NEED TO KNOW
- Stuff The British Stole is back for season three, premiering June 9 on ABC TV and ABC iview.
- Host and writer Marc Fennell spent two years developing the new season, which spans the Caribbean, Asia and Egypt.
- Fennell describes the show as “a mystery show first, a travel show second, and history third”.
- A companion book hits shelves on June 23.
The award-winning TV series Stuff The British Stole, hosted by esteemed journalist Marc Fennell, is back for season three.
This six-episode season takes the audience on a trip across the world – spanning the Caribbean, Asia and Egypt to follow a trail of remarkable objects and the communities still fighting for their return.
Originally starting as a podcast in 2020, the program explores the often tragic origins of historically significant artefacts looted by the British Empire, with Marc approaching each story as a “detective” looking to track the objects down.
Sitting down with New Idea, Marc – who also writes and directs the show – passionately opens up about why the show has been so successful, and why it will continue to do so.
Marc tells us that two years of his life have gone into the new season, and he’d already started writing it at the end of season two, admitting that the “whole thing” lives “rent free” in his brain.
“It occupies a stunningly large amount of brain. The audience know what the show is now and I think you have to surprise people,” he says, adding that “every time you come back with a new season, particularly if you’re going to ask people to wait a year between seasons, you have to come back with things that are surprising and weird.”
The TV host cracks open the stories he’s been sitting on for years – but exclusively admits that it’s a “big ask”.
“I’m on the road filming for eight weeks. I’ve got small kids. So if I’m going to do it, I need to pick stories that I really want to do,” the 41-year-old tells us.
“This was the season where I was like, all these ones that have been niggling me in the back of my head about ‘how do we do that?’ This is the chance to do it.”
He reveals the recipe for his success is down the stories he tells – which are a combination of stories that have a good hook, natural twists and turns, but also reveal something bigger about the world, what he often refers to as a “small doorway into a big world”.
This season, the show looks at topics such as Captain Cook and The England Flag – things he describes that “people have some idea of, but then you get to go, hold on, there’s actually this whole other story underneath it.”
“I say it’s a mystery show first, a travel show second, and then a history third,” he says.
“Because if you can’t bring people in with the mystery, make the mystery work, and if you can’t give it the sense of adventure as a piece of television, no one’s going to care about the history. Nobody wants to be lectured about colonialism, everybody loves a treasure hunt.”
Why this show holds significant importance
Marc tells us that “the grey areas are where this show absolutely lives”.
“I know the title is kind of spicy and pisses people off in London, but once you watch it, it’s got a lot of nuance and kind of twists and turns to it,” he says.
Marc makes a strong point that the show doesn’t ignore the British perspective – a common misconception – but instead makes space for other perspectives.
“You actually get to look for the voices that were left out of the first draft of history, but you’re not doing that at the expense of the British point of view. There’s more British people in the show than there has ever been – it’s their history too,” he says.
“For me, we’re doing the bits that were missed,” he says, adding that “we were not taught this in school”.
How the show has made a difference
Marc admits that when he first launched the podcast Stuff The British Stole in 2020, it went to number one in several countries, and he didn’t expect it to catch the attention of people as much as it did.
“I thought I was making this very weird niche thing about objects and museums…” he says with a laugh.
He confesses that he’d like to see museums and galleries “be more honest”, and jokes that the show is a “reaction to the inadequacy of museum labels”.
“Because those 80 words have to carry an enormous amount of complicated history, and those labels almost always fail, usually because they sit behind a veneer of politeness,” he says.
“It’s up to the museums and the source communities to decide what happens with those objects. I don’t have a sort of horse in that race.”
However, he’s said that since the show started he has noticed a change – but he stays humble.
“I’m not sure how self-confident I am to suggest that it’s because of the show… I’m always very careful about that because I don’t want people thinking I’m out here changing the world. I’m out here trying to curate the story so that you pay attention, so you change the world as you see fit,” he tells us.
He adds that he is confident enough to say that he thinks it’s changed the conversation.
“There are some objects we have featured on the show that have subsequently been returned. I’m very careful to say that I would never dream of claiming credit for that,” he says, adding that a good example is “some spears that we featured that are in the book, and we featured in the podcast many years ago, that were taken from what is now Botany Bay, they’ve been returned.”
“I think every object has its own journey, and sometimes source communities want them back, and sometimes they don’t, and I’m just there to make sure that that story gets told. My attitude is that every object has its own trajectory and needs to be evaluated individually,” he says.
Marc also often gets fans messaging him when they’re off to museums.
“People tag me when they’re in Britain, about to go to the British Museum, saying, I’m off to go see the stuff the British stole!” he says with a laugh.
Plus you can read his book, Stuff The British Stole, on shelves 23 June.
