King Alfred the Great

Alfred is the pious, ailing younger son of Wessex's king, more comfortable with scripture and law than with a sword. As the Danes carve up England, he watches and calculates, using faith and cunning rather than brute strength to hold his fragile kingdom together, and to hold power close.

David Dawson plays Alfred as a man whose frailty is a kind of weapon: the trembling hands and pained piety mask a ruthless political intelligence. The show lets him be simultaneously sympathetic and infuriating, a visionary who will sacrifice anyone, including friends, for the England he's building in his head.