Tony Robinson has said he doesn’t want his new TV series, which sends celebrities back in time to experience different periods of Britain’s history, to be seen as either “educational” or just your typical reality show.
The small screen favourite is hosting Time Crashers, with famous faces including TV presenter Fern Britton, long jump champion Greg Rutherford and former Coronation Street star Charlie Condou.
Others taking on the historical challenge are Hollywood star Kirstie Alley, actor Keith Allen and BBC Breakfast anchor Louise Minchin.
Each episode sees the stars thrown into a specific period of history – from the Iron Age, through Elizabethan times and into the Victorian era – when they will have to live as normal working people would have done. Over the series, viewers will see them prepare an Elizabethan feast, help knights prepare for a medieval joust and work as Victorian oyster pickers.
Blackadder and Time Team star Robinson, who became Sir Tony in the Birthday Honours List in 2013, said at first he had been nervous about taking on the series because he was worried it would be “just another reality show”.
“I think everyone is fairly fed up with mildly dysfunctional people being put under pressure and then behaving abysmally,” he said.
“But the more I looked at it, the more I realised that yes it would be fun, yes it would have celebrities, but what they weren’t going to do was sacrifice the history.”
But at the same time, Tony stressed that he hoped people would still see the show as entertaining rather than educational.
“I hate the word educational!” he said.
“I mean, Downton Abbey is educational in that you come away from it knowing so much more about that period than when the show started, but you don’t come away thinking it was educational. You come away from it having taken a lot of interesting facts from the era and that’s what I would like to happen with this.
“I don’t want people to come away from it and feel like they are prepared to take an exam in any particular time period. I just want them to come away feeling like they’ve had a good time, they’ve gone through the highs and lows of what the celebrities have been through and they know a little more about our history.”
History buff Tony said the celebrities found things tougher than they thought.
“It was the being told what to do all the time that they all found so difficult to get used to,” he revealed.
“The women in particular found it very tough, the contradiction in what they believe in and the reality of previous time was very tough. The guys found it equally as difficult though, they deeply resented being told what to do and the levels they had to go to.”
Of those taking part, the celebrity who impressed and surprised Tony the most was Keith Allen.
“I thought he would be wild, rebellious and an anarchist,” he said. “But he totally bought into what he had to do. I think for a British TV audience he will be a revelation.
“Kirstie (Alley) surprised me too. She’s so talented and so un-Hollywood.
“If a Hollywood star got together with nine other English celebrities, most of whom I imagine she had never heard of, you would expect her to be a demanding diva and want star treatment. Kirstie wasn’t like that at all. She rolled up her sleeves and really got stuck in.”
Time Crashers starts on Channel 4 at 8pm on August 23.
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