Sir Tony Robinson: Author talks imposter syndrome, first adult fiction work 'The House of Wolf'

Sir Tony Robinson is one of the world’s most recognisable history presenters. 

After four career-defining series of British sitcom ‘Blackadder’, he fronted 20 seasons of the archaeological dig show ‘Time Team’.  

His humorous hooks and accessible presentation has helped to demystify history and inspire passion in a whole new generation.  

Robinson has written over 30 children’s books, ‘Maid Marian and Her Merry Men’, ‘The Worst Jobs in History’, and ‘Tony Robinson's Weird World of Wonders!’ just a few of the titles.  

His latest work, ‘The House of Wolf’, is his first foray into fiction directed at an older audience, covering the Anglo-Saxons, Alfred the Great, and the making of England in the 9th century. 

Writing for adults is quite different to writing for children, and Robinson said it scared him “rigid” when he first started. 

“I had massive imposter syndrome”, he told Jack Tame. 

“It's ridiculous, isn't it, like I've been on the stage for 60 odd years, and yet when it came to writing a book, terror gripped me.” 

His subject matter is also a bit of a balancing act, as weaving historical fact with the narrative one wants to convey can sometimes be a challenge. 

“I did go quite bonkers writing it,” Robinson told Tame. 

Upon finishing the first draft, his publisher sent it off to reviewers, journalists, and some historical novelists – people Robinson respected.  

“I was in even more terror,” he revealed. 

“And then after six weeks, the writer Dan Jones, who wrote a stormingly popular historical novel called ‘Essex Dogs’, he wrote a review of it really, and it was so fulsome. 

“Immediately, all that paranoia that I’d had dispelled completely.”  

‘The House of Wolf’ is now out, and fans will be able to see him live on stage in 2026 in ‘An Audience with Sir Tony Robinson’. He’ll be performing at Auckland’s Bruce Mason Centre on February 17th, and at Christchurch’s Isaac Theatre Royal on February 18th.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at me.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Sir Tony Robinson is one of the world's most recognizable
history presenters. After four Korea defining series of the British
sitcom Blackheader, Tony of course fronted twenty seasons of the
Archaeological Dig show Time Team. His humorous hooks and accessible
presentation has helped to demystify history and inspire passion in

(00:35):
a whole new generation. Tony has also written more than
thirty children's books, but his latest historical excavation is his
first foray into fiction for an older audience. The book's
called The House of Wolf. It's set in ninth century Wessex, Wessex,
and is an epic struggle between greed, idealism, ambition and betrayal.

(00:57):
And Sir Tony Robinson is with us this morning. Kyoda,
Good morning, good morning, Good morning. Hey. You have achieved
an extraordinary number of things in your life. You have
an extraordinary number of creative pursuits. It is remarkable to
consider there was even a first for you still to achieve,
and yet The House of Wolf is your first piece

(01:19):
of adult fiction. So can you just tell us. How
tell our listeners a little bit about it.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Well, it's pretty ridiculous, really. I was seventy eight when
I decided to write a historic trilogy, but I did.
And yeah, and so the first book is called The
House of Wolf, and it's about King Alfred the Great,

(01:45):
the only king that the English called great. And it
was a long long time ago. It was in the
ninth century AD, that's two hundred years before William the
Conqueror it came to England. But the reason is so
great is twofold. First of all, because he completely defeated

(02:05):
the Viking at a time when nobody else was getting
anywhere near defeating them. Secondly, he was the king of Wessex,
which is like southern England, and he nicked Mercier, which
was the word for the Midlands in those days, blued

(02:25):
them together and used a bit of East Anglia where
there were some Christian vikings, so all three were glued together.
Initially they called themselves the Anglo Saxons, but then gradually
out of that came the word angle Land. In other words,

(02:46):
Alfred created England. And so you know, if that isn't
worth a story, what else is?

