Interview with presenter Tony Robinson for Time Crashers

12 August 2015

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How did your involvement in the show come about and what did you initially think about it?

I was asked a long time ago whether I would be interested in doing it. I was very flattered because I knew Channel 4 wanted it to be a big flagship programme for them. I was initially a little nervous about it because I feared it might be just another reality show. I think everyone is fairly fed up with mildly dysfunctional people being put under pressure and then behaving abysmally. 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. It was going to put people in extreme environments - but not in order to expose the dark side of their soul, it was to see how they would get on in what was a very realistic way of life in a particular era.

 

What sort of things will fans see the celebrities do?

In one of the episodes there’s a manor house medieval stately home – where the job they had to do is prepare a huge Elizabethan feast. What you get at those feasts is so different from what you go nowadays, for example, the lords and ladies go into a separate room and they eat sugar, various weird and wonderful things made out of sugar. It was only the top table invited into this separate room and that course was called the banquet, which is where we get the word from that we now use to describe the whole event. The celebrities had a tough time because working as a servant was complicated, back then you had to know when to bow, when to get out of the way and who to serve first. It was a really big challenge and they hated the fact that they were being bossed about. That was the deal though, you did it or you were cast out onto the street and faced poverty. Then there was a medieval joust, there were two knights and our Time Crashers were arming squires; the people who looked after the knights and made sure everything worked for them. It was a bit like being a Formula 1 mechanic; if you didn’t get everything right then your knight was going to fail. In addition to that they had to paint all the lances; Kirstie Alley was brilliant at that. Who would have thought the woman from Cheers would turn out to be a really good artist?!

 

What was your favourite era?

One of my favourite eras was the Victorian one but it was unlike almost every Victorian image you see nowadays. We were in Suffolk re-enacting the role of people who gathered oysters for a living. It was really tough and bleak; it was something out of Dickens. It was very hard for the celebrities but it looks absolutely beautiful. One of the big bonuses of this series is that it looks like a movie, it really is beautiful.

 

Which era do you think was the toughest for them?

Probably the Iron Age because they had everything taken away from them. They had to create lives for themselves in what must have seemed the harshest of environments. That was really tough for them.

 

Do you hope the show will educate as well as entertain?

I hate the word educational! 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.

 

Did the celebrities find it tougher than they expected it to be?

Without any doubt! It’s very interesting thinking about 21st century sensibilities in the west. It was the being told what to do all the time that they all found so difficult to get used to. We all operate under constraints in this country right now but they are very slight compared to what most people would have had to put up with throughout every other period in our history. 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. It must have been what it was like for my dad who was a squaddie in WW2. He didn’t just have to clean someone’s shoes, they had to be spotless, and if you didn’t you had to do it again or you were punished. That’s not a world we know or are prepared to live in and yet it’s been the reality for most people throughout the history of the world.

 

Did it surprise you to see how many of the celebrities faced being punished?

No because I think they were living the reality. There was always a fantastic turnover of staff. That was the way the powers that be exercised their control. In a democracy that tends to get eroded because you can’t get sacked unless there’s a proper reason for it. But throughout most of our history that simply wasn’t the case. If someone didn’t like your face then you were vulnerable.

 

Did you fancy giving it a go?

I was the Ant and Dec of the programme! While other people were eating the Victorian version of witchetty grubs and spiders, I was sitting on the side and going back to a nice hotel each night. I’ve presented The Worst Jobs In History, but for me, this was the best job possible. I had a nice warm coat, I was first in the queue for the canteen every lunch time and I had a duvet at night - what more could I have asked for. I think if the celebrities knew to what extent I had it so good, they would have been extraordinarily resentful!

 

Which celebrity surprised you the most?

Definitely Keith Allen, he impressed me enormously. I thought he would be wild, rebellious and an anarchist. But he totally bought into what he had to do. I think for a British TV audience he will be a revelation. Kirstie 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.

 

What were they like after the experience had ended?

One of the funniest things was when we all went to the pub for dinner. They were given their mobile phones and they were all sat there cradling them while we were having dinner, logging onto their emails and looking at Twitter. The mobile phone is the 21st century comfort blanket!

 

If there was to be another series is there any other eras you would like them to look at?

I think the opportunities are endless. One of the great things about this series is that the jobs chosen for the celebrities were excellent. Maybe we could go out to India and look at Imperial India for a start? That would be very interesting. I’d also love them to do a Viking one, the outfits would be amazing.

 

Have you got an idea of who you’d like to be in another series?

I’d love to see Brad and Angelina - they would be perfect for me!

 

 

Time Crashers is on Channel 4 on Sunday 23rd August, 8pm, Channel 4