Is David Starkey God?

‘Somerset. Winter 877,’ said the subtitles below an arty, BBC-nature-doc style close-up of a coot paddling amid the reeds on the eerie black waters of the Somerset levels. ‘Yes!’ I went, mentally punching the air. ‘I’m in safe hands here, I can tell. Bet they’re going to get all the costume details totally right. There might even be battle scenes. Not crap three-men-with-shields-filmed-over-and-over-again-from-different-angles-with-a-shaky-camera like in the bad old days. But totally convincing CGI-enhanced ones. The Battle of Ashdown, done even more realistically than it was in 871. Yay!’

Then it got even better. The voiceover began mellifluously reading excerpts from the Anglo-Saxon chronicle about ‘se cyning Aelfred’ — and there I was, right back in my first year at Oxford, feeling smug because I knew that you pronounce the ‘y’ in ‘cyning’ a bit like the French ‘u’. By this stage I was in transports of trainspotterish Anglo-Saxon ecstasy.

Now a head was emerging from the reed beds. ‘Hmm. Not quite my idea of King Alfred. Bit old. And what in God’s name is he wearing?’ I thought, before realising that the man wasn’t an actor and he wasn’t supposed to be King Alfred and that I’d seen that frightful hippie tramp coat and heard that blood-curdlingly whispery-wheedling voice before. ‘NOOOOOOO!’

Look, I’m sorry if you’re a massive Michael Wood fan. Or, indeed, if you’re Michael Wood. It’s just that as soon as he appears on the screen I lose all ability to concentrate. It’s that intent, quizzical, gimlet-eyed way he looks at you, like one of the more intelligent female monkey characters from Planet of the Apes; and that imploring, nurturing, unsettlingly euphoric manner, like some evangelical Christian who has just dropped a pill and wants you to know Jesus not just because He died for your sins but because He’s the best, most amazing friend you could ever possibly meet.