It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week Airline. Welcome back to TV Reload. My name is Benjamin Norris, and on this podcast I go behind the scenes with the biggest players in television. Each episode you will get a front row seat with content makers like executive producers, writers, editors and casting agents, plus the talent we see on our screens.
TV Reload reloads the shows that you are currently watching and gives you a better insight into our television industry and our streaming services today. On the podcast, I have Mark Fannell, who is an Australian film critic, technology journalist, radio presenter, author and television presenter. His new series Stuff the British Stole on the ABC, which launches on November one, is a fantastic dive into historical artifacts that have stories
that will surprise and provoke conversation amongst the viewers. Mark has a great turn of phrase and he knows how to look for the hidden story. For years, I've loved him as a film critic and I love his curiosity. In every program he puts his name to, I will ask him about the show's origins, what he thinks of the British after making this series. If he thinks we should form a republic, and if he is a Royalist, there's plenty to one pack. However, let's get started with
today's guest. I'd like to welcome Mark Fannell from Stuff the British Stole to TV Reload.
I think part of our fascination with the Royals is it's this tenuous connection to something that is the stuff of fairytales.
History is messy.
There is no such thing as a kind of simple and straightforward, clean narrative. The bottom line is neither of us would be here were it not for the British Empire.
This is fun.
This is like artists a detective novel. The reason this show exists to go, what about the people that the British royal family exploit it? Official records call it a gift.
That's our absolute Lord of horseship.
Is now the time for republic? Is now? Not the time republic? I was interested to see that debate happened quite fast. This says the story of you and me and the Stuff the British Stole. What does it mean that the people that were left out for the first draft of History.
Hi Mark, thanks for coming on to the podcast and talking about this exciting new series on the ABC Stuff The.
British Stole Yes, my incredibly spicily titled show. Thank you for having me. I love it.
I love the title, and I didn't think I was going to love the show because I wasn't sure how invested I was going to be. But for people who are listening to this podcast, it is very interesting and it kind of draws you in, and the episodes are way too short. That's what all I'm going to say is, well.
I mean I joke that it's it's Indiana Jones and revert right, like say Indiana Jones goes around the world and says it belongs to a museum and then I come along and go does it?
Though?
Like does it? It's funny because it started off as a podcast, and in fact it's still a podcast. We're going to do more episodes. But it was actually a joke between me and Jan Fran who people will know
from the Question Everything. We used to do a show together and we were just joking years ago about how many am stolen things around museums and she ended up getting busy making successful TV shows and I happened to be on my way to London from tam Too twenty nineteen, and I just brought my microphone with me and I just started interviewing people, and I realized that there are these incredible stories, you know, but hiding in museums. The plaques often don't tell you the most of the story.
But if you pull back the threads on objects that sitting these things, you've get incredible stories that reveal not just about themselves and own the strange heists and stories that involved in getting them in the museums, but it kind of reveal stories about us, right, Like you and I are talking in Australia. I'm half Indian, half Irish, I was raised in Australia. I speak English. The bottom line is neither of us would be here were it not
for the British Empire. Like we just wouldn't be right now. You could argue that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's a thing, right, And I think it's about those are the objects. They're a doorway, and if you pull on the thread of them, you can tell a very big story about you and me and how he ended up here. That's kind of the goal of it.
Well, we're going to get into a little bit about Australians and our fascination with our heritage as we get into this, But I just want to start by saying I've always been a fan of your work as a presenter. I think it originates for me with your passion of film and pop culture. I feel like I've been watching you on television for a very long time.
But I don't know whether.
It's the Indian in you or what it is, but you look the same age as when I first started watching you.
I don't know what's going on. Can you not see the close ups of all the gray hairs? That's very kind of you. I'm going to take it. I will also say that I think this camera that I've got at the moment is does some weird AI thing that makes my face look a lot younger than it actually is. But thank you, the ABC cameras did not do that.
I mean the millions of dollars we spent on computer generating all my wrinkles away, it's clearly Workwhile how you justify that to the public, I'll never know, But no, that's very kind of you. It's interesting, like I have had a weird career, Like my first job in television.
