The BBC has taken a knife to its award-winning children’s programme Horrible Histories, axing an entire episode which features scenes of slavery.
The removed episode covered historical instances of forced labour, the exploitation of Victorian child workers, and the grim reality faced by young chimney sweeps.
An investigation by The Times uncovered the extent of the cuts, which also included a sketch depicting Madame Tussaud crafting wax death masks from the severed heads of French Revolution victims.
The Bafta-winning comedy, adapted from Terry Deary’s popular book series, has long been celebrated for sparking children’s curiosity about the past through its use of grisly historical detail.
Historian and author Guy Walters launched a scathing attack on the public broadcaster’s move.
“This is an insane decision and it obviously follows hot on the heels of sanitising Mitchell and Webb sketches,” he said.
“The BBC has absolutely no idea what children like. Children love horrible things. The entire career of Roald Dahl is based on that.”
He added: “This really needs to be thought again. What’s the point of Horrible Histories? You might want to call it Nice Histories. And if you call something Nice Histories, you know what? Children wouldn’t watch it.
“The author, Terry Deary, is a genius for making history accessible for young people, and he realised that the best way to entertain children is to revolt them.”
The series, adapted from Terry Deary’s popular book series, has long been celebrated for sparking children’s curiosity about the past
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The corporation confirmed the alterations were carried out seven years ago alongside the programme’s creators.
“The edits to Horrible Histories were made seven years ago, in consultation with the programme makers, to ensure the series meets our editorial guidelines for children’s programmes,” the BBC said.
However, the broadcaster offered no explanation as to why the full episode had been pulled or which specific editorial guidelines necessitated the individual cuts.
The revelation comes just days after the BBC stripped 11 sketches from That Mitchell and Webb Look, including material that made light of racism, on the grounds that they no longer “work today”.
The axed episode addresses some of the most harrowing periods in human history, spanning ancient slavery, child labour during the Industrial Revolution, widespread poverty, disease, and the horrors of the First World War.
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The BBC has offered no explanation as to why the full episode had been pulled
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Among its sketches is one that explains Roman slavery to young viewers by reimagining a galley ship as a commercial airline flight, with enslaved rowers shackled to their oars and informed they would not be permitted to flee a sinking vessel.
Victorian child exploitation is tackled through a mock compensation advert, featuring a factory worker missing two fingers, a nine-year-old chain-maker whose body has been broken by his toil, and a seven-year-old loom operator who has lost the ability to walk.
The chimney sweep sketch sends a young boy into a dangerously cramped flue with the darkly comic instruction: “Try not to die.”
The Madame Tussaud segment, styled as a spoof arts and crafts programme, showed how Tussaud fashioned death masks from guillotined heads, including that of Marie Antoinette, to demonstrate her loyalty to the revolutionary cause.
Mathew Baynton (right) previous described the show’s core ensemble as ‘basically a bunch of white people’
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Five further sketches were removed because white cast members wore darkened make-up to portray ancient Egyptians or Incas.
Cast member Mathew Baynton reflected on this practice in 2022, saying: “We didn’t do blackface, for example, but you could argue that we did. Because I played Egyptians, you know, for example, where you’d get a spray tan, essentially, and stand in your pants.”
He acknowledged the show’s core ensemble was “basically a bunch of white people” and said the matter merited ongoing discussion.
Mr Deary himself declined to weigh in on the alterations, saying simply: “No comment. I just wrote the books.”
Unedited versions of the programme, containing all the removed material, remain accessible through Amazon Prime.
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