A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms mixes coarse comedy with moral depth

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, a new instalment in the Game of Thrones franchise, airs Monday 19 January at 9pm on Sky Atlantic and takes a deliberately coarse, comic approach that sits chronologically between the original series and House of the Dragon. The opening is startling — a lumbering figure relieving himself behind a tree — and the story follows Dunk, a lower-status “hedge knight” who sleeps under trees and is reminded that “any knight can make a knight.” Much of the first episode plays out on a featureless moor, with Dunk keeping lonely company with three horses, appearing dim-witted, penniless and naive, and grieving a recently deceased, alcoholic mentor.

Played by Peter Claffey, a former rugby union player from Galway, Dunk is paired with a new squire, Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell), and embarks on a simple-sounding journey to a tourney where he tries to get on the ballot, falls for a girl and takes part in a tug-of-war. The six short episodes avoid overstretching George RR Martin’s source novella, and the show repeatedly subverts expectations, moving between coarse slapstick and sharper revelations.

The reviewer describes the series as “Game of Thrones at its best,” noting its political complexity, bone-snapping violence and concern with family and inheritance.

Key Topics

Culture, Westeros, Sky Atlantic, Dunk, Egg, Peter Claffey