I found this 2009 Lord Byron documentary on YouTube, aptly titled “The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron.”

Actor Rupert Everitt is the host. To Americans he is probably most familiar for his role as “George” in My Best Friend’s Wedding, starring Julia Roberts.

I found him off-putting at first. He’s a bit enamored with himself, his jokes fall flat, and his crass comments on Byron’s sex life can be jarring in the context of a BBC documentary. He also enjoys taking his clothes off for the camera, but I suppose that’s intended to titillate viewers. But at least he’s having fun, and even if he’s not a Byron scholar, his enthusiasm is sincere. Considering that the major premise of the show is to draw parallels between a celebrity-actor host and his admittedly narcissistic subject, you can’t fault him for succeeding.

A highlight for me was his strolling amid the ruins of a castle in Albania, where Byron visited the region’s powerful ruler, Ali Pasha. After walking past graffiti that read “Tupac 2008” and descending through a passage awash with trash bags, Everitt and his guide stepped beneath the same gateway Byron did 200 years earlier, to behold a beautiful vista of the surrounding mountains and valley below.