Time Team

First, the Insights program with four or five speakers per crossing, always including a celebrity name, an actor or actress, politician, writer, or sports personality.

I've shared crossings with people like Celia Imrie, most recently Sir Tony Robinson from Blackadder and Time Team, and on another trip we had a former leader of the Conservative Party in the UK.

Alongside that headline name, there's always a group of three or four lecturers filling out the program too.

On my recent crossing, it included a series about New York skyscrapers, White House operations and organization, and Cunard history.

Just as Bruce Pascoe tried to find evidence of European agriculture, uh, in a country where there's no evidence that it was practiced.

Because there's an assumption that whatever's good and sophisticated, and this is one of the worst words in-- Even Time Team on the BBC misuse the term sophisticated regularly.

I know because I watch it every afternoon.

That that's, that's the, that's the gold standard.

These physical iron artifacts match the shapes and proportions of the weapons stitched into the linen cloth almost perfectly.

You can see the axe head yourself at Battle Museum, or, failing that, the 2014 Hastings special from Time Team.

Shout out to Sir Tony Robinson.

There's another part of the tapestry that's committed to accuracy that's a bit bloodier.

The celebrity guest speaker on each trip though is normally from the UK.

On that particular crossing it was Sir Tony Robinson, known for shows like Blackadder and Time Team.

I've also been with Celia Imrie, a well-known UK actress.

Will Carling, a famous UK rugby player.

Could this be the real story of Tintagel?

Welcome to the Time Team podcast with Helen Geek and Martin Williams, where today we're devoting the entire podcast to Tintagel.

As a West Country girl, I was, of course, fascinated by the tales of how Roman Britain became Anglo-Saxon England.

And because there's so little history, you always come up against myth and legend.

Yeah, he has indeed.

Professor Ken Dark is the director of the Tintagel Hinterland Project and he's just written a book.

It's called Tyrants and Traders, Tintagel, Arthur and the Lost Kings, which you can pick up now in the Time Team shop.

So he's a very good person to discuss this enigmatic place with.

Yeah.

I've got, you know, years ago I came, this image came to me that, um, I think I watch too much Time Team.

They do an archaeology show, and they're constantly digging up small pieces of pot shirts.

I see myself as a pot shirt on the floor of the Grand Court in front of God and just being ecstatic for being there.

Yeah, it is.

And I think I remember Tony Robinson, of course, because we did it as a time team special.

So Tony Robinson, the way they do it, I'm giving even all the secrets away of telly now, basically.

It comes at the beginning.

And, and, uh, there's just something about it when you're there and you have this incredibly strong connection with the men who fought there before and that interest when you can actually be in those spaces and, and, on the very duck boards that those men walked on, or in that very fire bay, that sort of thing.

It's just wonderful, Matt, you know, absolutely.

I think the thing that I learned from that is that when you watch things like Time Team, it all looks frightfully easy, but I've never ever worked so hard in my life as I did on that archaeological dig, and it made me realise that archaeology is bloody hard work.

Oh, yeah.

We ...

I don't know, have you ever seen, it's very old now, but I don't know if you ever watched Time Team when it was current many, many years ago.

No.

But one of the first things that archeologists often do in an area ...

Yes.

Whenever I see a British field being telled, I'm just waiting for time team to show up.

It's just one of those

things like, oh, you know, the farmers, they keep turning up these Romans to things, you know, and I just like, that's the first thing that comes to my mind.

So if you haven't watched Time Team.

I'm so broken.

It's a British television show in which, you know, it's Britain.