by Allan Fish
(UK 2000-2002 945m) DVD1/2
This sceptred isle
p/d Claire Beaven, Ian Bremner, Liz Hartford w Simon Schama ed Philippa Daniel m John Harle presented by Simon Schama
with the voices of: Timothy West, Samuel West, Emilia Fox, Lindsay Duncan, Matthew Rhys, Michael Kitchen, Bill Paterson, James Bolam, David Threlfall, Charles Dance,
What is most remarkable about Simon Schama’s monumental documentary chronology, amongst many remarkable aspects, is its sense of irony, its sense of place. It doesn’t aim to be a gargantuan chronicle the size of Encyclopaedia Brittanica, for even such a tome would barely scratch the surface, but rather attempts, through the analysis of the major events that formed the history of this group of islands, to capture both the very essence of Britishness and to give lie to the myth of dusty schoolbooks and monotone lectures. He not only achieves this remarkable feat, but he at once embodies the very essence of not only what it is to be British, to have that incredible heritage, but also catapults himself into the pantheon of the great small screen factual figures, alongside A.J.P.Taylor, Kenneth Clark, John Romer, Jacob Bronowski and Michael Wood, to inspire perhaps the next generation of historians to follow in his admirably personable footsteps. Its writer also shared a problem with yours truly; objectivity – the title is ‘a’ history of Britain, not the, as mine is ‘a’ list of the milestones of screen. It’s not definitive, but a starting point.
His history begins as far back as it could, with the first Stone Age settlements at Skara Brae, moves through Roman Britain, and on through the dark ages to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms unified by Alfred the Great. That he does so in but one hour long episode, might make one think his approach flimsy, but it is anything but. Episode two, dealing with what became known colloquially as ‘1066 and all that’ in a way more riveting than any Hollywood blockbuster on the subject could ever be. Future episodes concentrate on such events as Henry II and his conflicts with Becket, the Black Death, Henry VIII and the Reformation, Elizabeth I, the Civil War (actually at least our third), the loss of the Americas, the abolition of slavery, Victorian Britain, the Empire and, finally, the 20th century and the times of Winston Churchill and George Orwell.
It is in this superbly structured finale that Schama makes his most potent point, one which might be lost on many viewers, that time itself is unending, and that the two characters were intrinsically linked not only to each other, but to the very essence of Schama’s series. Churchill was very much the old England, the aristocracy, the ruling class, representing the stubborn, never-say-die attitude of the leaders of yore. The man who, let us not forget, followed in the footsteps of Bede, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, Geoffrey of Monmouth et al, and wrote ‘The History of the English Speaking Peoples’, the very mission statement Schama had set himself. On the other hand, there’s Orwell, whose nightmarish vision of Oceania predicted the obliteration of history itself, where everything nations had once felt sacred were to be sacrificed to the altar of power. His was not a celebration of the past, it was a warning of the future, and one which is ever more prescient in the 21st century for which Schama was writing. The interlocking of their histories truly is the essence of the series and the life’s blood of Britain.
Unlike many previous small screen historians, Schama is aware of the language of today, and uses it to illustrate that of yesteryear. His language is anachronistic to the time he dissects, yet is on the money for his audience – one especially remembers his description of Becket – “from the get-go, Becket was a big league performer, he was a player” – while the Britain he describes is, like the Roman tablets seen in the opening episodes, “poignantly fragile and miraculously enduring.” His manner casual, hands often in pockets, his Anglo-Jewish wit and sense of irony coming to the surface with delightful regularity, as he proceeds on his construction of a small screen church to the history of his nation. It is therefore apt that, in his description of Ely cathedral, he provides the perfect summation of the series itself; “this is, in the most literal sense, awesome.”
