history on television

The thing is that C5 are turning televised general history back precisely 0 years, generally - it has always been like that. Which makes sense to the conservative producer - a filmed Braudel (say) would have to be done brilliantly not to be an almighty yawn, so bring on the battles. But that's not to say it couldn't be done brilliantly. Someone certainly should do Montaillou on TV.

The best history stuff on TV recently was The Century Of The Self, channel 4's fantastic 20th century history of psychoanalysis, business and marketing - polemic but not polemic in a way that prevented enjoyment. I think The [x] House programmes have potential too, but I've never actually watched any.

As for books though - they are no better for the most part. C5's stuff is just the equivalent of those history-for-kids books like "Vicious Vikings", "Terrible Tudors" etc - though Isabel tells me those are actually quite good. Incidentally there's a grebt one on the "Awful Americans" (title paraphrased) which would do Pilger proud!

Ktee largely right I fear. Doing history well on TV *extremely* difficult unless it's very specific, and if it's very specific (and not about fuXXoring Hitler) no one watches.

I also liked episodes of the Secret History programme, which focussed on stuff They don't want you to know about. Like when the Parisian police massacred between 500 and 2000 arabs in 1960.

That War Of The Century programme was very good, as were the episodes of The Cold War I've seen. Or that series about the breakup of Yugoslavia. They really used the medium very well - first hand accounts by participants and witnesses have a lot more power when you can see the people talking rather than just reading the words off a page. This is especially true when the people are squirmingly trying to justify having done very bad things.

The Third Reich in Colour has to be the nadir, one of humanities darkest moments dressed up for empty voyeuristic entertainment.

This is pretty much the counterpart of the sketchy animated diagrams of Scrapheap Challenge (Junkyard Wars) or the computer reconstructions of Time Team. All are ostensiably educational gameshows - a merging of formulas which was not as radical as my "cookery drama" I pitched to C4 a few years ago which they declined. Barstards.

I think it is good that hostory documentaries are going back to having a more authorial voice. This suggests that history is subjective which o'course it is.

I also like plasticine-skull recreations, just generally, and David Starkey might be tv for people who don't like it, but primarily he is a person for people who don't like people.

Okay it was a mixture of This Life and Cooks On Tour with a sports based theme. Taking a group of six twenty five year olds who had lived together we join the series on their final night in the house where they agree to a World Cup Dining Society - this is also the name of the show. (See previous messages on how this works).

Novelites of the show is that it is monthly (last week of the month when the people it is aimed at have no money and stay in and watch more TV). The intertwining love lives of the characters organically brings in other characters - people drop in and out and it is cheap to make because it is all set in a (different) restaurant every month.

Between start and ad break one we meet the characters again, we have a naturally chatrty breakdown of what they have been up to. End by ordering their meal. Between ad break 1 and ad break 2 we follow the waiter into the kitchen to watch the chef prepare one of the meals (be it Brazillian or German...) then we return after ad break two for more drama and usually a cliff hanger.

A format you have to admit is well ahead of its time and I'd sell it to HBO is there were more than two countries in the World Series.

Try the History Channel, which seems to be 40% WWII, 20% Nazis, 10% WWI, 20% serial killers and 10% what I suppose they consider 'miscellaneous' (i. e. tanks and planes). I love it, obv., but concede people interested in history might want some other things considered from time to time.

My mom and I freely admit to being fans of the way Schama presents things. There's something so agreeably off about it. :-)

The big problem with history on TV is graphics, the seeming need to do dramatisations which are usually more convincing as FACT that a punter wandering around saying what he reckons happened (and more importantly why he reckons it happened).

Channel Fives history of torture was gebt.

I'm racking my BRANES tryina think of the name of that BBC2 guy (not Adam Hart) who does those programmes on Battlefields and weaponry thru the ages. He's fantastic! He's certainly a looney, one of my fave moments on one of his shows was his attempt to, in all seriousness, re-create a battle single-handedly by wearing a helmet and a couple of bits of armour over his tweed suit and running across a field swinging a sword about. I was chuckling for ages after that.
'You're History' is the best source for balanced historical info though.

But those books ARE on TV! There's a cartoon series based on them on CITV and it's great! Two kids, accompanied by a voice-over, travel through time and get into hilarious scrapes by accidentally offending the people from the Olden Days with their crazy modern talk.

THIS IS AKIN TO DISCOVERING THAT THE GUARDIAN FEATURES WRITER SEAN O'HAGAN WAS NOT IN MICRODISNEY.

OR THAT THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF CHANNEL 4 WAS NEVER IN THE JACKSON 5.

I did think it odd that he was such a polymath.

What's wrong with progs about the mighty brits bashing the evil nazis? Better'n wife swap.

(That said, tonight's episode is about the liberation of Belsen so we shall see if this is handled tastefully or what.)

OK, I need to stop this NOW. Can someone find the off-switch in my brain, please?

it was on the same night as the first ep of robert carlyle as hitler and i watched both w.my mum and dad and that night we all had v.weird dreams

Because I found ERRORS in the NS WWII series, which upsets me greatly. They were talking about a "Ca-DAAAAH-ver" from the mortuary at St. Stephen's and showed vintage looking footage of a West London Hospital. Except! I thought "Hang on, that hospital looks familiar - wait a minute - I WORK THERE!!!" and wound the tape backwards and it was not St. Stephens, but clearly St. Mary's. (Unless of course, St. Mary's was formerly called St. Stephen's before the war, and I'm unaware of this, but surely, it would say something on the intranet site if this were so, cause they talk about the namechange of the QEQM and the Samaritans Hospital being brought into our NHS Trust and all.)

/end of rant

(ie sell the prog as ALIENS: DID THEY BUILD THE PARTHENON WITH THE USE OF NAKED SLAVE CHIxOrZ? then have serious historians from eg Yale discussing actual interesting historical stuff abt ther parthenon and never even mentioning aliens!!)

also TIME COMMANDERS is a brilliant use of the computer-game idea

but i still dislike s.schama bcz his conclusion is always "but none of this applies any more as the world is run by nice ppl like us"

I like C5's bait and switch tactics, because their historians are generally hornier than naked chicks anyway. And the guy they got to play Alexander the Great looked just like Thom Yorke!

That's it, Mark, you can no longer be my friend.

Time Team is sacred. It is the year dot of archeology programmes. Even if Serious Archeologists (like HSA's mum) pretend to hate it and rubbish it, THEY STILL SOMEHOW WATCH EVERY SINGLE EPISODE!!!

Anyway, what do we think of historical reenactments, anyway?

Because the Vikings always wear horned helmets in them, and that's just wrong.

I like Tony Soprano's taste in docs:

General Patton's tactics were controversial, but he bashed the evil Nazis like a mofo

Invade where?

(Though really I've decided that I generally just don't like BBC1 or BBC2 history programs. I only ever seem to watch them on C4 or C5 lately, though, honestly, C4 has been slipping...)

And Mark S is right on the money about TT being a gardening programme.

(Though it would be greatly enlivened by Nigel Spivey)

Oh look a watercolour painting showing what it was like over the top of a film of the location .... again........

I didn't see the Pompei thing. However, Carry On Pompei (actually I think it was called Up Pompei!) was brilliant.

"gardening programme" = classification kate, not hatred
(viz there is EARTH and they dig in it in wellies => gardening programme)

Total guesswork, btw.

So archeology is just gardening, eh? Tell that to HSA's mum! Hah! (Wait, though, since she retired from actual archeology, she does seem to spend a lot of time gardening, so maybe you have a point.)

plutarch <=> plautus
see my memory is all smeary :(

Knackers - too late.

dominic sandbrook is so insufferable