I was eighteen years old when I started on the movie show actually on SBS, and I have no qualifications to do any so I've sort of went from being a film critic to covering technology, to interviewing celebrities and doing kind of documentaries for the feed on SBS and now this, And I think part of why, I think, part of why it works, if you can say that
does work, is I'm genuinely curious. Like I'm genuinely curious about everything, people, the past, future, and I think as long as you can maintain that curiosity and convey that to an audience, then I think it's watchable. It would be my sort of take on why I'm still employed all.
But that has to be the thing, though, because you know, for me to followed you throughout your career, it has been your careosity. And I think that if in radio, in podcasting, in television, if you are investigating something, if you are curious and you are genuinely interested, I think
people want to come along with you. Because the fact that I've started with movies and I've come with you now to the stuff the British stole and I'm still loving it means that it has a lot to do with you as an investigative journalist.
I guess it's very kind of you. It's dangerous because now knowing that I'm going to go and pitch to the ABC, Hey, I want to do a show just about tax law or you know, franking credits, just to see if I can make it interesting. Very hard over friend, but I do like it's challenge.
Well what made me think sitting down with you today, I'm like, I'm so excited to have this chat and I was like, what are the projects? Like? What is it about a project like this that attracts you to the subject matter?
Well, it's interesting because it did. I mean it did start as a bit of a as a joke between me and Jan and there's no question. And I think it was the moment I happened to be in the UK the tail end of twenty nineteen and I was I remember just standing in a museum looking at something, just an object that ends up being the first episode of the podcast, and just being like why are you here?
Like how did you get here? And the thing that surprised me most, I must say is that when I first made the podcast along for it was a TV show. It ended up hitting number one on the Apple Podcast charts, which and I remember looking at that just going, maybe I'm not the only one who's curious about how we got here, because at the end of the day, that's
what it's about. You know, the objects for a doorway, they open up into a bigger world, right, And I think you know when we pick objects, right, when we pick objects for either the podcast and now the TV show, you're not just looking for an object that has twists and turns in its history. You're looking for something like what does it reveal? What does it tell us about ourselves? And all of the objects have actually come from the public, right.
So we set up an email address at the end of the making the first series, and we said to people all around the world, and we said to people all around the world, if you've ever seen an object in a museum and you're curious about how God there, just let us know. And that's where it's all come from.
So it's all come from people emailing us and going, hey, there's this thing, and I don't understand how God there, I don't know why they have a funnyccent what they do, and so I think, you know, writing the wave of that curiosity is I think in an important part of why I think the show works and why it works for me, because I genuinely love piecing together the story and the two objects that I think the two episodes that have been made available now, so some of those
objects are quite well known, but they've got all these parts of their history that most people don't know. And as we progress into the series further, the stories get twistier and curlier. And I've been recently advised that the word twistier is not a real world but to put it into pilance, they get stranger as we go along. I think that's part of what I love about it,
which is like going on the journey. I mean, I joke about it being Indiana Jones and reverse, but part of me does enjoy sitting there and going, hold on, how do these pieces fit together? That's obviously not just me doing it. We did with the team, but it's like I can hold on, if that guy got it from there, how does it end up here? And you look for the threads. It's it is a mystery. It is unfolding history as a mystery. And that is I think why it works.
It does, It really does work. And I think, overall, what did you learn or what did you think you walked away with thinking about the British Because for me, I've watched two episodes and I'm starting to think that they're elitist assholes dollar things like what did you walk away thinking?
