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The History of the World Backwards (2007)
The History of the World Backwards is a comedy sketch show written and starring Rob Newman. It is a mock history programme set in an alternative world, where time flows forwards, but history flows backwards. It was shown on BBC Four, starting on 30 October 2007, and later shown on BBC Two. It was Newman's first television project for 14 years.
Writing:
Release Date:
Tue, Oct 30, 2007
Country: GB
Language: En
Runtime: 30
Country: GB
Language: En
Runtime: 30
Season 1:
Nelson Mandela enter prison as a sweet-natured Spice Girls fan, but emerge from a long incarceration as a terrorist bent on the armed overthrow of the state. From 2007, and through the Nineties, there is a steady decline in IT jobs and, from the Nineties to the Seventies, there is competition to have an even bigger computer than your neighbours. Viewers also feel the pain of geneticists Watson and Crick as, every day, they get further away from understanding the secret workings of DNA. In Brazil, the mop-topped Bororo and Kayapo people claim descent from Beatles tribute bands, whose plane crash-landed on its way to a Beatles tribute band convention. In Britain, closure of the M6 and Gatwick airport in response to climate chaos means an end to supermarkets. In this new, economic climate, Dr Sigmund Freud diversifies the business, combining psychiatry with a Veg Box delivery scheme with the slogan "Tastes As Good As Mother's Milk". This episode also introduces, for the first time, Galileo, Kepler and the Duchess of Padua, who are bent on solving the mysteries of salvage technology. Viewers find them sifting through junk antique technology from our time, trying to work out its meaning. Galileo solves the riddle of the lean, mean, fat-reducing grilling machine. But Kepler keeps secret his re-discovery of how to make electricity – selfishly hoarding the illicit joy of being the first person for hundreds of years to dance to the disco classic Ain't No Stopping Us Now, by McFadden & Whitehead.
Looking to plug the £40b pensions black hole, Britain sets a target to have 90 per cent of the population smoking by 1940. Consequently, mandatory smoking is introduced on tube platforms, escalators, train carriages, buses, the underground, planes, cinemas and classrooms. In Ghana, President Kwame Nkrumah completes his vision of pan-African rationalisation by outsourcing control of his country to the British. As part of its re-branding, the British rename the country "the Gold Coast". The 1945 Blitz is a mutual pact agreed with Germany to stimulate property development in Coventry. Meanwhile, Dr Robert Oppenheimer steals uranium from missiles primed for use against civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. John Wayne becomes one of the many film stars of the talkies era to struggle to make the transition to silent films, which become popular in the Twenties. Meanwhile, Emmeline Pankhurst leads the post-feminist movement to let women stop at home and not have to go to work. Suffragettes march under banners which read: "You Decide For Both Of Us Dear". The world's last-ever television advert is made and Alexander Graham Bell makes the world's last-ever premium-rate telephone call. Finally, in Galileo, Kepler & The Duchess, Kepler dances to Ain't Nobody by Chaka Khan and the Pope accuses Galileo of "Sat Nav heresy" and says: "There are no satellites, Galileo, everything in Heaven was put there by God!" He then sentences him to be burnt at the stake as part of Make Science History week.
Rob Newman attempts to explain the sudden drop in numbers of successful women in business, engineering, science and management, as his series telling The History Of The World Backwards continues. In 1867, United States businessmen seeking a cheap, abundant energy source with which to replace oil and coal hit upon an ingenious solution: Negro slaves. Their plotting is overheard by black billionaire philanthropist Dougie Fredericks, who tries to foil their dastardly plan using a hard-to-conceal Edison phonograph for the world's last wire-tap. This leads to a quick getaway on the world's last aeroplane flight with wayward aeronautical engineer Orville Wright before Dougie can place the evidence before The Judge. George Stevenson gazes with pride at The Rocket on its maiden journey, only to find that his new-design steam locomotive has been bombed with tags from hip-hop graffiti artists. Meanwhile, John Merrick – the Elephant Man – runs away from St Barts hospital to join a travelling freak show. He explains how, at St Barts, he'd had a conversation with Charles Darwin who explained his new theory of "intelligent design". In 1610, to save Galileo from being burnt at the stake, Kepler is forced to reveal the secret of solar panels to the Duchess of Padua, who orders him to "rig up an improvised device like the A-Team".
In this instalment of Rob Newman's The History Of The World Backwards, viewers discover how a gathering of anti-sociability breaks out over Britain from the late 1800s. Neighbours quarrel and leave the cities to go and live in rural, isolated cottages, often deliberately affecting or inventing an unintelligible local dialect, so as to discourage conversation and enquiry. Meanwhile, ministers deny that the introduction of faith schools will mean only monks will get an education. Middle-class parents move close to monasteries so as to be in the catchment area, just in case. Mozart gives a press conference at which he declares that his new opera will stay true to the key operatic principles: nostalgia for British rock acts of the Eighties. And John Milton takes inspiration from the Kaiser Chiefs and begins using the words "thou" and "thee". War is strategically planned: in 1763 countries around the world get together and decide to hold the Seven Years War. It proves such a fabulous success that in 1648 it is decided to hold the Thirty Years War. So many fortunes are made in those 30 years that an even more ambitious sequel is planned: the Hundred Years War. And what of love in reverse? We discover, via a docu-soap, how relationships work in Backwards History. Love starts with cold disinterest and passion grows with age. Couples sleep in separate beds for the first 10 years.
Christopher Columbus returns home to discover that half of Spain is now ruled by Arabs, and the T'ang Dynasty attempts to break up China into a Federation of non-hierarchical eco hamlets, as Rob Newman's comic reverse history lesson continues. The plague warden cries "bring out your dead!" but, after burying 20,000 Londoners in a pit, he announces that from now on he will only do fortnightly collections – every other Monday. He also insists that the dead are stacked out for him on the pavement, otherwise – forget it. Sir Francis Drake brings medal glory to England in the modern triathlon: bowls, sailing and cycling. This makes some people nostalgic for the Olympic Games which were stopped centuries ago in 1908, as they had become too demoralising. Every year competitors were running slower, jumping lower and throwing shorter. The Gupta dynasty in Patna, during the rule of Chandragupta, pride themselves on being the last society still to use and understand the number zero. And there are increasing prophesies that in the year zero, when the clocks go forward, there will arrive in Bethlehem a Messiah with a popular Latino name.
Viewers are taken back to the sunset of recorded time in this final instalment of The History Of The World Backwards, as Rob Newman's comic reverse history lesson fuses comedy sketches, history, archive and music. Buddha begins to find spiritual life hard going and, once more, we join Jesus, losing more crowds with his carpentry-themed parables. In Ethiopia, King David, the Lion of Judah and head of the Rastafarian religion, suffers from target-obsessed Rasta clergy. In Britain, a Dacian motivational speaker tries to reverse the catastrophic loss of confidence which has seen Celtic stonemasons and architects limit themselves to building nothing but Stone Circles. Moses delivers 10 commandments to God – but with conditions. In Egypt, King Tutankamen has regression therapy and finds that in a past life he was an aromatherapist in Hebden Bridge. And, in an epic finale, the programme explores the Creation Myth of the Neanderthals.