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Have you always had an interest in the Anglo Saxons
as they're know.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yes, yeah, because like for your listeners who've come to Englis,
which I imagine will be quite a few of them.
You can see the Romans in the landscape. You've got
Hadrian's Wall and all that stuff. You can see the
Normans in the landscape because of all the cathedrals and
all the castles. But that gap of six hundred and

(03:23):
odd years in between what they used to call the
Dark Ages, there really isn't any sign of And that's
why it was called the Dark Ages, not because the
light suddenly failed, but because it's very hard to see
who those people were. So from my point of view
as a writer, that's great because it means I can

(03:44):
use my imagination almost as much as I like, and
no one can say, Ahi, you're wrong.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Well, how different is it writing for adults because you
have written I think thirty books now for younger readers,
and they are beloved books. But it is it's quite
a different experience. I would have.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
Thought, yeah, totally. Yeah. It scared me rigid when I started.
I had massive imposter syndrome. It's ridiculous, isn't it. Like
I've been on the stage for sixty odd years, and
yet when it came to writing a book, error gripped
me that just that idea of looking at the blank

(04:21):
page and knowing you've got to fill it up with
something implausible for grown ups. And I knew I wanted
to create a saga. I knew I wanted it to
be something, you know, those netflicky HBO type wonderful theories
that we've all adored over the last ten to fifteen years.
I wanted it to be a page turner, but I

(04:43):
also wanted to reflect the history that was going on
at the time, and I knew that meant that, rather
like Game of Thrones, I had to have lots of
stories going on at the same time. So I'm sitting
there with my pen in my hand, because I do
write with a pen and paper, and I'm thinking, how
dare you have the audacity to try and knit three

(05:06):
or four storylines together over like foreign and a half
hundred pages, knowing that that's only the first third. How
can you do that and expect people not to yell
out fraud, cheat, liar.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
It's It's a delicate balance, isn't it When you're relying
on true historical fact and you're trying to weave that
in with a fictional narrative, like you always want to
have the kind of right balance between the two. I
should imagine it.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Was so lovely because I really, you know, I really
I did go quite bonkers writing it. But and I
submitted the drafts of final draft to the publisher, and
then he got that printed up and sent it out
to a number of people. I think, I think your
young people call them opinion formers, and some journalists and

(06:01):
also some historical novelists, people that I really respected. And
I'm even more terror I know, I'm laying this on
a bit with a trowel. And then after six weeks,
the writer Dan Jones, who wrote a stormily popular historical
novel called Essex Doggs. He wrote, but he wrote, well,

(06:24):
he wrote a review of it, really and it was
so fulsome he was so enthusiastic about it. Both thought
it was, you know, the bee's knees that immediately all
that paranoia that I'd had dispelled completely. It would like
this huge weight off my shoulders. And then more and
more of these lovely reviews came in, and well, he'd

(06:47):
got in the Sunday Times Top twenty, which is you know,
no top ten. Why am I putting myself out the
top ten? And that's great because once you've got that,
you're allowed to call yourselves a Sunday Times best selling author.
So you know that's that's really what your introduction should
have been. I don't want to well that's what you're

(07:07):
just started with.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, yeah, of course, well yeah, I for what it's worth.
I hope you never feel the need for confirmation or
validation again, because we love your work, Toney. So why
do you write with pen and paper? Still?

Speaker 3 (07:26):
I love it. I love the way it feels, I
love the way the pen feels in my hand. I
love the rustle of the paper. My ideal way of
working is to have two pillows behind me in bed,
and I've got fourteen sheets fanned out, like on the
left hand side all the pages that I've just written,
in the middle of the ones I'm working on now,

(07:48):
and on the far side of the notes for what
will happen in future. It's the absolute opposite of using
any kind of computerized writing. It's the process is always there,
The whole process is always with me, not dominated by
the single screen. And I'm you know, I'm not dissing

(08:10):
ninety nine percent of the writers that I know who
write on their laptop, but just for me, it just
feels right.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Do you think your many incredible seasons of Time Team
has helped you to connect with stories like this from
the past. What do you see as being the connection there?

Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, and black added to Both of them were created
by incredibly intelligent, mostly Oxford and Cambridge educated young men.
Most of it was certainly on black Adder. They were
all young men, not more women on Time Team, but

(08:52):
all of them had this passion about history, this very
serious attitude towards history actually, which really rubbed off on me,
both the passion and the seriousness, except that on Black
Adda those guys were prepared to use it in any
way they wanted to in order to create a good
story in a good gag. So that's there with me

(09:13):
as well. I think those two things were huge influences
on me. And the third one is Charles Dickens. I mean,
I wouldn't want to compare myself with him in any
other way other than that he was a writer who
started off as an actor, and when you listen or
read what he wrote, you can hear that it is

