Ripped bodices and slashings - must be the return of Game of Thrones

The returning Game of Thrones exuded cinematic sweep and a wide-screen grandeur so it was fitting Sky had chosen to hold a preview of the forthcoming fifth season — attended by cast members Liam Cunningham and Michael McElhatton — at Dublin’s Irish Film Institute.

After a year of maddening anticipation, fans will be pleased to know the swords and sorcery romp, back on Sky Atlantic on April 13, has not mellowed. In the first half hour of the opening episode, bodices were ripped, throats slashes and random body parts exposed.

But all were overshadowed by a creepy flashback in which a young Cersei Lannister (played as an adult by Lena Headey) received a Macbeth-like prophecy from a fetid crone, to the effect that all her children would die young.