h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As someone with a casual interest in history I'll watch almost any history programme. I have to admit though the genre seems to have developed an increasingly bizarre edge. All that a historian really needs is a room and maybe an overhead projector to tell us what they know, but on TV they are more often than not seen wandering from place to place in the great outdoors. Its as if historians have been pushed out of their natural environment of lecture theatres and thrown onto the streets.

Because dragging historians outside has been done so many times before, witnessing certain figures trodding through fields that were once maybe battle sites, or meandering around a dilapidated castle looks increasingly odd, mainly because it has become easy to imagine them as tramps. Once this idea gets into your head it appears as if on screen historians do nothing but tramp-like activities, and all that is missing from the picture is their possessions wrapped in a hanky on the end of a stick.

There are for instance always shots of historians seated in the middle of nowhere, on a mound of rubble that form the remains of a once great building, as if resting after hours of aimless walking. They can also be seen taking shelter in a church, or any building open to the public, maybe a warm library or castle, and occasionally in a cafe holding onto a coffee as if to stave off returning to the elements.

The scene however that completes the impression is the almost unavoidable image of them walking along streets, oblivious to the throng of pedestrians around them, chattering away, as if lost to their own wandering thoughts, a consequence of their down at heel circumstances having got the better of them.

It seems as if anyone who presents a programme with a historical element is not immune from this process. Even Ian Hislop who fronted a show about Victorian 'do gooders' spent most of his time outdoors and walking the streets.

Some historians are luckier than others however. Richard Miles for instance was at least doomed to walk the streets and to muse amongst the historical rubble of other countries for his civilisation series. Even so, he followed the same predictable tramp-like habits of all history presenters.

The problem is, this well worn way of presenting history documentaries has been done so many times, it is very close to becoming a pastiche of itself. Perhaps its time television stopped reducing our best historians to tramps.....?