Tony Robinson's Cunningcast

Tony looks back at the best bits of Cunningcast Series 3 with series producer Melissa FitzGerald.   Series 3 features fabulous episodes on Stonehenge, Shipwrecks, Vladimir Putin, Dogs, The Beatles, Sutton Hoo, The Bible and more with some very special guests. If you like these best bits but haven’t heard the full episodes, have a wander back on our Cunningcast feed to check them out. Fol...

In this bonus episode of Cunningcast, Tony Robinson is joined by biblical scholars John Barton and Francesca Stavrakopoulou to explore the Dead Sea Scrolls and what they reveal about the origins of the Bible and early Christianity. From their dramatic discovery in the late 1940s and recent AI-led re-dating, to the startling variety of ancient Jewish and Christian texts—including lost gospels and s...

Today Tony is joined by an Anglican priest, John Barton, and an atheist scholar, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, to strip away myth and reverence and reveal the Bible as a messy, brilliant, centuries-long experiment in storytelling, belief, politics, and power. Full of sex, violence, poetry, argument, and big ideas, the Bible emerges not as a single holy book but as one of the most influential and fasci...

In this special collaborative episode, Tony Robinson sits down with Time Team’s Helen Geake for an immersive dive into ‘The House of Wolf’, his gripping new historical saga. Tony reveals how decades of archaeology, storytelling, and acting shaped the novel’s vivid world of Alfred the Great, political intrigue, and everyday Anglo-Saxon life. Together, they explore the magic of Time Team, the thrill...

The third part of Tony’s chat with The Beatles biographer Ian Leslie, exploring the emotional and creative partnership between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They discuss how Lennon’s 1966 “more popular than Jesus” remark shook him, how the Beatles abandoned touring for studio experimentation, and how Yoko Ono and Linda Eastman became catalysts for John and Paul pulling apart. Business conflicts,...

The second part of Tony’s chat with Beatles biographer Ian Leslie, exploring how John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s unique and complex relationship shaped The Beatles. When Tony first heard ‘Love Me Do’ he was blown away by the new sound he was hearing, and he’s been a lifelong fan of The Beatles ever since. Today Tony and Ian are discussing the band’s internal dynamics, the emotional histories...

This year, alongside writing his own book, Tony was gripped by that of another writer - Ian Leslie’s ‘John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs’. Tony, who is a lifelong Beatles fan, has invited Ian onto Cunningcast to chat all about The Beatles.  In Part 1 of this 3 Part mini-series, Ian and Tony explore how a shared adolescent intensity, mutual trauma, and obsessive love of music forged the un...

In this bonus episode, Tony and his guests the veterinary scientist Daniel Mills and dog historian Stephanie Howard-Smith discuss how our attitudes towards dogs, and mourning their deaths, have evolved. We hear about the dog paintings of Edwin Landseer from Stephanie and how dogs read human emotions and 'love' us in their own way from Daniel. Together they discuss how growing empathy, affluence, a...

Tony is a great dog lover but sadly since he made ‘Do Our DOGS Really Love Us?’ In Series 1 he lost his beloved Holly-Berry, a rescue Westie. He has since tried another dog ‘adoption’ which didn’t work out so well, so today, Tony wants to explore how and why dogs have become the ‘perfect’ pets and our sentimental attachments to them in life and death. How and do we bond with our dogs, and why...

One of Tony’s favourite things going on at Sutton Hoo currently is the reconstruction of the world-famous Sutton Hoo burial ship which was discovered in Mound 1 in 1939 by the archaeologist Basil Brown. The ship is believed to be the grave of King Rædwald, the 7th Century Anglo-Saxon ruler of East Anglia. The Sutton Hoo Ships Company is a project based in Woodbridge, Suffolk, which is using an arm...

Today Tony is digging up the secrets of Sutton Hoo, England’s iconic Anglo-Saxon royal burial site, with Professor Martin Carver, who led the 1980s excavations, and Laura Howarth, Archaeology and Engagement Manager at Sutton Hoo, National Trust.  The 1939 dig by Basil Brown for landowner Edith Pretty, revealed the shape of a ship beneath a mound. It turned out to be a 7th-century royal s...

Today Tony is diving beneath the surface of one of history’s most enduring legends: Atlantis. Joining him are maritime archaeologist and bestselling author, David Gibbins, and the writer Damian Le Bas. A life-long fascination with the Atlantis myth has shaped both their work.   Together they explore the shifting meanings of Atlantis, from Plato’s parable to pop culture icon. They look at the...

