Tony Robinson shows off Britain by drone
NEW
Tony Robinson on using drone technology to reach more of Britain’s most inaccessible locations…
This series couldn’t have been made a few
years ago
As the host of tv’s longest-running archaeology show Time Team, Tony Robinson spent 20 years finding out what historical gems lay underground.
But in the second series of Hidden Britain by Drone, the Blackadder star captures stunning aerial footage of little-known UK sites that are normally off limits – from rusting sea forts and an abandoned theme park to Europe’s largest wine vault and a gigantic recycling plant for planes.
TV Times caught up with Tony, 71, to find out more…
Hidden Britain by drone must be a welcome change from going underground…
It’s true that the ‘hidden Britain’ I’ve seen prior to this has always been underground. It’s great fun for me now there are new technologies that make different demands of me as a presenter.
What is it that excites you about this project?
If you look at the sequences in this series, so many of them happen in places that have fences all the way round and big padlocks on the door. We offer something that no one has ever been able to see in this way before. One of the most interesting was being inside the big dome in Dounreay nuclear power station in Scotland.
it’s a technology-driven show… This is a series that couldn’t have been made a few years ago. I’ve done TV work with helicopters, but they’re expensive and, as soon as they’re 50ft above your head, you can’t hear anything, your hair’s being blown all over the place and the grass is flattened! And because of the size of the blades, they can’t give the same access drones can.
and the drones aren’t just high in the sky, are they?
I’ve always thought of a drone as being essentially an exterior device, but we’ve been able to use them in interiors, too. The first sequence in episode one is at a big stately home, where we were able to do amazing tracking shots through rooms where the doors you’re going through are very small. You couldn’t have done that before. We also go underground into the tunnels at Bank Tube station in London, into luxury car vaults, and into the biggest wine store in Europe – it’s brilliant stuff!
are you impressed by the footage the drones captured? It’s wonderful that they can take such epic shots with these tiny devices, as it used to be the case that if you wanted a big picture, you needed a big camera. And they’ve been able to afford a fleet of drones, so we’ve got tiny ones, medium-sized and large ones – there’s even one we call ‘the black widow spider’! It’s all about using the right drone for the right job.
do you see technology revolutionising archaeology in a similar way in the future?
We simply do not know where tech will take us, but I am convinced that our ability to read what’s underground is going to develop rapidly. Who knows, we might have the underground version of multi-lens drones, which could be able to give us a whole picture under the surface of the Earth!
Ian macewan