Well, I mean it's interesting like I'm half Indian, half Irish, raised in Australia. I wouldn't exist without a British Empire, you know, like that's that's the reality of it. And I think the history of the British Empire is we're talking about an institution that at its peak commanded a quarter the world's population and a quarter of the world's land roughly. That's huge. It's fundamentally changed the course of history, and to say it's all good or all bad is
probably not super helpful. And I think what is important about the show is that focusing on an object in one story allows you to illuminate the complicated parts of that history, because if you just talk about the British Empire being all good or all bad, you usually get something wrong. And the other thing that really stands out is that history is messy, and it doesn't just have heroes,
and it doesn't just have villains. It's always, always, always more complicated, and I think picking apart one story allows you to tell that story. In terms of what I learned from it, I think the biggest thing for me is that I realized that it had to be bigger
than just what British people in Britain did. And so what you'll see as a series unfold is is we look at objects that actually were taken by British subjects in places like Australia and in places like Canada and all around the world, because the Empire is so much bigger than just the British isles, and so you know there are objects that you know, I have a moment where like is this stuff the British stole or stuff the Australian style, And of course at the time those
events happened, it's both. You know, we're British subjects on this land for a very long time, and so it was about kind of taking a step back going this story is so much bigger than just what a tiny island in the north did. It's about it's about how the rest of the world was formed. And when you start putting together those pieces, you get a really I mean,
it definitely changed the way I saw Australia. It definitely changed the way I saw Australia's history, both its colonial history and its indigenous history, because you have to kind of take a step back and go, oh, well, this is our story too. We you know, it's not just heading on the British. It's like it's like going, oh, we as a nation have a fairly strong bit of culpability here. It's like, oh, okay, oh that's why we have that interesting and you know, like it's always tricky.
You know, you've got institutions and galleries and museums that really don't want the show to exist. I can tell you that for nothing, and don't make it easy. And you'll see some of the the very creative ways we navigate that across the series. We've made it part of the show. Whether when institutions didn't want to come to the party and didn't want to be didn't want to talk about what they had in their collections.
Hasn't this kind of stirred up regardless, you know, like we're talking about this, but it's kind of stirs up a lot for me, you know, and it made me want to ask you about have you wanted Australia to become a republic and separate from the Commonwealth. I mean, I think that Julia Gillard publicly predicted Australia will separate from the Royals once the Queen passes. Do you kind of think that she is right?
It's interesting. I mean, we obviously shot the show before the Queen passed away, and she has passed away, and you know, there was conversations we all had with each other about what does this change the way people feel about the British Empire? Does it change the way it
feels about Australia as a constitution, monarchy or republic? And I think what's fascinating is the Australian public is smart enough to separate its general love and respect for Queen Elizabeth I, who was obviously quite well liked and respected, and then kind of separate that from like the Empire and the Commonwealth and where do we sit within that. So I think now that she's past, I think we are having a moment where we are starting to have a conversation about Okay, well, this is a this is
an inflection point in our relationship with Britain. Right, This allows us a moment to look around at each other and go, do we belong in this personally? I mean, I would like for us to have a big national conversation about it. Now that sounds like I'm avoiding the question.
I know that, But I think the issue with this is and I get that, I do, but I think it's important that when we have when we talk about us as a nation, we take a step back and go, well, yes, One part of that component is our relationship with the British Empire. Another component of that is our relationship with the original owners of this land who never seeded, who you know, just had the British come in and take
it right. And I think those two conversations need to happen in concert, right, And they are happening in concert because we're having a beginning of a national debate about a voice to Parliament and it's kind of part of that. I don't think you can separate the two, right, okay, Because how we as a nation, those of us who are non indigenous, relate to the people that own this land and had it taken from them, and then how we relate to this tiny island up in the north
that you know masterminded this kind of overtaking. Those two things are related, and I think there's been a debate at the moment about well, we can't talk about a republic until we've dealt with a voice department. I'm like, I actually think we should be talking about these things at the same time. Like I think we should be talking about the same time, and I think we should be folding them into the same conversation. So I know
that's not a direct answer. I mean my personal feeling on it is I don't understand why in twenty twenty two we have a ahead of state in another country. I don't understand it, but I would like it as to have a more holistic conversation about our relationship with the original owners of this land and the people that colonized it, because I think they are related conversations.
I think another question then to ask you, because you skirted around that a bit, but are you a royalist?
