TV Review – Horrible Histories (CBBC on BBC One)
Terry Dreary’s Historical Children’s Books go Live Action on Telly
Apr 16, 2009
Terry Dreary’s Horrible Histories series have been some of the most popular children’s books of the last 15 years. The mix of humour and trivial history, which usually focuses on the nasty side of the past, has proved to be educational as well as entertaining (or edutaining, if you like buzz words). It’s a wonder then why it has taken the BBC so long to base a show on it, considering the Australian’s got there first with an animated series in 2001.
Horrible Histories is Blackadder for Kids
Horrible Histories is basically an amalgamation of sketch comedy, animation sequences and education. It even contains random on screen factoids to explain certain words or to confirm whether something was true or not and the occasional multiple choice question – such as cavemen used moss as toilet paper. There were also parodies of other programmes; there was a Ready Steady Cook about disgusting food for soldiers and a home shopping channel for Stone Age tools (all of them sharp rocks).
The series is in keeping with the books by racing through different sections of history stopping only to throw up the gruesome bits that youngsters like. It’s almost like Blackadder for kids as it went from the poor conditions in World War I trenches, Roman gladiator school, a health and safety friendly pirate code and even to Vikings as hygiene obsessed metrosexuals.
Not Perfect but still Funnier than Many Modern BBC Sketch Shows
As a straight up comedy it’s actually far funnier than expected as the skits were about something rather than just being plain silly for the sake of it, something most comedians forget to do when writing sketches. The pirate black spot sketch and the corrupt way of voting during the Georgian era were good, so too was the four King Georges singing a Westlife style ballad about their lives.
It’s not easy to write humour aimed at children that isn’t just an endless stream of fart jokes and people falling over, but the brains behind Horrible Histories have managed to stay out of that trap. The host, a rat puppet called Rattus Rattus (the scientific name for a black rat), is however really annoying. Although it only turns up every five minutes the poor puns and naff gags aren’t needed.
Future episodes are set to feature Ancient Egypt, The Tudors, Medieval monsters and Greek gods, each one bound to be full of more weird and wonderful details. The opener wasn’t perfect but as a children’s programme that aims to be educational and fun it seems to do the job.
The 13-part series of Horrible Histories is shown on BBC One every Thursday at 4.35pm.
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