Red-faced loons charging into battle, political backstabbing on an industrial scale, civilisation teetering on collapse.
Yes, we’re sick of Brexit too, so let’s turn instead to season two of Marco Polo. With a budget in the millions (the streaming network is tightlipped about the precise amount) and a cast of thousands, Netflix’s historical epic is an old school romp – what Cecil B DeMille might have cooked-up put in charge of Game of Thrones for the weekend.
Marco Polo is – quelle surprise – inspired by the true life adventures of the 13th century Venetian explorer and among the first Europeans to traverse the Silk Road crossing Asia. He was also a confidante of Kublai Khan, the Mongol ruler presiding over one of the largest empires in history and it is this relationship that gives the show much of its dramatic grist. In embracing Marco as the son he never had, the Khan serves as his guide in the strange world upon which the Westerner has stumbled, whilst also putting the young man in the firing line of those who would do the Khan harm.
Season one was a big smash when released in 2014. Netflix doesn’t provide audience figures; suffice to say it wouldn’t be pumping tens of million into a second batch of episodes had the first failed to meet expectations. That the series was a hit can be regarded as a triumph in the face of stern odds as reviews were not kind. At time of writing, Marco Polo strains under – ouch – a 24% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Tellingly, the audience rating is a heartily-approving 92%. Taste-makers may have been sniffy about this old school rip-roarer but the public was of a different opinion.
Going into a second year, star Lorenzo Richelmy (Marco) feels the haters will have cause to reconsider. With Marco now closely allied to Kublai Khan (Benedict Wong) and increasingly worldly about the politics of the regent’s court, the series has gained in scope and sophistication.
“The problem is that nobody did before what we are trying to do,” explains the chatty Richelmy. “We were trying to make people understand what it was to be a Westerner in this strange, exotic world of the east. And telling a story of that scale takes time. This season, they will have a real sense of where we’re taking this. It’s also the case that we were getting better as we were doing it.”
In Ireland Marco Polo is a fringe figure. In Italy, he is part of the nation’s sense of itself. Italians naturally bristle against the Mafia caricature and believe Polo represents a different aspect of the country: outward-looking, industrious, comfortable in different worlds.
“It’s great to be able to portray a good Italian – get away from the contemporary image of the Mafia guy,” Richelmy resumes. “We want to give the audience a sense of how important Asia was to the history of the world. The Mongol Empire was the biggest of all time – much larger than the Roman or Persian. And in the West we still don’t know much about it. Through the eyes of Marco Polo, we are creating a bridge between those two different cultures.”
At a time when the rise of China is watched from the West with a mix of fear and fascination, parallels are clear.
“We are talking about the 13th century,” he nods. “Yet the issues are valid and contemporary even today.”
Marco Polo’s journey to the screen was almost as long as his trek from Venice to the Gobi Desert. Show creator John Fusco came up with the idea while traveling the Silk Road in Kazakhstan. A veteran TV producer, in his spare time he is an explorer of Central Asia. Marco Polo would, he realised, be a perfect means of communicating that passion to the world. He pitched the idea to Harvey Weinstein and struck a deal with the Starz network to shoot in China. But relations broke down, at which point Netflix stepped in, and production switched to Mongolia.
“Harvey had been thinking about the same sort of idea for a while,” Fusco told me in 2014. “He and I had been working on some Asian-themed projects such as a sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. So he was interested in doing a Marco Polo series. With Netflix,it’s been great chemistry and a great combination. I always knew I wanted it to be a TV series rather than a movie: there have been film versions of Marco Polo where you try to tell the whole story in two hours – it doesn’t work.”
“It’s a story about globalisation,” continued Fusco. “That makes it really relevant. The Silk Road trade route was the first information superhighway. It was a conduit for cultural, spiritual and technological interchange. Marco Polo was the earliest bridge between east and west – he met Kublai Khan, the world’s superpower of the time.”

Season two of Marco Polo has just arrived on Netflix.