Archie

Archie is a fixture of Peter's court, an aging courtier who has learned that survival in Russia means saying yes before you've heard the question. He hovers near power, agreeable and unbothered by principle, ready to laugh at the Emperor's jokes and vanish when the mood turns dangerous.

Adam Godley plays him with a wonderful weariness, the specific comic exhaustion of a man who has flattered a dozen tyrants and expects to flatter a dozen more. The show uses him as a barometer for the court's absurdity, and Godley's dry, unbothered delivery turns every scene he's in slightly funnier than it has any right to be.