This is the show I caught part of on the History Channel here the other night. I found it absolutely fascinating. Was it successful in the UK?

I'm only sorry that I appear to have got into it on the very last show, and I don't know if, or when, it will be repeated here.
It's on the Channel 4 website, but you have to be in the UK to watch their videos. I can't even find a clip on YouTube to show you all how good it was.

We need more discussion on current British shows here!

Tony Robinson's Crime and Punishment

Tony Robinson is always good value.He has a dual life, in that he is a serious actor(ironically he's most famous for playing the buffoon, Baldrick, in Blackadder) as well as a presenter of programmes like that.He always brings a boyish and utterly genuine enthusiasm to whatever history subject interests him.His scripts are invariably excellent; you sense that he writes a lot of the text himself, tailoring it to what he does best.You'll note how it's called 'Tony Robinson's..' as a selling point to viewers.

Another in that mould is Mark Steel whose 'Mark Steel Lectures' are not, of course, lectures in the traditional sense (any more than Tony Robinson's programmes are lectures).Very entertaining, they are on the lives of famous individuals.Excellent,and the jokes are good too, particularly when comparing then and now and when pointing out some of the ironies and absurdities in the lives.Mark Steel is another with a dual life: he's a stand-up comedian with an interest in history.He wrote an excellent history of the French Revolution: scholarly, long, but full of wit.

Your programme was on Channel 4, a national station which specialises in stuff of this quality and type.This particular programme doesn't seem familiar but most of their output is of that quality and, in that context, it would not stand out.

I only know him as Baldrick in Blackadder, but he certainly makes a great presenter.
I'll look out for the other show you mentioned. We generally get the really good British shows six months to a year after they are shown over there, and sometimes they turn up on the most obscure channels here.
The other think is, Channel 4 must have improved tremendously since I last saw it. All it had on there when I was last in the UK, was weird, late night kinky sex shows..or was that the BBC?

quote:

Originally posted by dg:

The other think is, Channel 4 must have improved tremendously since I last saw it. All it had on there when I was last in the UK, was weird, late night kinky sex shows..or was that the BBC?

You've got me looking through the schedules now ! Can't find anything like that, unless half an hour on the Qu'ran at 23:45 has more to it than appears. There are other 4s .Could it have been BBC 4 ? Kinky sex shows 'in the interest of art' could fall within their remit

quote:

Originally posted by FredPuli:
Can't find anything like that, unless half an hour on the Qu'ran at 23:45 has more to it than appears.

There didn't seem to be a whole lot of religious content in these shows at all actually! But I can't say for sure, because naturally I didn't linger.

Come on guys, tell us some good British shows to look out for. A lot of your historical dramas turn up on PBS in the USA and Canada on Masterpiece Theatre.