I mean except for the two weeks of the year when the Crown drops on Netflix? No, not really. Well, I think you know and I don't you know. No, I get what you're asking, and it's like I don't have any ill feeling towards the British Royal family. I don't, I really don't, because the whole point of this series is to go, right, the way history is told is
told around them. Right. The crown exists, right, and it exists, and it's popular because all this attention and all of these documentaries have been made about the British Royal family and all those attentions on them. The reason this show exist is to go, hold on, what about the people that the British Royal family exploits it over centuries? Right, That's the point. The point of the show is to
go you know, put it this way. When we do stories, when we do documentaries about the British Empire, usually they are these very genteel documentaries that have a superannuated British star trapesing around the world going look at this, this is where that empire was and there is something important and it hits slightly different when you tell the story of the empire not from the point of view of the colonizers, but from the point of view of the colonized. Right.
And so while I personally don't have any negative feelings about the individuals at the heart of the royal family. I genuinely don't. What I am interested in is going all right, They've got their story, They've got mountains of column inass dedicated to them. Totally fine with it. I will be watching The Crown when it launches the new season this year, of course I will. But there's a part of that story, that big picture that's missing, and
that's everyone else. That's you and it's me, it's our story. In relation to that, I think as you watch the series progress, it's like it becomes a lot more about So the British did that, But what does it mean for the people that were left out of the first
draft of history? And that's what I'm interested in. The people that don't get the Netflix series right, they're the ones I'm like, Okay, so this big institution here with the chiny Jewels, what's the impact they had on your life because you got left out of the first draft. That's what's more interesting to me. Does that explain the relationship? Does that get Look?
I think that's great, you know, I think there's a couple of things I'd like to say. I'd like to say I don't know if The Crown would be as successful just because it is about the Royals and the subject matter. I think it's a very well made show. I think the acting, I think everything about that show is right time, right place, you know, and absolutely the
subject matter is fascinating to people. But I also think it gets really quite confusing because we've got a lot of people in Australia who love the Royals, but they love the Royals in the sense that I love the Royals, as in talking about the fascination of what the Royal family do. I'm still invested in the sense of I thought King Charles should have passed down the title to William. I mean, what do you think of that.
I don't think he can. I don't like whether he should or not as a sort of a separate issue, but I think like legally, he's been raised his whole life with this preparation for this duty, and I don't think either personally or or like constitutionally, he can, Like
he could always abdicate. Yes, okay, fair enough, I'll pay that, but I don't think the reasons for the last abdication were really the circumstances are quite different, and I don't think that I think he's been raised his whole life to do a job, and I think he's now going, Okay, I'm going to.
Do a job.
And I don't think it's I don't obviously I don't know him, so I'm guessing as much as anybody, But I would guess that the sense of duty has been imbuded upon him, imbued within him since they got literally and I think he's taking it for I think he's doing the job that he thinks he was meant to do. It's look, it's complicated. I mean, yes, you could argue that the British monarchy might be in better shape if they did wholly pass it on to a younger, shininger face. You could totally.
Argue that it'd be more appealing, right, you know.
Totally I mean people. Yeah, But at the same time, it's not like William and K. I mean, even if you just look at the Buckingham Royal Instagram account, like they're going overdrive to kind of like to give person to give personality to Charles and Camilla and to fore ground William and K. Like there's like they're presenting you follow any of those accounts, and because I happen to
make your show called stuff, the British dole. The algorithm has decided to serve me a lot of bridge information, uh and content.
Because you've just been sitting there watching the Royals accounts, just like I want to see Camilla with a room full of Paddington Bears.
