School trip that put 30 kids to sleep. Tour guide who droned past three plaques. Talk that emptied the room by slide 14. Sound familiar?
We do the opposite. Walks, talks, theatre and workshops built around Britain's most outrageous true stories, and the kind of characters you can't stop quoting.
History without the boring bits. Guaranteed.
You did Tudors in Year 4 and Romans in Year 6 and that's most of what stuck. Time to fix that. Eight ages of mischief, mayhem and majesty, pick a world and we'll show you the bits the textbook skipped.
You booked a walking tour and got a flat monologue past three plaques. Nobody laughed. Nobody remembered a thing. Our walks tread the same cobbles as kings, killers and commoners, by lantern, by daylight, by complete surprise. You'll leave with stories you'll repeat for years.
You hired a speaker. They read off slides. Half the audience checked their phones. An Audience With is the opposite, an intimate evening of stories, scandal and questions, with a proper conversation in the room. No slides. No script. No topic off-limits.
You've sat through a costumed historian reciting facts at the front of the room. Painful. Our theatre shows put Henry VIII in front of you so you can ask him anything. Boudica wants a word. Real characters, real questions, the kind of show people still talk about on the bus home.
Textbooks lose pupils by page two. Our workshops hand them a plague-doctor mask, an ancient cipher and a forensic puzzle, and turn them into history detectives for an afternoon. Curriculum-linked. KS1 through KS5. The bit of the term they actually remember.
You've watched a class glaze over by minute four. You've sat through the costumed historian who reads from a folder. We don't do that. Curriculum-linked. Interactive. Inclusive. The bit of the term they actually remember, and not a worksheet in sight.
Names you've heard a hundred times. Stories you've only heard half of. Meet six showstoppers face-to-face, they answer back, and the audience never sits still.
“If anyone is found speaking ill of me, off with their head.”
Blimey fact: His jousting accident knocked him out for two hours and may have rewired his personality.
“I'm fighting for my freedom, my bruised body and my outraged daughters.”
Blimey fact: She torched Roman London so thoroughly there's still a layer of ash 4 metres down.
“All the world's a stage. (And I want top billing.)”
Blimey fact: He invented over 1,700 words we still use, including 'eyeball' and 'gossip'.
“A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy.”
Blimey fact: He was caught with 36 barrels of gunpowder, enough to flatten Westminster Abbey.
“How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.”
Blimey fact: She invented a pie chart so terrifying it forced the British Army to wash its hands.
“We shall fight on the beaches…”
Blimey fact: He drank champagne at breakfast, painted 500 paintings, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
We say something outrageous. You decide if it really happened. Spoiler: the real stuff is almost always weirder than the made-up stuff, and that's exactly the problem with the way history gets taught.
“Vikings left graffiti inside a 5,000-year-old tomb in Orkney.”
“Jo is a fantastic speaker and is full of Coventry knowledge. Jo spoke to all our year 7 pupils and she had them eating out of the palm of her hand. Staff too were extremely engaged and wanted to participate in her Coventry tours. Not only is Jo a superb tour guide who loves her City and its history (gore and all) but is also a great educator and wants to develop the next generation of tour guides - we hope that Jo will visit our school again.”
“Blimey! Thank you Jo for giving Greyfriars Arts and Recreation Society another very informative local history story at our last meeting about Coroner Charles Webb Iliffe's Final Case. We look forward to booking you again in the near future.”
“Blimey! Once again thank you so much for last week! It went so well and I've got a handful of very excited young people who want to do more!”
“Thank you so much for your amazing tour! The young people loved it! It was great to have local young people engaged in another side of their city and learning all about the rich heritage and dark side of our amazing city! Thank you so much! We will definitely be doing this again!”
“Contacted Jo to enquire about a small private tour as our daughter has a brain injury and cannot cope with an evening tour nor a big group. Guide was warm, friendly and our daughter instantly liked her. Very interesting stories, with age/SEN appropriate questions to involve us all. We cannot wait to do another tour soon.”
“Many many thanks for a great evening walking around Coventry last night. Everyone enjoyed it tremendously with a bit of history, blitz, ghosts and a laugh as we went. Thank you again.”
“Jo provided a ghost walk around Coventry City Centre for Allesley Scouts who are aged 10–14. Jo is an excellent guide, her talk provided exactly the right level of fright for their mixed age range, whilst being informative about the traditional and alternative history of Coventry. An excellent night out that both the scouts and adults enjoyed.”
“Thank you so much for the tour yesterday. I love your passion and knowledge about Coventry, and the way it came across was so inspiring.”
School trip, festival slot, theatre night, corporate awayday, whatever it is, you don't need another polite talk that politely empties the room. Tell us what you're planning and we'll plot something nobody forgets.