We British look backwards. We always have done.

In this ambitious and original new series, Ian explores perhaps the most distinctive, peculiar and deep-seated trait of the British – our obsession with the past – the olden days. Over three films he reveals how and why, throughout our history, we have continually plundered the past to make sense of and shape the present.

Drawing upon the work of Britain’s minstrels and story-tellers, poets and painters, historians and architects, propagandists and pamphleteers over the last thousand years, Ian demonstrates just how influential the olden days have always been - despite the fact that so much harking back turns out to be inaccurate, silly, absurd, and very, very funny...

Thoroughly forensic, always curious and witty,  this is an exploration of  high and low culture over 1000 years – and as ever with Ian Hislop’s cultural histories, focusing on the ‘story’ bit of history holds up the most revealing mirror to ourselves.