24 Hours in the Past - Episode 1

Since it is summer, I thought I might as well do the TV series 24 Hours in the Past.  From time to time, I watched this series and was unsure if I wanted to do this series for a review.  The run time for episode one is 57:48.

Celebrities Alistair McGowan, Ann Widdecombe, Colin Jackson, Miquita Oliver, Tyger Drew-Honey, and Zöe Lucker go back in time to live lives as Victorians for a full day.  The participants will be employed at four different places in the town: the dusty yard, coaching in, potteries, and the workhouse.  They have twenty-four hours to complete tasks.  Who will rise to the challenge?  Who will crumble under the pressure?

Alistar McGowan is a comedian with an interest in history and is enthusiastic about going back in time.  Ann Widdecombe is a politician who wants to live the life of her granny.  She is the oldest participant in the series.  Colin Jackson is a world-champion hurdler and commentator who wants to take on a new challenge.  Zöe Lucker is an actress who wants to live the life of a Victorian.  Miquita Oliver is the presenter and wants to relate to the young poor Victorians.  Tyger Drew-Honey wants to experience the Victorian period because it was a period before the world changed.  The presenter for this series is Fi Glover and she is partnered with the delightful Ruth Goodman.

A Victorian town was recreated with the sights and sounds of the Victorian Period.  It is complete with shops, pubs, and workplaces.  Everything is real and it is wet.  Even the clothes they wore would have been worn by other people.  Everyone has to be careful with the clothes they pick because they will be working and sleeping in these clothes.  In this first episode, the participants find themselves assigned to the dust yard.  The dust yard was where rubbish was sorted.  Some of it was resold and recycled.

The first thing the participants do is select their wardrobe and their time travels.  They have a good laugh over the selection.  Fi then gives them a lunch of cheese and bread.  They then have to hand over their cell phones and are given a diary of people who lived during the Victorian Age.  The first period is in the 1840s and it is where 70% of Victorians were working class.  They have no skills that would be able to translate to the 19th Century so they will start in the dust yard.

They are greeted in the dust yard by Ruth Goodman (of course in period costume) and Dan Hill.  Dan Hill is a scrapyard owner and will be the boss of the group.  He expects the group to work hard to earn their wages.  Every piece of waste had its value during the Victorian period.  Tasks are divided between men and women.  There are dustmen, carpet beaters, and street cleaners.  They set to work on their tasks.  Dan Hill is not impressed with the efforts of the actors and said that he would not hire them in real life.

They get a lunch break.  If you did not get paid, you did not eat.  Only Alistar and Tyger have earned money to buy something extra for lunch.  However, Tyger wastes his first penny to get a bigger meal.  Ann gives him a telling-off for gambling his money away.

After lunch, they take on more tasks.  They are going to go through the dust hill and pick the rubbish out of the dust and sort it.  Zoe is put in charge of the dust hill and so she is the one that assigns the tasks.  Will the participants be able to complete their tasks and be paid at the end of the day?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out how the famous people handle their first twenty-four hours of Victorian people.

I was reminded why I did not like this series.  Unlike other series, the actors were thrown into tasks with little or no instructions.  They did not have a handy guide with instructions on what was expected of them.  Ruth helps things out a bit with her commentary.  At this moment, this would be on series to skip showing in the classroom.