In 1956, when Tony Robinson<\/a> left his Essex grammar school with just four O-levels, few would have predicted he would become one of our greatest polymaths, ending up with seven honorary degrees. He has also inspired generations to take an interest in history, via his role as Baldrick in Blackadder, hosting Time Team and his Cunningcast history podcast, presenting numerous documentaries and writing 18 children\u2019s history books. In 2013, he received a knighthood for public and political service.<\/p>\n Now, aged 79, Robinson is publishing his first novel, The House of Wolf, one of a planned trilogy about Alfred the Great. Robinson enthuses about the King of Wessex who not only defeated the Danes but also reformed our currency and our legal system. The book\u2019s a blockbuster, featuring dozens of characters from slave girls to the Pope and featuring locations all across Europe.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was ridiculous hubris for a first-time novelist having so many balls in the air. When I started there was a feeling of imposter syndrome,\u201d he tells me.<\/p>\n Imposter syndrome or not, the novel became the subject of a 10-way bidding war between publishers. It\u2019s just another incidence of Robinson being late to the party<\/a>, but then becoming dazzlingly successful. From a lower middle-class background, he was a jobbing actor until he was 38, watching from the sidelines as Oxbridge graduates produced the sort of comedy that then dominated British culture.<\/p>\n \u2018Rowan was intellectually very generous\u2019: Rowan Atkinson and Robinson in Blackadder – BBC<\/p>\n He remembers watching That Was the Week That Was in his teens. \u201cI thought, \u2018How could they have created this when they don\u2019t even know me?\u2019 I wanted to be part of that world and thought I could make a contribution. I wrote literally thousands of letters to producers, but nothing ever came of it.\u201d<\/p>\n It was years later when, out of the blue, he was offered the part of Baldrick in the pilot of a new show by Not the Nine O\u2019Clock News superstar Rowan Atkinson, written by Atkinson\u2019s Oxford crony Richard Curtis and produced by former Cambridge-Footlighter John Lloyd. \u201cSomething like nine people had turned Baldrick down because he only had about eight lines and none of them were funny, but I didn\u2019t care. These were my people and I just wanted to be with them.\u201d<\/p>\n Entering Blackadder\u2019s rehearsal room, with this gilded crowd, was intoxicating. \u201cThey were all incredibly bright and dazzling, it was an experience I\u2019d never had, although I imagine it had been common to them since public school. I felt partly intimidated and partly very punchy.\u201d<\/p>\n The punchiness manifested itself in Robinson reminding his colleagues constantly that he was a decade older and far more streetwise than them. He recalls: \u201cStephen Fry once said to me, \u2018If you play the card of the university of the streets one more time, I will scream.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Atkinson has a reputation for being \u201cdifficult\u201d. Tom Baker was just one fellow cast member who described him as \u201cso anxious he wasn\u2019t very fun to work with\u201d. Yet Robinson insists he\u2019ll be forever indebted to both Atkinson and Lloyd. \u201cWhat they both allowed me constantly to do was have that cutaway, sharp shot of Baldrick\u2019s reaction, where his attitude was the audience\u2019s attitude. Rowan was intellectually very generous and only ever wanted what was best for the show. He would have a gag, and then I would say something which undermined it. You\u2019ve got to be really secure if you\u2019re the star, to allow a secondary performer to do that and get the applause. If I\u2019d done the same show but with a different group of people I\u2019d still be doing small plays in pubs, so thank you, Rowan.\u201d<\/p>\n Blackadder Goes Forth: Tim McInnerny, Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and Tony Robinson – Radio Times<\/p>\n Blackadder ended in 1989 after four series. Robinson has said previously that, by then, \u201cthe team weren\u2019t really talking to each other\u201d. Today, he doesn\u2019t expand on this, but merely says that they \u201caren\u2019t really\u201d in touch and he doubts it will return. \u201cTim McInnerny [who played Percy and Darling] is the most articulate about this. He says, \u2018If we made Blackadder again, even if it was objectively better, inevitably people would say it\u2019s not as good as it used to be.\u2019 I don\u2019t know whether that\u2019s true or not, I\u2019d happily do another one just because I enjoyed it.\u201d<\/p>\n When we talk, Robinson is staying with his third wife Louise \u2013 he has an adult son and daughter, historical novelist Laura Shepherd-Robinson, as well as two granddaughters \u2013 at their second home in Spain. Over Zoom, then the phone after a power cut kills the broadband, he proves to be hyper-articulate, briskly pleasant and exudes a well-deserved confidence, even if some chippiness persists.