politics – featuring many characters named after counties and cathedrals – can have the feel of a marathon run in a maze.

The latest instalment of The Hollow Crown – following on from the four plays, culminating in Henry V, which the BBC adapted in 2012 - has tidied the Henry VI plays into two two-hour films. The result, as spied from a press screening this week before the films’ broadcast in early May, is moreishly thrilling – and features a dazzling turn from one of the most talked about actors of our age.

The grand narrative arc of more than a century of dynastic conflict between Yorkists and Lancastrians is brought compellingly into focus by Ben Power’s streamlined adaptation. We rejoin the story with Henry VI (Tom Sturridge) now the nominal monarch but all power vested in his uncle, Henry V’s brother Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (Hugh Bonneville). By the end of the first film, with much blood already spilled, the spectre of hellishness to come looms in the crooked silhouette of the Duke of York’s third son, summoned into the story.