Plus: the top five Horrible Histories songs!
“Did you know that the Egyptians pulled the brain out through the nose?”
“YESISAWITONHORRIBLEHISTORIES. Did YOU know that…”
And then they launch into a barrage of things that I didn’t know, but pretend to in order to save face. If Horrible Histories does anything, it demands us educators learn topics properly, instead of relying on stock trivia-bites. Annoying? Absolutely. But also fantastic. The kids I meet not only know more about history than I did at their age, they know more than I do now. What’s more, they are as excited to parrot it off as they were for Ben 10 monsters two years back.
So I started watching, just to keep up. Horrible Histories is vaguely based on a series of kids books which retell history in a manner gory, silly, and filled with characteristically lame puns: The Vile Victorians, The Cuthroat Celts, The Terrible Tudors, and soforth. Ex-teacher Terry Deary was not a historian, just someone the publishers could trust to bash out a good book in two weeks. He did not expect the series’ international success, but his contempt for the school system provided the perfect base to create accessible and entertaining books for children. In interview:
I’ve no interest in schools, they have no relevance in the 21st century…At my school there were 52 kids in the class and all I learned was how to pass the 11-plus. Testing is the death of education…Everything I learned after 11 was a waste of time. Trigonometry, Boyle’s law: it’s never been of any use to me. They should have been teaching me the life skills I was going to need, such as building relationships, parenting and managing money. I didn’t have a clue about any of these things at 18. Schools need to change.
As such, the Horrible Histories books aren’t linked to any Key Stage, or supporting any learning initiative. They simply present an egalitarian collection of cool historical things for its own sake – complete with poop jokes.
There had been one previous attempt to launch the series as an animated TV show in 2001, but in 2009 a new live-action series burst into life. No longer just for the kids, Horrible Histories gained a considerable cult following among adults. This is not surprising with a glance at the crew’s collective CV: Peep Show, Armstrong and Miller, Green Wing, Alan Partridge, French and Saunders, Dead Ringers, and so on. This is kids entertainment written by seasoned, grown-up comedians – and it shows. The series has been featured in a BBC Prom special, and became the first children’s program to win Best Sketch Show at the British Comedy Awards in 2010 and once more in 2011. Meanwhile, elsewhere, the fangirls are out in force. “Why can’t one of the Horrible Histories cast just marry me?”, one wonders on Tumblr. “Of course I like Ben the most but I really am not fussy. All of them are so gorgeous and fill my heart with joy.” Polling my friends: “Mat Baynton, no doubt” “I’d do him”; “Dominique Moore is also a superhotty”, and a couple of other responses typed with a single hand and accordingly not fit for public decency.
Like any many sketch shows, Horrible Histories is formulaic. A regular band of comic actors recreate scenes from history, during which unbelievable true facts are pointed out with a flashing “This Actually Happened” sign. Among the regular skits are “The [history] report”, a frantic fact-packed dash through a historical period in the style of a weather report, and the Savage Songs – which have evolved gradually from broad stylistic pastiches to perfect parodies. Cleopatra as Gaga? I’m in.
It’s good comedy, but it’s as a history program that it truly stands out. Entertainment is never at the expense of perfect accuracy. TV historian Dan Snow was dismissive:
It’s fun, harmless stuff. But it isn’t a serious look at the past. It’s one step above Blackadder…We shouldn’t try to dress it up as brilliant history.
I’m not so sure. Take their RAF Pilots Song, which has exactly 2 minutes forty to explain the Battle of Britain to viewers. That it does so, while going out of its way to explain that many of the bravest pilots were Polish and Czech, is a stroke of brilliance. We don’t need to know this – both the Battle and the song makes as much sense with or without, but it chooses to go there anyway. This is not history for bluffers, but dense and fact-packed. The song gives us dates and combatants, but we’ve also learnt something about the way history is malleable: contrary to the stereotype of British heroics, contrary to what you’d expect or may have been told by lesser shows, many of the pilots were not English at all. And check out The Ages of Stone – scat jazz on mammoth ivories. No simplistic, One Million Years B.C. stone age here – the song explains Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens are different groups, reminds us that dinosaurs and cave men never co-existed, and that the human race fanned out from Africa. And then there’s this bit:
This is where it starts to,
Get all scientific.
Palaeolithic’s followed by,
The era Mesolithic.Then Neanderthals are wiped out,
By the ice age – horrific!
After which the Neolithic age,
Was terrific.
And perhaps this is the true genius of Horrible Histories. The show trusts its viewers to keep up with an astonishing level of information. Children have a strong sense of when they are being patronised, and I believe its this as much as the daft songs and fart jokes that keeps them – and us – watching.
To celebrate the show – and calm those impatient for Series 5 – here’s our take on the five greatest Savage Songs:
1. Natural Selection – Charles Darwin does Bowie’s Changes
“My findings met with outrage from the Ch-ch-ch-ch-church…”
Seductive winks, 40s tashes, and very, very gay. What’s not to like about dancing prettyboys in uniform…?
Again: I love this song for randomly chucking out there that one Borgia was the model for Machiavelli’s Prince. And trusts that kids will either know, or find out, what that means.
4. The English Kings and Queens Song
No parody here – just a frenetic, catchy chronological list of monarchs, complete with biographical tidbits, and a chorus that’s guaranteed to save your arse at the pub quiz. All together now! William, William, Henry, Steven, Henry, Richard, John – OI!
5. The Ages of Stone – scat jazz
“Dinosaurs, Neanderthals,
Let’s make this clearer.
Didn’t live together,
Came from different eras…”
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