Terry Deary

Horrible Histories with Stephen Fry, based on the best-selling books by Terry Deary, has been making youngsters (and a few adults) chuckle for three series quietly on the CBBC channel. Having been the surprise winner of Best Sketch Show in the British Comedy Awards - which, not to put it down, was in part to do with lack of competition - it has been awarded the dubious honour of a promotion to BBC1, with its best bits repackaged with spurious links from Stephen Fry.

The sketches are still good fun, including the ones you might have seen on YouTube already where King Charles II raps and the Vikings do a soft rock number, but the point of Fry is lost on me: he's in a studio half-heartedly decorated with random historical objects basically repeating what the sketches have already told us more amusingly ("No one really knows how much of the story of Troy is true and how much is myth," he intones: well, thanks for that Stephen, otherwise I obviously would have assumed that Menelaus really did greet Helen with "you is well fit, innit?").

It's a bit like those 'adult' editions of the Harry Potter books with different covers for people who didn't want to look as if they were reading a children's book, even though they were.

When Horrible Histories beat the truly excellent third series of The Armstrong and Miller Show to the Best Sketch Show gong at the Comedy Awards last year, I was a bit miffed. Surely people were just being nice because it happened to be a bit better than your average kids' show? Nope. Turns out it's just really, really good.

This, actually, is Horrible Histories with Stephen Fry, a best-of collection with a plumb slot on BBC 1, 6pm on Sundays. All the cool cats have been watching it for years of course, but for johnny-come-latelies (that's the correct pluralisation, I believe) such as myself, this is a nice little catch-up.

The show has several things going for it, starting with the sublime source material. Author Terry Deary had the fine idea of getting kids into history by giving the facts a human face and a joke or two and - most importantly - not talking down to his readership. The producers of the CBBC show have perfectly transferred Deary's ethos to television, and added some genuinely excellent comic actors, including Simon Farnaby and Katy Wix. It's pretty wonderful.

This week, I was particularly tickled by a sketch in which the entire English Civil War was summed up at a frantic pace by a newsreader in front of a map of the UK - all very Peter Snow on election night, with ridiculous graphics and snarky asides. Plus, who doesn't want to learn about the Vikings through the medium of soft rock? Funny, silly and (whisper it) very informative.

Terry Deary interview

As the BBC takes 'Horrible Histories' primetime, its creator, Terry Deary, speaks his mind...

Horrible Histories is a CBBC adaptation of the hugely successful Terry Deary books. These trade in what every schoolchild doesn't know but will do by the end of break the following day, since they're packed with the kind of historical fact that you want to pass on to others. For example, I hadn't known - and really felt I should have done - that the Greek philosopher Heraclitus expired after treating himself for dropsy by applying a full-body poultice of cow dung. As a grown-up you might quibble with the fact that they don't always distinguish between things that genuinely are true and the things that people would like to be (sadly, there's no hard evidence that Aeschylus was brained by a tortoise dropped by an overflying eagle). But grown-ups and children should enjoy the gleefully anachronistic way in which information is conveyed, such as the spoof advert for Evil Spirit Prevention Door Frame Tar. "It does exactly what what it says on the jar," promised the Geordie Athenian.

The four King Georges performing as a boy band, Henry VIII's murderous reign as an episode of This is Your Life, a medieval washing powder commercial advocating the cleansing properties of wee, a Stone Age arts magazine informing viewers how to preserve a beloved relative's skull in plaster. Welcome to the world of Horrible Histories.

Based upon the best-selling series by Terry Deary, Horrible Histories scours the past for interesting, bizarre, unpleasant and unpalatable facts and uses them as the basis for some seriously funny, beautifully performed and endlessly inventive sketches.

Unsurprisingly, sewage, savagery and bloodshed feature prominently and there are plenty of crowd-pleasing fart and poo gags. There is even a talking rat. All guaranteed to keep a CBBC audience entertained, amused, appalled and disgusted. Who knows, the little buggers might even learn something. For example, Vikings used to take Saturdays off from murder and pillaging to attend to their personal grooming. Didn't know that, did you?

I have one criticism of the show. The poo used to shower the medieval town councillors was totally unconvincing. Wrong colour, wrong consistency, wrong texture. If the BBC special effects department aren't up to the job, there is only one way to ensure authenticity. When it comes to our children's education there should be no half measures.

Kids can learn to love history just so long as it's told to them in a way that brings it to life. And this new series, based on the colourful books by Terry Deary and Martin Brown, does precisely that, with Sarah Hadland, Steve Punt and Meera Syal among the cast re-enacting some gory ancient tales.