History Documentary hosted by Rory McGrath, published by Discovery Channel in 2004 - English narration
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When History Was Really Horrible! Rory McGrath presents an entertaining history series that uses animation to shed light on some of the goriest events in Britain's past.
Fresh, innovative, entertaining and revelatory, Bloody Britain combines strong historical research and storytelling with hands-on historical experiments (such as building and firing a trebuchet), an entertaining but extremely passionate presenter and atmospheric and innovative animation.
Bloody Britain examines key historical events from ground level - looking at the lives and perspectives of all those involved in these events - king and commoner alike. Action and information-packed, each show is a fascinating and at times squeamish journey through some of Britain's most gruesome and awful, but momentous, historical events.
In each episode of Bloody Britain Rory McGrath examines a key event from British history. Whether it's battles, rebellions, wars, plagues, social unrest, betrayal, executions, injustice or mass insanity, we'll concentrate on the mad, sad and bad moments from our past. In short, we'll zoom in on when the past was truly horrible and ask why, when and how these events came to be part of our history.
From learning the tactics of the siege, through to troop formations and allegiances of the people, Bloody Britain demonstrates that history is always more interesting when it was horrible.
Series Producer: Sophie Theunissen ; Directed by Emma Sayce & Jessica Whitehead ; Produced by Outline for Discovery Networks Europe
8) The Bodysnatchers
Rory McGrath investigates body snatching in 19th century London, travelling to graveyards and learning how to get a body out of a coffin.
During the 17th and early 18th centuries, a grim profession emerged. A growing number of anatomists, keen to improve their medical knowledge, needed corpses on which to conduct dissections, which were often done in 'theatres', where members of the public could pay to watch. Bodies were difficult to come by, as it was only legal to perform a dissection on the corpse of a recently executed criminal. So 'body snatchers', also known as 'resurrection men', made money by digging up fresh corpses and selling them to medical schools and hospitals.
