James R | On 21, Apr 2023

The Great will officially return to our screens this July, and a new image gives us a first look at Season 3.

The satirical history drama – created by Tony McNamara – retells the story of Catherine the Great, the longest reigning female ruler in Russia’s history. It is the fictionalised, fun and anachronistic story of an idealistic, romantic young girl, who arrives in Russia for an arranged marriage to the mercurial Emperor Peter. Hoping for love and sunshine, she finds instead a dangerous, depraved, backward world that she resolves to change.

Season 3 sees Catherine (Elle Fanning) and Peter (Nicholas Hoult) attempt to make their marriage work after some seemingly insurmountable problems. Peter is at a loose end playing First Husband to Catherine’s reign, so he busies himself with fathering, hunting and salty culinary ventures. But they’re not enough to keep him contented as visions of his late father (played by Jason Isaacs) get in his head about his failures as Peter the Great’s son. Catherine the Great starts making a name for herself beyond her borders and, inspired by a visit from the US ambassador, sets up a conference where peasants, nobles and merchants can all give their input on developing a new Russia. She learns that even the best political leaders sometimes need to make compromises in order to progress.

In addition to Fanning and Hoult, Season 3 also stars Phoebe Fox as Marial, Adam Godley as the Archbishop, Gwilym Lee as Grigor Dymov, Charity Wakefield as Georgina, Douglas Hodge as Velementov, Sacha Dhawan as Orlo, Belinda Bromilow as Aunt Elizabeth, Florence Keith-Roach as Tatyana and Bayo Gbadamosi as Arkady.

You can see them together again on Friday 14th July, when the first episode premieres on Lionsgate+ – with new episodes then arriving weekly.

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