To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, BBC Studios is providing a two-part particular, Lucy Worsley Investigates: The American Revolution. Historian, writer and curator Lucy Worsley returns to the small display screen to go to key websites, communicate with specialists and study how a band of American rebels broke away from the British Empire. Worsley and government producer Amanda Lyon focus on the program, a few of the little-known details it reveals and the worth of presenting the emotional reality of historical past.
TV REAL: How did the present come about?
LYON: We’ve made two collection with Lucy already known as Lucy Worsley Investigates, which have a look at a fairly well-known piece of historical past and attempt to do a little bit of myth-busting on it. With the anniversary of the American Revolution arising, it felt like the good alternative to do a two-parter and a little bit of a deep dive into a bit of historical past that had a bit extra worldwide recognition. On Investigates, we do issues like Jack the Ripper or Bloody Mary. This is an even bigger topic, and we thought we’d give it two episodes.
TV REAL: Is it from the British perspective?
LYON: We realized that the American Revolution isn’t taught in depth in both the British or the American faculty programs. But the topline you get for those who’re a British individual is that George III misplaced the American colonies. And for those who’re an American individual: We received our freedom from the British. But in the center, there’s a complete load of nuance and a complete load of questions on how that occurred. Was it as binary as that? Of course not, and we thought there was quite a bit to play with.
It is from the British perspective, insofar as we have a look at individuals primarily based in Britain who supported the Americans, comparable to radical politicians like John Wilkes and Thomas Paine, who lived and labored in Sussex earlier than emigrating. We’re additionally the stuff you don’t find out about. There’s a man who known as himself John the Painter. Today, we’d name him a terrorist. He launched arson assaults on the British docks to attempt to scupper the British navy, and he was doing that in assist of the American explanation for liberty. There had been numerous issues that occurred in Britain that we merely don’t get advised however are sort of revelatory, and so we wished to do much more on that. We did movie in America, however quite a bit was filmed in Britain.
TV REAL: Lucy, you’ve such a fascinating manner of explaining occasions, mysteries and little-known details from historical past, even placing your self in your topics’ sneakers! What do you wish to provide viewers?
WORSLEY: The flattering manner during which you’ve requested me this query reveals that you’ve impeccable style in TV viewing! I wish to suppose I make historical past packages for individuals who don’t even know that they like historical past… but.
I hope to coax individuals in over the threshold and invite them to make themselves at residence in the great world of doing historic analysis. My dream is that viewers will get the bug, and in the future be studying books or doing programs and even visiting archives for actual. I usually think about, if I would like to clarify one thing historic on display screen, that I’m speaking to my brother, who’s an engineer, so somebody whose thoughts works very otherwise from mine.
LYON: It’s great working with Lucy. She has this monumental vary of information and communicates it in a really accessible manner. She is tremendous sensible and may talk with everybody brilliantly. She’s considering the small issues that throw gentle on actual life, and that’s so compelling. In this collection, we’re not speaking about battles and who shot who and what the casualties had been. We’re speaking about hearts and minds, how the dial has moved and the way individuals really feel about issues. That’s what she’s actually good at: the emotional reality of historical past. And I believe that’s why individuals like her packages.
TV REAL: When and the way did your ardour for historical past develop?
WORSLEY: As a child, I devoured the historic novels for younger readers by British writer Jean Plaidy. One of them was known as The Young Elizabeth, and it was about Queen Elizabeth I rising up at Hampton Court Palace. It had an image of the palace on the cowl, and I’m fairly positive it’s certainly one of the causes I ended up working at Hampton Court myself in later life, changing into chief curator there for 20 years. I additionally visited an open-air museum in England with my mum, the place the Tudor farmhouse had an open-drop bathroom—actually a gap in a bench suspended over skinny air in the nook of the bed room. I keep in mind being very struck with how unusual that was. It’s why, as a grown-up, I’m fairly prepared to have interaction with humorous or foolish points of historical past that simply may open up a window in individuals’s minds into the unusual, misplaced world of the previous.
TV REAL: Was it tough to get entry to the specialists and places for these two episodes?
LYON: No, it wasn’t. We at all times attempt to have a spread of voices—lecturers who aren’t generalists however have particular kinds of information. One of my favourite scenes is after we go to a museum in Manchester the place they maintain a set of what we consider now as political merchandise, as a result of John Wilkes, this radical politician, made teapots together with his identify on them that you might purchase, and mentioned, “Wilkes and Liberty,” and you might pour a cup of tea. Amazing issues like that. Then, in the opening scene, we discovered that till the yr we’re commemorating, there was an enormous statue of George III on horseback like a Roman emperor in Battery Park in New York City. After the Declaration of Independence was learn, some individuals went downtown, they usually pulled this statue down, a bit as they did with Saddam Hussein’s, or a few of the slave-owning individuals we’ve had in the U.Ok. They pulled the statue down and melted lots of it down to show into musket balls. They actually melted the king down to fireside on his troops. But we discovered that there’s a little bit of it remaining—the tail of the horse. The tail of the large bronze horse George III was sitting on remains to be at the New York Historical Society, and we acquired them to take it out and take a look at it. We’re at all times looking for issues that aren’t documented however that make clear historical past. So, no, we had a beautiful time discovering individuals to speak to us and issues to take a look at.
TV REAL: PBS has been a associate on a number of of your reveals. How did they grow to be concerned on this? What was the catch for them?
LYON: I believe it was the American Revolution. They get us to make a program about their historical past, and weirdly, that was certainly one of the issues that we had been barely nervous about. When we had been making it, we had been nervous, [thinking], gosh, are American viewers going to know an excessive amount of? Are we going to need to make radically completely different variations for the British viewers and the American viewers? What me was that though perceptions of what had occurred had been sort of binary and in opposition, I believe most Americans are as sketchy on the particulars as the Brits are. They may know Paul Revere, they usually’re in all probability a bit extra acquainted with Lexington and Concord, possibly Yorktown, however it felt like in each territories, individuals had been prepared for some element.
TV REAL: Is there any second from the present that basically stood out to you?
LYON: I used to be fairly taken with Benjamin Franklin’s treason machine. Benjamin Franklin is thought for his experiments with electrical energy, and we acquired a prop made as a result of we discovered data of him having this treason machine made. It was an image of George III that he had mainly electrified in order that for those who mentioned one thing nasty about the king, you bought just a little electrical shock. This was when Franklin was a royalist. We acquired a prop maker to construct a machine, and it seems in each the drama and the interview. It’s an sudden perception into how his political views modified, but additionally that right here’s an actual one who was a bit cheeky, and I like that. I like that little second the place you get an perception into an individual that makes them a bit extra actual.
TV REAL: Why is it essential to revisit historical past right now?
WORSLEY: Well, the work of a historian isn’t, ever performed, as a result of every new technology that comes alongside deserves its personal contemporary have a look at the previous tales.
There’s at all times a brand new discovery that adjustments our interpretation, or a brand new perspective to consider. History’s actually only a refined manner of reflecting on and discovering what we consider to be true about our world right now.
Lucy Worsley Investigates: The American Revolution can be introduced to world prospects at the BBC Studios Showcase on February 23 and 24.
