Novelist and scriptwriter Terry Deary talks about creating one of Britain’s best-selling children’s series - and his relationship with the acclaimed Birmingham Stage Company...

In the early 1990s, actor, novelist and scriptwriter Terry Deary began work on a joke book with history as its theme. While writing, he came to the conclusion that the facts he collected were more interesting than the jokes, so decided to turn the idea on its head and write a history book with jokes in it instead.

The result - Horrible Histories - rapidly became one of Britain's best-selling children's series, spawning spin-off science, maths and geography books, a hugely successful TV sketch show, magazines, games, toys and a set of live stage adaptations developed in collaboration with Birmingham Stage Company.

Over ten years after the partnership with Birmingham Stage began, the latest Horrible Histories titles to take to UK theatres are Groovy Greeks and Incredible Invaders.

“I'd been adapting Horrible Histories as stage shows with another company, the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff, back in 1999, but with Birmingham Stage, they're less entertainments and more educational - 'edu-tainment' as we call it,” Terry explains.

Deary's history in theatre dates back before the days of Horrible Histories.

As a young actor, he joined Theatre Powys in Wales and began writing children's plays, some of which he later adapted into novels. Over the course of his career, he’s continued to write scripts for stage, radio and television, for adults as well as children, and as such is often able to visualise his ideas in more than one medium. In the case of the Horrible Histories books, however, which tend to give snapshots of multiple true stories rather than a single through-narrative, a little invention is needed to bring them to life on stage.

“It's rather like writing fiction, in that you have a framework to help you tell the story. That varies from show to show. For example, in Groovy Greeks, a family in the audience is brought up on stage by the great god Zeus to learn the story of Greek history. He then instructs them in voice-over, and they act it out. In Vile Victorians, there's a group of travelling players, who set up and tell the story as a series of sketches. Every one is different.”

Since 2005, Birmingham Stage Company has produced multiple Horrible Histories titles, including the current Groovy Greeks and Incredible Invaders shows, and beginning with the first two books in the series, Terrible Tudors and Vile Victorians. Since then, the plays have covered the Egyptians, the Romans, the Blitz and the First World War, as well as a special Christmas show and a couple of local-specific productions for Nottingham and Warwick Castle.

“Which book we adapt is usually down to Birmingham Stage, who research what's going to be popular by going into schools and finding out what they want to teach the children. Something like Angry Aztecs wouldn't sell many tickets because not many schools study the Aztecs.”

The current two shows will plunge viewers into the worlds of ancient Greece and Roman and medieval Britain.

In Groovy Greeks, audiences will encounter the very first play and the first Olympic games as they journey from savage Sparta to angry Athens. In Incredible Invaders, they'll watch as ruthless Romans go head-to-head with cut-throat Celts, and savage Saxons battle it out with vicious Vikings. Then, after the current tour, Deary and Birmingham Stage will be making a return to a familiar favourite.

“We're going back to Barmy Britain, which is a general history of Britain that's already toured successfully. We do a lot of festivals with Horrible Histories, which Barmy Britain is quite good for. We're probably up to about Barmy Britain 4 now.”

More than 20 years after the publication of the first Horrible Histories book, the series has expanded into a huge franchise. The books themselves have sold around 27million copies worldwide, and been translated into multiple languages. Deary still remembers the moment when he realised how big his creation was becoming.

“Back in 1995, after the fifth book, Blitzed Brits, came out, I was watching a show on television with Griff Rhys Jones called Bookworm, which had these ticker tapes running along the bottom of the screen with bits of information on them. One of those said that the number one best-selling children's book that week was Horrible Histories: Blitzed Brits. I think I must have cried out, 'Wow!' because my wife came rushing in from the kitchen asking what the matter was. When I told her I was the number one best-seller, she said, 'Oh, is that all? I thought there was something wrong!'”

Today, many children will encounter the brand for the first time through the popular CBBC series, a top-notch musical comedy sketch show beloved of children and grown-ups alike. If you haven't seen it, it's well worth a watch even without kids of your own at home.

“I was in the first three series of the show, but they've now gone off on their own track, and I don't have much to do with it. It was a very clever idea to adapt it as a sketch show and to use top adult comedy writers rather than children's writers, so great credit to them.”

Outside the Horrible Histories franchise, Deary has also written several history books aimed at adult readers. Given the opportunity, he says that he'd be keen to see them adapted for TV, but wouldn't say no were a theatre company to take interest.

A separate project that may be in the pipeline for him is the development of family attractions themed around historical subjects - yet another way of proving that education doesn't have to be dull.

“Horrible Histories is owned by Scholastic, so it would be up to the publisher to develop anything under that brand, but I’m planning some tourist attractions under my own brand - a pirate experience, for example, and other things like that.”

Nevertheless, the books remain firmly at the heart of the Horrible Histories success story, and Deary believes strongly in the importance of ensuring that writers are able to earn a living from their work.
“Digital media is changing the industry massively. I haven't read a real book for about five years now because I've got a digital reader. I buy lots of books and I read more than ever, but I do it all electronically. When I download books, I do it legally and pay the full price, but it's true that piracy is an enormous problem. I know of one author who found out that his books were for sale or being given away for free on hundreds of websites, and he was getting nothing from it. How can you afford to be a writer if people are stealing your work and publishing it worldwide? The music industry has started to find ways of coping with it. I hope the book industry can do the same.”