The Three Musketeers is a triumph – because, like Game of Thrones, no one is safe

‘Pshaw!’ That was my first reaction to news of the BBC’s new ten-part Sunday night adaptation of The Three Musketeers. After all, wasn’t it about a fortnight ago I was in the Gaumont in Redditch watching the classic 1973 movie version that had just come out with Michael York (and Oliver Reed and Roy Kinnear…)? And wasn’t it roughly the day before yesterday that I remember tut-tutting and refusing point-blank to go to see the 1993 Hollywood bratpack travesty with those upstarts Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland? This is what happens when you get old: time compresses; there’s nothing new under the sun; everything people younger than you do seems somehow to be a damned impertinence. So, no, I really didn’t fancy The Musketeers’ (BBC1) survival prospects in the Delingpole household. I gave it half an hour max. At the end of the first episode, though, I was still happily watching.