This is the content that came here for no look, I think because of that, I think they are now at they now present as a team, and so I think you will definitely see lots of visibility for William and Kate, would be my guess, because even though they're not obviously William is not king and won't be for
some time, he can be. He's still a prince and he can still be and can still be part of the public face of this institution that has a really complicated relationship with the present, right, Like the idea of a hereditary, like just a family inheriting wealth and power. It's like it is a concept that doesn't like in twenty twenty two or twenty twenty three, when you really think about it, it's strange, like when you really think about it. But you know, I watch the You know
my kids. I've got an eight year old and six year old, and they've watched every thing I do, and they come up here in this office and they watch rough cuts of stuff. But then when the Queen died together we watched the funeral and I realized, you know, watching them, two things happened. One which is my daughter in particular, would point out every jewel and she'd go, where's that from? Where's that from. I'm like, well, that
one's from Africa, that's from Da Da Da Da. The other thing that happened is I realized that I think part of our fascination with the royals, is it, particularly in Australia, is it's this tenuous connection to something that is the stuff of fairy tales, right kings and queen's and it's it's this we have this tiny thread that links us to this stuff that sounds like fairy tales. And I think some of that's quite intoxicating. I think,
I think, I think that's an intoxicating thing. Like a couple of years ago, I met the Queen's least problematic child, Prince Edward, and I was at an event and you know, I got excerted. I was meeting a royal like anybody would do, even one that I didn't quite know existed until I was invited and I'll be honest with you. But they send you a thing and it's like and he seems lovely, and they send you a thing of like all the royal protocol. I was like, what you
should call him? And you sa. Then you read it and I'm like, wow, it's it's like I feel like I'm feel like I've stepped into the water of the rings and I will say that I messed it up. He walked towards me at this advance and I cid you not, I felt my back leg. I'm gonna stand up. You're saying I felt my back leg.
Just go oh no, you did not, You didn't.
I didn't bow and I felt instinctively, I mean maybe so I instinctively curtsyed and he just did. It must happen to him all the time. He's like, that's what I'm interesting. And you know how you have these outer body experiences and you look at yourself going what are you doing? I just loved it.
At that point I imagined you saying I'm Indian Irish from Australia.
Thank you for reading all my people. I know he was looking lovely. I'll see myself out bye now, good bye. No, Look, you know, I understand the point of that whole yarn is I understand why we're fascinated by the Royals. I do. I do, and I'm and I'm as interested as anything. The point for me is to go that exists, it's worthwhile discussing why we're fascinating with it, but then just sometimes go okay, well, that story is being told. It's being told day and in and out in every tabloid
and you know, on Netflix and things like that. But there's another side to that coin. And that's why I do what I do, which is not to not to say that the attention on the Royals is not good. I think I think it's fine just to go, okay, well, there's another side to this. And you kind of saw that debate happen when the Queen died, right, it was, and it was I was surprised at how fast it happened. You know, there was wall to wall coverage on to be fair, on the ABC most a lot of the time.
You could it. It was everywhere, no, and it was wall to wall. And I think maybe it's possible that we the media writ large overestimated in some cases our level of reverence because you could kind of see that there was very quickly a debate that formed about hold on, you know, very quickly we're like, okay, are we too obsessed with this? Is now the time for republic? Is
now not the time for republic? I was interested to see that debate happened quite fast, and I was like, I didn't actually purposely didn't say anything on Twitter or anything like that. I was like, I'm just gonna watch. I'm just gonna watch and see how people respond to this, because it'll tell you where we're at as a nation.
I feel like if you just mentioned the British at all in Australia, and it has been like this for a while immediately, whether you're at a barbecue, whether you've run out of things to say to your friend on the phone or whatever. You know, we have leaned into talking about this now for an extremely long time. And I believe that if we did do like a plebiscite like we did with same sex marriage, I do think that Australia would separate themselves. And I think that that's fine.
I mean, I genuinely have believed for a long time. We've been more interested in the politics and the gossip of the royals then what we should have been doing, and respecting who we are and where we came from. Actually respecting is a really shit word because we invaded Australia. So that's it's.
Complicated, right.
I'm interested in history. I think that's where I'm coming from. Like, I'm not saying anything that's happened in the past has been good or bad. I'm not throwing my hat on that, but I am saying that I'm interested in the history, and I think that we all should have some respect of the history.
