There is one date in British history that everyone knows. Kids might not know quite why they know it, but it will ring a bell for them in any case. For the rest of us, it’s the day poor Harold got an arrow through the eye, the Normans invaded, and we started saying ‘regal’ as well as ‘kingly’ (and other such Frenchified words). A worthy subject for a dramatisation then, certainly – it’s just a shame that this one is so terribly leaden.

Related: Documentaries on TV Scoop

I’m not really sure why programme-makers persist in making docu-dramas, they so seldom work. Usually, in trying to capture elements of a factual documentary and emotive drama, something is lost from both genres, and that is certainly the case here.

There is some interesting history here – despite studying this period myself, for example, I didn’t know that the Vikings had a go at invading literally just before William the Conqueror popped over the Channel, meaning we were completely under-prepared and under-resourced for the Norman attack. Unfortunately, though, the ‘drama’ part of this docu-drama is generally pretty rubbish, so you end up laughing at the poor dialogue rather than listening to the facts…

The attempt is clearly to give a human backdrop to the battle for English soil, but it’s all much too simplistic. The Vikings, for example, are generally the stereotyped raping and pillaging types – I was taught that there was actually quite a lot of common ground in terms of language and heritage between the Vikings and northern Brits, but there’s not much of that on show here. “We are learning to trade” says one Viking as he slits an Anglo-Saxon throat, “but some of us are rather slow.” It’s like the Martians screeching “We come in peace!” in Mars Attacks.

Add to this some over-earnest narration (“Poor farmers – how could you have known?”), disappointing production values, and a lack of any genuine emotion which would make the drama part of this exercise worthwhile, and it all adds up to something – as you might have gathered – not that great. The thing is, I’m genuinely interested in this period of our history, but far from an expert in it, and I would love to sit down to nice hefty documentary telling me the story of this confused, brutal time… just not this one.