As you might have gleaned from my review of 1066: The Battle for Middle Earth I like a bit of Anglo-Saxon history - and what's possibly the greatest and most influential artifact we have from that era? No, not the helmet from Sutton Hoo (not for the purposes of this review in any case...), but the text of Beowulf, an epic poem of heroes and monsters, paganism and Christianity, action and fate. No Poetry Season would be complete without a look at this great work, and I can think of no-one better to guide us through those mighty lines than the ever-passionate Michael Wood.

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Wood starts his analysis of Beowulf by showing how we are closer to Anglo-Saxons than we may think, thanks to our connection through language. All the fundamental words we use - those do with the likes of feelings and family - come straight from Anglo-Saxon and, as 'language is thought', this is a hugely strong link.

Forget the theory, though, the best way in which this documentary connects the viewer with the poem is through its performance by Julian Glover. He speaks it in modern English, but with the characteristic kennings and word order retained, and important lines in the original thrown in. He utters those awesome lines ("his fate hovered near - unknowable, but certain" "heaven swallowed the smoke") in a straight-forward but authoritative manner - and it's pretty mesmerising.

Inter-cut with passages from the poem are pieces from Wood of course, which place the text in a historical context. To do this, he first goes to British Museum to see the sole remaining manuscript - which has never been filmed before. He's incredibly excited, and rightly so. The manuscript is badly burned, but we can see that Beowulf was collected with other stories, all of which are to do with monsters and outsiders; main themes in Beowulf itself.

He wants to go back further, however, to find out where the inspiration for many themes and ideas in the poem might have come from. At the aforementioned Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, where the "ghost of a ship" was discovered, Wood sees that the idea of passing important gifts from king to loyal subject (the kenning "ryng-gifa / ring-giver" is often used in the poem for "king") was very real, and he explains that the Suffolk landscape, with its marshy fens and misty waters, may have provided direct inspiration for Grendle's dwelling-place.

Wood then moves on from Suffolk to various locations all over the British isles which have a connection with some aspect of Beowulf. He goes to Jarrow to uncover the religious heart of the poem, and explain how, despite the fact that Beowulf is set in pagan times, it is imbued with the Christianity of the monk which would have transcribed it. And then to Scotland, to see an Anglo-Saxon cross which bears the text of another great poem 'The Dream of the Rood', which combines the pagan tree of life with the Christian cross. And finally to a Wiltshire monastery - importantly the only one known to have had access to all of the stories found in the same manuscript as Beowulf.

As you can tell, this documentary covered a lot of ground, and each location Wood visited could easily fill an hour's documentary on its own. As such, the programme did jump around quite a lot, and at times it threatened to unravel - but thankfully, it was all held together by that wonderful performance of one of Britain's greatest poems.