I think so. And look, I think it's hard to choose words around this stuff, right, Just leart me do that, yes, because and trust me, I make a show called Stuff the British Style, and there are I would say, it's not a case of either all good or bad. It's a case of good and bad. There are profoundly horrific things that happened in the name of the British Empire, and then there's some things that you know, we're all
the great beneficiaries of. And those things don't cancel each other out, they don't balance each other out, they simply coexist. And I think partly why I make the show is because I think we're smart enough as a people to take in both to go, Okay, good things happened, horrific things happened, and we can be honest about it. And that is, at the end of the day, what it's about. Let's just be honest about our past, like just let's
just be honest about the good and the bad. And I think we're grown up enough as a people to do that. And I guess that's my I guess I'll wait and see, you know, how, to see how people respond to the show.
I think it's going to happen. I think you cannot avoid this conversation. I think in the first episode in regard to the jewel that was commandeered or stolen by the English, and I want people to watch that episode. If they haven't, they can catch up on that on iView. But I think it's inherent that people are going to ask these sorts of questions. I mean, I just kept looking at these jewels and I'm like, if they still are around, is Camilla going to be wearing these jewels?
Like?
Is Camilla going to be wearing qu.
I mean, that's it's interesting because we nearly they they wanted to put that in the press release. Will Camilla were the grount? And I remember looking at it going, uh, that his story is going to change fourteen times between now and May next year, because it's like she may, like, you know, it's the consort ground, like she she could, but then does she run risking the eye of like a billion people in India and Pakistan and Afghanistan, Like is that the thing that she's willing to risk? I
don't know, We'll have to wait and see. And similarly with the second episode with the stone that's that Charles is you know his mum was crowned on this stone? Will that that was taken from Scotland? Will he sit on it just like his mom did? Wait and see?
Can you tell me your favorite episode? I've only watched two episodes and I'm really enjoying it. But I want to know you're I mean, obviously you've watched.
Yeah, yeah, we've just we're just delivering because the show's all done. It's just see animations. The last thing gone straight.
Yeah.
Look, the Scottish episode is really fun and it's a wild heist. The third episode is about something that live in Australia that probably shouldn't be here, and it connects us to a whole bunch of different nations. A favorite. It's really hard because I think every episode is every episode is really different. Like that's the other thing. Every episode is like different part of the world. It's like,
you know, Dora the Explorers and another continent. I think for me, I'm going to say the third episode because it's.
Just got me as soon as you said that to me, And you know, I guess that's the narcissist in me. Or I'm like something in Australia, something that's mine, something that I've stolen, you know, I think that there's some interest in that.
I think the third episode is the twistiest tail and it's a little it's a full on scavenger hunt around the country and around the world, and I think that was like that was like and also it's an object that the institution that has it were really not helpful. They really didn't want the story told. So there's that which I guess which people will see.
When I watched the episode, everyone who joins the podcast gets asked this question, what's something from behind the scenes, something that we didn't see, that we won't see kind of like a behind the scenes secret of the making of this series.
So we flew from I did a bunch of filming in Australia, then I flew to Israel and then from there I flew to London. They left my bags on the tarmac in Israel, and so I arrived in London with no clothes and so I had to but I had to film at the Tower of London at six o'clock the next morning. I arrived on a plane at three in the afternoon on a Sunday. So I ran
to an uber to basically go to Westfield. Westfield watched in London and I was like, I need a long coat, and then it's a really bad time to wear long cakes. I'm like, I know, I need to wear one for this thing. And so I basically ran all around London trying to find basically accruing clothes so I could shoot
at the Tower of London in the morning. But stuff like that happens all the time, and a show like this, you're constant, like six countries I think we went to in the end, it's like all over like the world, like so many things top and change, and I think you have to go to make a show like this, and I say this now with like the benefit of mindsight. I think at the time I was quite stretched out of my mind. But you have to just roll with
it a little bit, like it's an adventure. It's an adventure to watch, it's an adventure to make, and you have to roll with it. And there's so many times where like little things, you know, you get a text from the day before going so and so who was going to be in the Show's like no, we can't do it. Now, I'm like, God, quickly, let's find somebody else like it. It's you know, it's it's wild, you know, making a show like this is it's it's hard. It's
not I've made television for twenty years. This is the shop made a by file MHM