I believe that you have Starkey all wrong. Indeed his exuberant style is what history is all about. Eccentricity and history go hand in hand, indeed Starkey is somewhat bias as is every Television historian; however I feel Starkey brings history to life with his splendour and self pomposity. Starkey brings something to History that appeals to all, unlike the monotone puppet-like Scharma, who only serves to create distance in the relationship between history and education. In my opinion Scharma goes far in damaging the reputation history already has in schools!

I go down the Tony Robinson/Terry Jones route, I am no academic and enjoy their humour brightening what could be dry topicsand they are always understandable.

One programme that I really enjoyed a while ago was one on Nefertiti by Joanne (can't remember her last name), female egyptologist with really curly hair and northern accent. Her enthusiasm is great, just how I would be if I discovered a new chamber in egypt. Not preachy, just eager!

It's true that every historian uses language coloured by their own political preferances. I'm actually glad there's room for various styles on Ch4.

I'd have to say Michael Wood. He's passionate, communicates well, and above all doesn't appear to consider himself more important than the subject in hand. Too many presenters get in the way by drawing attention to themselves either with overt eccentricities or mad accents and shouting. It's as if they're scared that at any moment we'll change channel---which to my mind betrays a total lack of confidence in the History they're offering and the public's attention span.

If it's worthy of a programme then it will be the natural star of the show.

That said worse than bad presenters is the trashily headline-grabbing revisionist docs that make bold statements between extended CGI sequences but boil down to little more than a wild assertion of an attention-grabbing academic based on flimsy or wilfully misinterpreted evidence..

quote:

Originally posted by Owain G:
If you could call them that,who do you consider to be the best and worst at this job

The best: Dan Snow, David Starkey, Terry Jones, Richard Holmes, John Romer.

The worst: Michael Wood (too biased) Simon Schama (too biased)and Adam Hart-Davis (clueless).

and the all time worst - Tristram Hunt - an architectural historian who only made a programme about the civil war because it coincided with his political journalism. (And yet no one picked him up on it!)