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Quizzes

The ultimate Kings and Queens pub quiz from David Mitchell’s Unruly

A History of England's Kings and Queens

Unruly

A funny book about a serious subject, Unruly is for anyone who has ever wondered how we got here - and who is to blame. 
THE NO. 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
'Clever, amusing, gloriously bizarre and razor sharp. Mitchell – a funny man and skilled historian – tells stories that are interesting and fun. Here is Horrible Histories for grownups’ GERARD DEGROOT, THE TIMES 
 'Just fantastic. Delightfully contrary and hilariously cantankerous. Very, very funny’ JESSE ARMSTRONG, CREATOR OF SUCCESSION AND PEEP SHOW 
 'Clever, funny. Makes you think quite differently about history’ DAN SNOW, HISTORIAN AND BROADCASTER 
 
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 Think you know your kings and queens? Think again. 
 
 Taking us right back to King Arthur (spoiler: he didn't exist), Unruly tells the founding story of post-Roman England up to the reign of Elizabeth I (spoiler: she dies). It's a tale of narcissists, inadequate self-control, excessive beheadings, middle-management insurrection, uncivil wars, and at least one total Cnut. 
How this happened, who it happened to and why it matters in modern Britain are all questions David Mitchell answers with brilliance, wit and the full erudition of a man who once studied history – and won't let it off the hook for the mess it's made. 
 *The Times Number One Bestseller October 2023* 
 ---- 
 
 ‘An enjoyable, rollicking read, definitely not a conventional history book’ THE TIMES ‘Chatty, irreverent and liberally sprinkled with gags and opinions. Horrible Histories with added swearing’ GUARDIAN 
 'Mitchell clearly knows his history, with a book that owes as much to Monty Python as it does to Simon Schama' ANDREW MARR, BROADCASTER 
 
 'Who knew a history of England's rulers could be this hilarious?' i 
 
 'I can’t recommend this book enough. Very funny and interesting, it is above all a proper work of history' CHARLIE HIGSON

Unruly is part Horrible Histories part jolly romp guided by Alan Bennett. Perhaps this is how history should be done: not by patient scholars, but by free-swearing actor-comedians cramming more ideas and jokes into their pages than many professionals have committed to print in their careers.

Full of jokes and canny insights, 100 per cent sparkier and more revernt than your school textbooks

An enjoyable, rollicking read, definitely not a conventional history book

I don’t think anyone other than David Mitchell could have written this book. It’s clever, funny and makes you think quite differently about history we thought we knew

By turns fascinating and funny - there is a jewel of an insight or a refreshing blast of clarifying wit on every page. David brings a delightfully contrary and hilariously cantankerous eye to the history of the English Monarchy. Informative, illuminating and very very funny

JESSE ARMSTRONG, CREATOR OF SUCCESSION AND PEEP SHOW

Mitchell clearly knows his history, with a book that owes as much to Monty Python as it does to Simon Schama

Clever, amusing, gloriously bizarre and razor sharp. Mitchell - a funny man and a skilled historian - tells stories that are interesting and fun. His rants alone are worth the price of the book. And amid all the jokes and delightful nonsense, Mitchell sneaks in a serious message about English identity. Here is Horrible Histories for grownups - stripped of their finery, devoid of reverence, UNRULY's monarchs emerge as mortals with ordinary flaws. I learnt a lot and laughed a lot, and people who have never before picked up a history book will read and enjoy this one. That's an accomplishment

Chatty, irreverent and liberally sprinkled with gags and opinions. Horrible Histories with added swearing.

I can’t recommend this book enough. Very funny and interesting, it is above all a proper work of history

A Punch-and-Judy show of awful people doing terrible things to one another. There is refreshing candour in how it calls out the bastards, bullies and brats who have donned England’s highest-carat hats. Above all, it’s a funny read, playful and well-meaning . . . told in a fizzing and indignant style, rammed with entertaining tangents. A sleek rod of Mitchell, fired from a rail gun, passing straight through the reader’s skull

Who knew a history of England's rulers could be this hilarious? A brilliantly entertaining romp through monarchs.

Provocative, energeticlly comical, unortodox. Stuffed full of comical scenes and anecdotes, which only an author with a fine sense of the absurd could give us.

[A] rollicking (and bracingly sweary) account . . . Amid the jokes, Mitchell offers a thoughtful argument about the relationship between the monarchy and our sense of national identity

A riotously funny romp through one thousand or so years of English history. I cannot remember the last time I laughed as much as I did listening to Unruly. Mitchell’s take on history is unremittingly funny as well as insightful. There are so many exquisite turns of phrase. I had to stop listening whilst cooking for fear I’d drop red-hot pans, I was shaking with laughter so much.

I relished a crash course in English history with comedian David Mitchell’s ambitious Unruly.

A historical tour of English rulers in a book that is like no history lesson you've had to endure before. A semi-serious book full of weird and wonderful spectacle, scandal, and brutality.

He brings his typically wry style to an exploration of England's monarchy

David Mitchell is a BAFTA Award-winning actor, writer and comedian who has starred in many of the UK's best-loved TV shows, including Peep Show, That Mitchell and Webb Look and Upstart Crow. He is a team captain on Would I Lie to You? (BBC One), the host of The Unbelievable Truth on Radio 4 and one of the Observer's most popular columnists. Unruly: A History of England's Kings and Queens is his first history book.

This will be the most refreshing, entertaining history of England you'll have ever read. 
 
Certainly, the funniest. 
 
