As we awake to a new American president we can take a crumb of comfort by reflecting that however bad things may seem at the present it was by any measure worse at some stage in the past (take your pick). Terry Deary’s Horrible Histories series of books and subsequent stage productions take as their starting point the fact that things were, once upon a real time, pretty grim for all concerned. The second tool in the box is the recognition that we all love a good lip-curling grimace in the face of history’s nasty bits; add in the fact that for children those are often the most tasty bits. I remember a physics teacher, Mr Hoffman, who would start his lessons by regaling us with some of the more inventive things that humans used to do to humans by way of torture. Hardly physics, but he had our attention. (Sadly on the torture front little has changed, but that’s another story)
What then shall we call the Horrible Histories as they canter sword-swishingly and boil-lancingly through the memory palace of history – ‘edutainment’ perhaps? This is a children’s show sure enough: all the squelchy bits are there and no head is left un-severed. The writers, Terry Deary and Neal Foster, understand children’s sense of humour and are not afraid to meet it and shake hands in public. I smiled at the hoots of laughter when Boudicca was mistakenly (and repeatedly) referred to as ‘Boobicca’. These are such stuff as squeals are made on (apologies to WS).
The whole show, a two hander, takes the form in the main of music-hall patter with the two actors, Neal Foster and Alison Fitzjohn batting for and against the proposal that Britain is barmy – or at least was. The pace never lets up in the dash from Celtic through to Victorian Britain during which both performers frequently dissolve into panto style silliness, much to the delight of all. Along the way we learn the grim truth about the Black Death and meet a whipping boy, a wiper of the king’s bottom and a rapping Queen Vic amongst many others. The actors are a delight and deliver the show with great verve, versatility and in Ms Fitzjohn’s case (being self-confessedly no stranger to the cake tin) elegance and lightness of touch.
Each show is obviously, perforce, selective, so one can imagine the franchise rolling on for as long as children are up for the bits of history the national curriculum cares to shield their eyes from. It could be a long run and if last night’s full-throated endorsement is anything to go by it will be well deserved. ★★★★☆ Graham Wyles 9th November 2016
