From roguish winner Patrick Mower to an impish loser who nonetheless had the last laugh and
became a knight of the realm: arise, Sir Tony Robinson! Here
in 2020 he must be one of the most prolific presenters of TV history or travel
around. Barely a week goes by without my spotting in the listings a programme
in which he walks, flies, floats, takes to the tracks or time machine for
Channels 4 or 5. I feel guilty at not watching more of them.
Trouble
is, the genre has become so congested that series tend to blend into each
other. What looks to be a repeat or re-hash may actually be a genuinely novel
look at a familiar subject – or vice-versa. Surely while filming on location
Tony must bump into other household names doing a similar thing. On a train
threading the Andes, say ‘Hi’ to Michael Portillo; trudging across a World War
1 battlefield, bid a cheery wave to Dan Snow or Ian Hislop; delve into the
Romans and expect to grapple for the best angles with Bettany Hughes or Michael
Wood; dip into the costume box for a Tudor smock and sandals only to look up to
find Lucy Worsley lording it in velvet, lace and tiara. And so on.
It
wasn’t always thus. It’s easy to forget Tony Robinson is an actor by
profession. I’m too old to have seen him on Play
Away and minor film roles also passed me by. Then in the Eighties came two
series in which his characters inhabited the past, or at least a comically
warped version of it, and the rest is – er – history.
In
1983 I recall being distinctly underwhelmed by The Black Adder. Fresh from Not
The Nine o’Clock News success, Rowan Atkinson co-wrote this 1485-set sitcom
with Richard Curtis with himself in the title role, Peter Cook as Richard III
and the little-known Tony Robinson as his servant Baldrick. All the ingredients
promised much hilarity but delivered few laughs. Like many others, I gave up
after one or two episodes. Thank goodness Ben Elton came on board for Blackadder II which aired in ’86. The
lead character became more arrogant and less stupid, while Baldrick’s IQ
took a nosedive.
With
a supporting cast of Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Rik Mayall,
Tim McInnerny et al, the series went from strength to strength. My personal
favourite is Blackadder the Third but
of course the concluding Blackadder Goes
Forth featured the jaw-dropping ‘over-the-top’ slo-mo scene fading to a
field of poppies, reminding us that for all the brilliant humour the brutal
reality of the trenches was that millions were slaughtered. All the while, the
exchanges between Edmund and Baldrick served up piles of comedy gold, the
highlights being the latter’s ‘cunning plans’,
forever doomed to fail.
Also
at the tail end of the Eighties Robinson was moved to write his own historical
comedy series Maid Marian and Her Merry Men,
cleverly subverting the over-familiar Robin Hood legend. Ostensibly a
children’s show I didn’t dream of watching it. In any case I was probably still
at work when it was broadcast. However, it gained in popularity and I was
eventually tempted to tune in and see what all the fuss was about. I became
hooked, the video henceforth set to record whenever I remembered. Like The Simpsons, Maid Marian was one of
those shows wasted on kids! Just for a change, Robinson swapped peasant attire
for the Sheriff’s garb but he was as daft as the rest of them, inevitably
outwitted by Kate Lonergan’s Marian. I came to the series far too late; I feel
a boxset-style YouTube binge approaching pronto.
Since
then, Tony Robinson has become closely associated with history documentaries or
features. However, the Baldrick connection and left-leaning politics have
combined to focus not on kings and generals but the ordinary souls affected by
the Establishment through the years. For example I occasionally caught an
episode of Worst Jobs in History. His latest is The History of Britain, again from the perspective of Mr and Mrs
Ordinary. In my opinion, one of the most fascinating historical docs of recent
times was his Great Rising of 1381.
Shown in 2004, it was a full-blown re-telling of the Peasants Revolt, complete
with familiar Brentwood locations. Robinson was a compelling and enthusiastic
presenter par excellence, revelling
in the story of the little man rising up against an oppressive regime. Of
course, Wat Tyler’s cunning plan failed – but it was a close run thing.
For
almost twenty years Tony’s historical era of focus varied from week to week.
With his hosting skills the nation fell in love with a subject notoriously
difficult to get across on telly: archaeology. Until 1994, my appetite for the
subject was rarely satisfied. Every now and again there would be an edition of
BBC2’s Chronicle or Timewatch featuring a dig but Channel
4’s Time Team refreshed the subject
for the next generation – and me. When I used to visit Mum and Dad on Sunday
afternoons, the programme became a regular part of our teatimes and I would
often tune in at home in subsequent years, albeit with decreasing frequency.
It’s
interesting to revisit Time Team now
and track the length of his hair! In the early days it gave him the appropriate
air of a greasy hippy but, as this 1997 Time Team Live from Gloucestershire shows, the lank locks were tamed. Come the 2000s, what hair remained was going
grey. Well, it happens to us all…
But
Time Team wasn’t just about Tony Robinson. The three-day time limit was
necessarily contrived but I learned a hell of a lot not only about British
history but the specialist elements of archaeology itself, from basic trowel
work but also the importance of geophysics scans, aerial photography and
computer graphics. Aided by Mick Aston’s colourful jumpers, Phil Harding’s
wonderfully rustic Wiltshire accent and the welcome feminine touch of Carenza
Lewis, each week we would be guided through a frantic dig in the hope of
finding answers to questions about the sites of, say, an Iron Age bridge, Roman
settlement or Elizabethan manor house. While the professionals did their stuff,
Robinson was effectively the viewer’s eyes and ears, scampering through mud
from trench to trench with puppy-like enthusiasm to inspect the latest
discovery of a coin, piece of masonry or, if their luck was really in, a
section of mosaic.
It was science as entertainment, with a
healthy dollop of open countryside as a bonus, even if the weather was often
dreadful. Actually, some of the locations were more urban examining, for
instance, medieval streets in York or Much Wenlock. I nursed a cruel preference
for the weeks when the team was allowed to excavate pristine lawns of a stately
home, imagining the expressions of the owners upon observing the carnage on
returning from their brief sojourn in Chamonix or Antigua.
To an academic, every site was a
potential goldmine of information but to viewers like me, the law of
diminishing returns set in. One line of stones or fragment of urn looks very
much like another and, despite the passion and zeal of the Time Team, I found
it harder to maintain the desire to make that appointment to view on Sunday
evenings. Nevertheless Tony Robinson had made his lasting mark yet again.
He
also appeals to me as a fellow socialist and campaigner for causes close to my
own heart like Make Poverty History or the doomed bid to prevent Brexit. I also
revel in the knowledge that Baldrick was knighted while the right-wing
Blackadder himself (well, Rowan Atkinson) remains at the time of writing, a
mere CBE. The outdated honours system may be an irritating anachronism but it’s
somehow reassuring that the little man, be it in lower or upper case, can once
in a while get the upper hand.
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