Episodes

  • Ep 1: A Hard Act to Follow
    Aug 11 2021

    The Queen is dead, long live the King. On the occasion of Edward Vll’s coronation, we look back at his life as spoilt child, curious adolescent and womanizing princely glutton. There’s a bizarre secret behind those early motion pictures of a new and rotund monarch.

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    31 mins
  • Ep 2: Big Helpings
    Aug 11 2021

    This was to be an age of excess for some, and plenty for others. An age when the ruling classes enjoyed a secret life of large-scale adultery. Plus, the story of a female celebrity cook whose quail puddings were loved by the King. But was there more to their relationship?

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    36 mins
  • Ep 3: Small Worlds
    Aug 11 2021

    The bumpy story of early British flight; some secret mysteries about the Titanic, plus the secrets of a famous pair of murderers who were tracked down thanks to new technology. Ships, Telegraphy and the popular press were shrinking the world, with some unforeseen results.

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    37 mins
  • Ep 4: Black Edwardians
    Aug 11 2021

    Black historians talk about forgotten black figures from Africa, the Caribbean and the US as well as the continued presence of black people in the UK before during and after the period. Activists, musicians, athletes, writers, and artists whose histories have been forgotten – or erased.

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    30 mins
  • Ep 5: People of Breeding
    Aug 11 2021

    Good breeding was regarded as key to the survival of the ‘ Great British race’. It led to the nasty ‘science’ of eugenics – deciding who may and who may not breed. The telling secrets of a countess, a cricketer and a teenager.

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    36 mins
  • Ep 6: Destitute Foreigners
    Aug 11 2021

    Hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees fled Russian persecution. Many settled in the UK and USA but were not universally welcome. We tell the parallel stories of the King’s secret attempt to halt the persecution and a lone Jewish woman’s escape.

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    37 mins
  • Ep 7: Secret Suffragettes
    Aug 11 2021

    The arsonists, bombers and plotters who did more than march and sing for the vote. Suffragette Kitty Marion started life in the music halls where she was repeatedly molested. Plus, the story of the Queen’s Indian god daughter who secretly became a thorn in Winston Churchill’s side.

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    34 mins
  • Ep 8: Pan Freud
    Aug 11 2021

    The strange parallels between the works of two men – both obsessed with dreams - who never met. James Barrie, creator of Peter Pan, and Sigmund Freud, father of psychiatry. What does it really mean to want never to grow up?

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    36 mins