<\/p>\n Robinson pictured with his wife Louise in London in 2017 – Dave Benett<\/p>\n Earlier this month, he complained how being 5ft 4in \u201chad been a problem in life\u201d, saying: \u201cSmart women who wouldn\u2019t pick out the fact that they didn\u2019t want… I don\u2019t know… to be married to a red-haired man or a Jew or a blind person or anything else, will laugh with their friends and say, \u2018Oh God, he\u2019s got to be taller than me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He has also recalled how Victoria Wood once told him: \u201cYou and I could be Romeo and Juliet. The only reason we\u2019ll both have to do comedy is that I\u2019m a big girl and you\u2019re a little bloke.\u201d I say to him that stature doesn\u2019t seem to have held back the likes of Tom Cruise (reportedly 5ft 7in) or Al Pacino (5ft 6in).<\/p>\n \u201cThere are quite a few wooden soap boxes people have to stand on in Hollywood,\u201d Robinson replies, but declines to discuss the subject further, explaining that he prefers to focus on his book.<\/p>\n Robinson, pictured at Coin Laundry, became a household name in Blackadder – Rii Schroer<\/p>\n Robinson was born in London in 1946, the adored only child of a typist mother and a father who worked for London County Council. His acting career began aged 13 when he played one of Fagin\u2019s urchins in the original West End production of Oliver!, getting to know its creator Lionel Bart. \u201cAll the men I knew smelled of sweat, he was the first man I ever met who wore aftershave and was very gentle. To me he was the English Cole Porter, who never achieved the universal respect he deserved.\u201d<\/p>\n Periods in children\u2019s TV followed (most notably Play Away) and he even had a bit part on the John Wayne film Brannigan which was filmed in London. Robinson\u2019s career has taken many diversions. His involvement in Blackadder led to an unexpected swerve, with Channel 4 approaching him to host Time Team, a new show about archaeology.<\/p>\n \u201cThey thought, \u2018Who can we get to present a programme about a subject so arcane no one can even spell it? Why don\u2019t we get someone famous for being the stupidest person in history?\u2019\u201d They were unaware that Robinson was something of an expert, having taken an extramural course in the subject after befriending archaeologists on a nearby dig when he was working at Chichester Festival Theatre.<\/p>\n Tony Robinson holding a mammoth tooth while presenting Time Team – Channel 4<\/p>\n Time Team was a huge hit, running for nearly two decades. It was cancelled in 2013 partly because each episode cost around \u00a3200,000 to make. \u201cBut there was always a debate about whether a lot of old men pontificating was on message for Channel 4. I always wanted a female link-presenter alongside me, because it did feel very male-oriented but it didn\u2019t really work out for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n Other gigs included presenting the hugely affecting 2006 Channel 4 documentary Me And My Mum about his mother\u2019s dementia, the disease which also killed his father. People still contact him with harrowing experiences of the condition, but he\u2019s upbeat. \u201cI\u2019d always believed we would find a cure for dementia and rather like Aids-HIV, it\u2019s turned out to be much more complex than we thought, but also, rather like Aids-HIV, there now seems to be a huge acceleration of our understanding of what dementia is and how we can combat it.\u201d<\/p>\n In other respects, Robinson\u2019s more pessimistic. He\u2019s been a lifelong vocal Labour supporter, who spent four years on its national executive committee, even if he quit the party for a year in 2019, citing anti-Semitism, the muddled response to Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn<\/a>\u2019s poor leadership. After the last election, he attended a party at No 10 to thank him for campaigning at the last election, but will only say now he\u2019s vowed to make no comment about our current government until it\u2019s been 18 months in power.<\/p>\n What then about anti-Semitism, an even hotter potato now than during Corbyn\u2019s leadership, as a result of the conflict in Gaza? Robinson, who\u2019s not Jewish, but has Jewish heritage, chooses his words carefully. \u201cI\u2019d say there are a series of enormous problems about people not understanding the background of the various crises going on around the world. There\u2019s not a lot of room for nuance on TikTok, but don\u2019t take a position unless you can understand the context.\u201d<\/p>\n The House of Wolf by Tony Robinson (Sphere, \u00a325) will be published on September 11<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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