(09:37):
the words of an actor, someone who readish it in words,
someone who loves words, someone who wants to read their
book out loud, and like, all the characters he created
are slightly hyper real, aren't they? And all the environments
in which you set the characters again slightly hyperreal. And yeah,
I think I follow that example too.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
See I reflect on Blackhead as almost being the kind
of soundscape of my childhood. I feel as a it
sort of you know, it papers my memories.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
Well, terribly bad.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
But I read recently that you said that multiple actors
had turned down the role of Balderick before.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yeah, well, if you'd seen the pilot scripts you would
have understood it was pretty rubbish. And the part of
Balderick was only about eight lines, and there wasn't one
funny one in it. And virtually everybody who that little
coterie of performers cast in their shows were fellow members

(10:45):
of the Oxford University Dramatic Society in Cambridge foot Lies.
They were the people they had always worked with. They
all knew how to work together. So you can imagine
if you were one of that group of people, and
Richard Curtis and Rowan had written this scripts and they'd
only given you eight lines and none of them were funny.
You'd have gone, yeah, well, next time maybe, but you know,

(11:07):
not this one. And I suspect that was something like
what happened, and eventually, just because the head of comedy
had seen me doing something small and vaguely humorous, cast
me as someone small and vaguely humorous.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
Do people still pull you up on the street and
recite lines to you from Black Hair?

Speaker 3 (11:27):
Oh? Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably The problem is
I've forgotten them, Like they recite the whole of a
gag except for the punchline, and then they wait for
me to say the punchline. I can't remember. I just
look at them blankly and go, yeah, go on, you
say it.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
I also read that you have another ambition outside of
this trilogy, to come to the South Island's West Coast
and New Zealand and film a documentary here.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
Yeah. Well it hasn't No, No, I just want to
keep on saying it, hoping that some film producer with
a lot of money will will will help me that series.
It is one of the most fascinating parts of the
world that I've been to, and its history is so rich,
and you know, I don't know how familiar all that

(12:17):
stuff is to New Zealand people, even South Ireland people,
but certainly over here we know nothing about it. And
in the States, I don't think they know anything about
You know, that was the real gold Rush, wasn't it,
And what a transforming time it was, and how lost
and isolated so many people were, of all ethnicities, and yeah,

(12:39):
I would love to do something or that. I just
think it a great and fascinating time. And now I
think most people look at the back of the map
and New Zealand and all they see is the other coast,
the bit down the bottom and the bit up the top.
They don't see that wonderful, fulfilling, it exciting bit that
is virtually ignored.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
You are coming to New Zealand early next year, so
you got two different dates, right.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
Well, two different days, but two very proximate dates. So
on the seventeenth of February, I'm at the Bruce Mason
in Auckland and on the eighteenth I'm at the old
Esa Royal in christ Church.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
I haven't been.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
Yeah, it's tis for me too, because I haven't been
to christ Church since about eighteen months after the big
disaster and when it was still really struggling. Whenever I
say struggling, that sounds offensive, and I don't know. I
just thought the way that people seized the opportunity amidst
the tragedy was absolutely profound. And yeah, so I want

(13:45):
to go back now.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
I don't want to give too much away, but I
think you will find, for the most part, not entirely,
but for the most part, it's a city transformed.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
So I'm longing to say, so, are any of those
big I forgot what you call them, those big rectangular
metal boxes that were turned into.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
Shops for the shipping containers.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, they can changes. That's the word. Yeah, excuse me,
I am seventy nine. It's the first time in this
entire interview I've forgotten a word, and it was the word,
ladies and gentlemen, shipping container.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Totally your You've got your mind with the Anglo Saxons.
That's totally understanding.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
That's true.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Yeah, and the Anglo Saxon shipping containers were made out
of wood.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
Yes, that we are delighted that you're coming down. Congratulations
on the House of Wolf, and we're thrilled that it's
going to be a three part series at the stage
as well. So thank you very much for giving us
your time and we will see you in a few.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
Months, looking forward to it.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
That is Tony Robinson to repeat those dates again. He's
going to be Auckland on the seventeenth of February. He's
going to be in christ on the eighteenth of February.
Maybe we can get him to stop by Dimitries while
he's in town as well. Such a joy to get
up with.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Him for more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen
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