Horrible Histories: The Movie - Rotten Romans

Terry Deary on being 'a fish out of water'

"The problem with non-fiction books is they're written by experts who wouldn't know a child if it jumped up and bit them on the kneecap," he says.

Horrible Histories: The Movie - Rotten Romans review

Considering the film is essentially a supersized TV episode, it's not totally regrettable to miss in the cinema, but it's better to see it on the big screen because nothing beats communal enjoyment.

Making history funny: is any historical off-limits?

Making history funny is a great way to "smuggle in facts", says public historian Greg Jenner. But are there any subjects about which you just can't make a joke? Speaking to the History Extra podcast, the Horrible Histories lead historian offers his take...

Film review: Horrible Histories: The Movie

With scenes that alternate between the factual and the flatulent (and frequently both at once), it's probably best left up to the individual viewer to decide whether Horrible Histories is first and foremost a history lesson or simply an excuse for all manner of silliness.

Horrible Histories: The Movie review

The film sensibly focuses on the Romans, fertile ground for the gruesome and the comedic.

One of the TV show's directors, Dominic Brigstocke, takes the helm, lending visual consistency, but imagination-wise it fails to fully make the leap to the big screen.

Horrible Histories: The Movie review

I liked a line about gladiators giving 'CX per cent'. But there's nothing here that hasn't been done before, more engagingly, by Monty Python and even the Carry On team.

Horrible Histories: The Movie review

It feels as if a TV episode's-worth of material has been stretched to fill the movie's length, with the script failing to up its game to ­compensate for the lack of a Hollywood budget.

Horrible Histories: The Movie - Rotten Romans review

Derek Jacobi gamely reprises his celebrated role as Claudius in an entertaining big-screen outing for the CBBC television series

Designed to bring history to life for British school kids who like their facts couched in fart gags, Horrible Histories: The Movie - Rotten Romans follows the template of the books and TV shows from which it has been adapted. Alas, it also promptly exposes the limits of applying sketch-show thinking to a movie. Rather than using its Roman Empire setting to make a slyly anarchic, Monty-Python-for-kids-style adventure, its over-reliance on scatalogical humour along with its be-true-to-who-you-are story about a smart-but-sensitive Roman boy and a desperate-for-action Celtic girl fail to generate many laughs. Padded out with embarrassing hip-hop inspired musical numbers, it's the sort of cringe-worthy British kids' films that will have its target audience running back to comfort of Pixar and Marvel.