Because David Mitchell will explain how it is not all names, dates or ungraspable historical headwinds, but instead show how it's really just a bunch of random stuff that happened with a few lucky bastards ending up on top. Some of these bastards were quite strange, but they were in charge, so we quite literally lived, and often still live, by their rules. 
 
It's a great story. And it's our story. If you want to know who we are in modern Britain, you need to read this book.

The BBC Radio 4 comedy show

That Mitchell and Webb Sound: The Complete Series 1-5

All five series of the award-winning sketch show - plus standalone comedy Daydream Believers 
 
'Fresh and full of invention' The Telegraph 
 
Welcome to the inside-out world of Mitchell and Webb, a strange and surreal place populated by misfits, eccentrics, talking animals and a few stray Radio 4 arts programme presenters. 
 
Included here are all five series of their fantastically skewed comedy show, packed with offbeat sketches and peculiar characters. Meet seedy snooker commentators Ted and Peter; poorly matched crime-fighting duo Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit; a cop who doesn't get results but, by God, he does things by the book; and some nervous Nazis who've just noticed their caps have skulls on them... 
 
Find out what James Bond is really like as a party guest; thrill to The Surprising Adventures of Sir Digby Chicken-Caesar; and play the maths quiz that everyone is talking about, but no one understands - Numberwang! In addition, you can listen to the Alpine Archers on Radio Switzerland; join Raymond Terrific and his panel of boffins on Big Talk; and tune in to the exciting new reality show Make Me a Celebrity Centaur, featuring soap stars, cutting-edge surgery and some horses. 
 
Absurd, imaginative, and very funny, this acclaimed series won a Sony Silver Award and led to the hugely successful TV series That Mitchell and Webb Look. It stars David Mitchell and Robert Webb, with Olivia Colman, James Bachman and Sarah Hadland. 
 
Also included is the half-hour sci-fi comedy Daydream Believers, in which David Mitchell and Robert Webb star as tetchy novelist Ray and his gormless flatmate Colin and, in a parallel space adventure concocted by Ray, as Baron Amstrad and his retro-looking android Info. The supporting cast incudes Olivia Colman, Mark Benton, Simon Greenall and Mark Evans. 
 
Production credits 
That Mitchell and Webb Sound 
Written by and starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb 
With Olivia Colman, Sarah Hadland and James Bachman 
Produced by Gareth Edwards 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 28 August-2 October 2003 (Series 1), 10 February-17th March 2005 (Series 2), 24 May-28 June 2007 (Series 3), 25 August-29 September 2009 (Series 4), 26 November-17 December 2013 (Series 5) 
 
Daydream Believers 
Written by and starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb 
With Olivia Colman, Mark Benton, Simon Greenall and Mark Evans 
Produced by Gareth Edwards 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 2, 5 May 2007 
 
NB: Contains humour that some listeners may find offensive 
 
© 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd.

Mitchell on Meetings

David Mitchell investigates how the humble meeting took over the world - and what we should do about it 
 
In this fantastic follow-up to Behaving Ourselves: David Mitchell on Manners, the comedian and columnist turns his attention to meetings, examining our love/hate relationship with them and asking how we evolved from getting together for a 'thing' to shouting at each other onscreen via Zoom. 
 
On the agenda: David talks to fellow comedian Russell Kane about the different ways introverts and extroverts behave in meetings; meets Dutch sociologist Wilbert van Vree to sum up several millennia of meetings - from hunter-gatherers, to the Middle Ages, to the modern-day office; and gets some tips from executive coach Sophie Bryan about being a good chairman (and dealing with the awkward person in the room). 
 
Exploring how our meetings culture is spinning out of control, David sits in on a council Zoom meeting in Cheshire (not that one); picks the brains of Imperial College Business School meetings expert Sankalp Chaturvedi, and chats to the former Leader of the House of Commons, Sir David Lidington, about Cabinet briefings and ministerial meetings. And, joining historian and author Professor Margaret Macmillan, he tackles one of the 20th Century's biggest meetings, the 1919 Paris Conference, discovering that there's nothing new about management away-days or brainstorming sessions - they were both being used 100 years ago. 
 
As he learns the secrets of communication, consensus, and coming together productively, can David overcome his scepticism and learn to love meetings? 
 
 
Production credits 
Written and presented by David Mitchell 
With Pete Broadbent, Bishop of Willesden; Cat Brogan; Wilbert van Vree; Russell Kane; Sophie Bryan; Councillor Gill Merry; Councillor Kathryn Flavell; Councillor Laura Crane; Sir David Lidington; Sankalp Chaturvedi; Professor Margaret Macmillan 
Produced by Chris Ledgard 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 13-27 March 2021 
 
© 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
(p) 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

David Mitchell on Manners

Behaving Ourselves

David Mitchell investigates the confusing world of manners.

David Mitchell sets out on a vigorous but impeccably polite investigation into the confusing world of manners. Are they really in decline, as many would have us believe? Or are we just throwing off the shackles of the Victorian obsession with etiquette? 
 
Over the course of the series, David eats his lunchtime sandwiches with children in a primary school, and later goes to a street market to see manners - good and bad - in action. He explores where our manners come from with Professors Steven Pinker from Harvard University and the author Henry Hitchings. What do we mean by 'civility' and 'good manners' in public places? Why are people still pinching vicars' bottoms, and what can the state do to improve standards of public behaviour? And, David asks, how is the digital age changing our sense of public space? 
 
Produced by Chris Ledgard.

David Mitchell

Books by David Mitchell

Articles featuring David Mitchell

The ultimate Kings and Queens pub quiz from David Mitchell’s Unruly

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