Interview with Keith Allen for Time Crashers

12 August 2015

Why did you want to do this show?

It seemed informative and fun.  I’ve actually always been interested in history in every way. Without history we are nothing, so it’s worth finding out something about it. I’ve always been interested in history, particularly the industrial revolution. I like finding out why we are the way we are now.

 

What was your biggest concern going into it?

My biggest concern, honestly, was about wearing woolly jumpers and getting wet. I can’t have wet wool next to my skin because it really affects it. I was horrified by the idea of that; luckily I managed to avoid wool during the entire show. When we were on the oyster beds during the Victorian era down on the Suffolk coast, we were covered in oilskin so I didn’t get wet, which was great. Genuinely, that was my biggest concern!

 

How did you feel giving up all your modern gadgets?

That was an absolute piece of piss for me! I didn’t miss the phone, computer, nothing, it was all fine. I’m very old fashioned. I’m from an era where your phone is in the house so if you are pottering in the garden then you won’t hear it ring. So I wouldn’t say I’m very 21st century in that sense anyway. I don’t carry my phone around with me all the time like some people do.

 

What did you make of the other celebrities on the show?

They were all very lovely. It was lovely to meet them all, it was a pleasant experience. I think a lot of them had a problem dealing with authority during the show but then most of them are not actors. I’m used to being in lots of different environments and circumstances and imagining myself in different roles. All the women really got stuck in though.

 

Did it help being an actor on this show?

Absolutely. I have no problem handing over authority to someone else whatsoever. I knew it was only temporary and was part of experiencing aspects of the past. If you reared up in the periods that we were in, quite simply you would be on the road with no food or water. You would be starving and destitute, so you were better to just crack on.

 

Was the show harder than you thought it would be?

No, I expected it to be hard and it was bloody hard, I tell you. In the end I was out on my feet, I was really exhausted, especially in the Iron Age. But then I had been milling my own grain on the floor by hand in order to get a flour substance to make a cake. Christ, it hurt!

 

What was your worst moment during the experience?

Milling that grain was tough. For me and Jermaine, who’s an ex professional footballer, I used to play a lot of football, so our knees were getting really quite bad. There was also all this fucking bowing that we had to do, which hurt too. The first time period we went into was Elizabethan and we were household servants, we had to bow from the waist and bend our knees, we had to do it three times every bloody time we walked into the hall. It was unbelievably painful.

 

 

Did you have to do anything gross like skin an animal?

I didn’t have to do any of that. But I’ll tell you one thing I did have to do which was cut the hair off the bull’s balls and dick, which was pretty dodgy. If he had reared up he wouldn’t have been a bull anymore! Cutting shit away from a sheep’s arse was also bad, and dangerous! One nick and you could have opened an artery. It was full on, this show was no joke. I did expect it to be that full on though because I didn’t see the point of doing it otherwise. There were no shortcuts, it was hard work.

What was your favourite moment?

I think it was when I was a liveried servant and the rest of them were in minions in the kitchen and all they would get to eat is shit, basically. They just had plain vegetable stew but I was genuinely surprised when I got eggs and bacon in the morning. There was a bit of wine smuggling going on as well! It was good fun, it was really good.

 

What was your favourite era?

That’s a tough one, but I can tell you my least favourite era which was Edwardian. I hated that one. I think it was because of my role, I was the valet to the master of the house and that was at the top of the pecking order as far as the time crashers were concerned. I just thought that if that was your life then it would have been horrific. I would have left within a couple of days. The protocol, format and order of things was so frustrating, I carried on with it but I couldn’t have done it for more than a couple of days. I even had to give my Lord a mustard foot bath and cut his toenails, fucking hell that was disgusting. You should have seen the size of his feet all covered in hair, it was unbelievable.

 

Did you get punished at all like some of the other celebrities did?

No, never. I’m very good at pretending to be subservient; I’m really good at it.

 

Were you shocked at how badly servants were treated?

Yes! It was just the formality of it all, the format of their lives and the categorisation of what they did. But then people seemed to like that because it was like being institutionalised, some people find comfort in that. There is a comfort in that for me because once you have recognised what the institution is you can go about undermining it, which is great fun!

 

Did it make you change the way you live your life once you were back in the 21st century?

Not really because I have never bought into all that technology. It’s just not me but I can see how people have become obsessed with technology.

 

Has it made you realise how easy we have it today though?

I tell you what; it really does put it into perspective. What I found interesting is that what we have now are material rights, but in terms of your spiritual self you are far less connected to the world and planet now than people were then, ironically. I really did find that. I think we’re so obsessed with technology and now, because of the speed of living, the one thing you are not given is time to consider. You are not given time for your soul. People had a lot of time, believe it or not, in lots of areas of life back then. You were much closer to the land, you understood the land, and the land dictated what you did, as did daylight. The social fabric, ironically, is much stronger then than it is now. They were much more in tune with the world then, without a shadow of a doubt.

If you had to pick an era to live in, which would it be?

I quite liked being in medieval times and being an equerry looking after the horses because it meant you could rise above your station. You could work towards becoming a knight. I think any time where you were given the opportunity to improve your lot was worth it.

 

If there was a second series would you be up for it?

Knowing what I know now, probably! I did suggest that they should do another series of Time Crashers through the empire so at least you would get out to Jamaica, Australia or South Africa as opposed to the fucking Pembrokeshire coast!