History on TV

[MadBusLady]

Sooo, this comes off the back of this thread about Richard III and then this thread about MN History Club.

I thought it might be good to have a big general thread about any history on TV we are watching/looking forward to/really enjoyed in the past. And I see we are already tackling some of the major themes such as the rugged cheekbones and leather jackets of the presenters on the other thread.

We're currently watching Neil Oliver's Vikings series, which is ace - what I really like about it is he starts out in the first programme in the Scandinavian bronze age/iron age, and showed where the Vikings had come from as a culture.

Sadly, tschiff, he's someone I haven't spoken to since we were about 9!

But I was very chuffed to see him there, all the same.

Otherwise of course, I'm sure he'd be only too delighted to set you up.

Re Phil on TT. I read somewhere that the reason he has long fingernails on his right hand is because he plays the guitar. Lots of guitar players prefer to use their nails rather than a plectrum, and paint stuff on their nails to harden them.

I also read that his accent in real life isn't as strongly West Country as on TV, but, if that's so, I don't think it matters. I would guess that the original briefing for TT was to make archeology interesting for the discerning public, and have a few "characters" who could play to the camera while at the same time being experts. After all, being a good university lecturer often involves being something of a performer.

As for Michael Wood - definitely dishy, but also knowledgeable. Thanks to the History Club, I've added a couple of DVDs to my Amazon wish list for my upcoming birthday: Michael Wood's Story of England, and Neil Oliver's A History of Ancient Britain.

(I've also added The Lion in Winter, on the recommendation from elsewhere that only Katharine Hepburn could convincingly play Eleanor of Aquitaine.)

LRD, ah well, it was worth a try . Neil is lush.

Michael Wood is dishier than Neil Oliver IMO, though Oliver's voice is rather lovely.

The servant prog last week was fascinating but I found the presenter a bit monotonous - I longed for the animation of Worsley, Beard, Vickery or Ruth Goodman.

Neil Oliver? Oh Dear God. The man sounds like a badly programmed robot - weird spacing between words. And he's not a real historian. Huff.

habbibu, how very dare you

I've got to admit he doesn't do it for me.

Are there any really foxy TV historians?

I will have to settle for Sue Perkins doing the history bit of Great British Bake Off at this rate.

We are watching Amanda Vickery's "At Home with the Georgians" on DVD at the moment - it's based on her book "Behind Closed Doors" about domestic life in Georgian England, which is a set book for one of my history modules.

My specialist areas of study and dissertation topic will all be 18th century social history, and I've got DH all enthused about the subject! He's really enjoying all the stuff David Starkey despises popular feminist female historian-presented telly history programmes that I'm force-feeding encouraging him and DS to watch!

Someone described Lucy Worsley as looking like "Christopher Robin's bohemian godmother"

You can sort of see their point!

I don't know LRD. Griff Rhys Jones looks a lot better now he's got the beard. And Nicholas Crane's rolled umbrella and cagoule always do it for me....

Ooh, I do like a bearded man.

Less perhaps the cagoule-fetishism, but each to their own.

I would love to look like Christopher Robin's bohemian grandmother.

My mum recently told me no matter what job I get (she's at the stage of considering increasingly bizarre alternatives, having lower her expectations substantially in the last few years), she does hope I won't 'wear a corset on TV like that Lucy Worsley'.

Am quite disturbed by DHs little obsession with Ms Worsley. Previously unused-by-him, slightly archaic terms, such as 'fetching', 'gamine' and 'leggy' have passed his lips in connection with the bohemian one.

Oh dear. 'Gamine'.

Tcha.

You should start referring to Tony Robinson as 'muscular' something. please don't