Tony has been lucky enough to dive all over the world, he’s even dived on the Titanic with the film director James Cameron. So today on Cunningcast, Tony’s exploring underwater history with David Gibbins, maritime archaeologist and author of A History of the World in 12 Shipwrecks , and Damian Le Bas writer, filmmaker and author of The Drowned Places . Together they explore how shipwrecks are...

🎙️ Tony Robinson’s Cunningcast is back, with new episodes dropping Thursdays… Actor, presenter and author, Sir Tony Robinson is back with another series of his hit ‘history with a twist’ podcast. Throughout the series, the ‘eternally curious’ Sir Tony combines his unique blend of wit, brains, and humour, with his passion for popular history to explore a new selection of his cunningly cur...

Today we bring you a bonus episode on Vladimir Putin, digging deeper into who he really is and what makes him tick. Tony and his expert guests Mark Galeotti and Anna Arutunyan unpick the man from the myth. They discuss how Putin is a pragmatic, cautious leader, shaped more by circumstance than by ideology, as Anna says, “he is very much driven by the needs of the moment, and this is why you'll see...

Vladimir Putin casts a shadow over our lives, but it wasn’t always that way, there was a time when the West was in love with Putin, so what’s happened? Today Tony and his guests Mark Galeotti and Anna Arutunyan unpick the man from the myth. They discuss how Putin was shaped by a tough childhood in Leningrad, his KGB years and formative time in East Germany, how he rose through the political r...

Today we bring you a bonus episode on Stonehenge, digging deeper into the mysteries of the world’s best-known ancient stone circle. Tony speaks to leading archeologist Mike Parker Pearson and top geologist Jane Evans about Stonehenge’s altar stone, once thought to come from Wales, which is now believed, through zircon analysis, to have originated in northeast Scotland, linking it to wider Neolithi...

Cunningcast is back and Tony is kicking off his new series with one of his favourite subjects, Stonehenge, where new discoveries show that once again this ancient site is throwing up new evidence. Tony has invited his old friend, leading archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson, to discuss the Altar Stone's Scottish origins and its implications for understanding the monument's significance. Also joining...

Announcing the launch of Season 3 of Tony Robinson’s Cunningcast on Thursday 11th September. Follow us on social media and wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you don't miss it!   Series 3 will treat listeners to brand-new episodes covering:   ·   New discoveries at STONEHENGE ·   Who is Vladimir PUTIN and what makes him tick? ·  &nbsp...

In advance of the new series of his cunningly curated history podcast, coming soon, Tony looks back at the best bits of Cunningcast Series 2 with series producer Melissa FitzGerald.   Series 2 features fabulous episodes about Tattoos, Bones, Jelly, Magic, Cars, Beards, Bletchley Park, Hadrians Wall, Turnips, Dr Who and more with some incredible guests including: Alice Roberts, David...

Another chance to hear a Cunningcast Christmas treat: Tony reading his favourite poem ‘Goblin Market’ by Christina Rossetti. He's discussing the context and history of Rossetti’s iconic work with Madeleine Callaghan, Senior Lecturer in Romantic Literature at the University of Sheffield.   In his electrifying reading, Tony captures all the magic and strangeness of ‘Goblin Market’, set in a fai...

To mark Dementia Acton Week, Tony is bringing you a special episode dedicated to the past, present and future of this difficult disease with his expert guest Fiona Carragher, Director of Research and Influencing at the Alzheimer’s Society. Dementia the UK’s number one killer, 1 in 3 people will develop dementia in their lifetime and yet most of us don’t know a great deal about it. But this is a de...

Ben Elton is on Cunningcast today.  Ben was the co-writer on Blackadder Series 2, 3 and 4: they talk about Ben's comedy roots, working on The Young Ones with Rik and Ade and how Ben got the Blackadder gig via a near miss TV sitcom about Madness. They also chew over the highs and lows of working on Blackadder and how Ben and Richard Curtis created 'Adder speak'. Alongside Blackadder, Ben Elton...

Fresh off the back of celebrating 60 years of Dr Who last year and looking ahead to welcoming the 15th Doctor to the blockbuster show, Tony is joined by Sophie Aldred who played Dr Who’s assistant Ace and the writer, broadcaster and Dr Who superfan, Matthew Sweet. Together they look back over an incredible history of this abidingly successful show, sharing all the Whoniverse gossip from the very f...

20 years after playing Baldrick, Tony is still stopped in the street and asked where my turnip is!  Turnips made him famous, so today Tony is talking turnips in history: have they always been so unloved, a food fit only for animals and peasants like Baldrick, or is this a recent British bugbear? And when did the potato steal their veggie crown? Tony’s guests today are food historians Rebecca...