Stuff the British Stole host Marc Fennell wants to shake up our 'cultural amnesia'
The host of the podcast-turned-TV show says questions of theft and ownership are more nuanced than we realize
Marc Fennell says that calling his hit podcast Stuff the British Stole has been "an amazing double-edged sword." On one hand, he says "it absolutely gets people through the door." But on the other, it also leads to people having some misconceptions.
"A lot of people go, 'Well, it sounds like you've already made up your mind,'" he says. "But as soon as you listen to the podcast … it's very clear that we haven't made up our mind, and most of these objects end up being a fair bit more nuanced than people expect."
The podcast — a co-production launched in late 2020 between the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and CBC — tells the story of objects stolen, looted, or "gifted" under duress by the British Empire in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century. Most of these objects now live in museums throughout the Commonwealth, and, as the show's description says "usually come with polite plaques. This is a series about the not-so-polite history behind those objects."
Shortly after its debut, the podcast shot to the top of the Apple Podcast Chart in Australia. It has now also been adapted into a TV series, which debuted on ABC TV+ in November and is now coming CBC.
The first episode of the TV series looks at one of these aforementioned "nuanced" objects: the Koh-I-Noor. Part of the British Crown Jewels, the Koh-I-Noor was "given" to the British Empire by the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, Duleep Singh. However, it's worth noting that at the time, the Singh was only 11 years old, and was surrounded by British men with guns. But it's also worth noting that, before the British took it from Singh, the diamond had spent a century being fought over, looted, stolen, and stolen back by various kingdoms and empires throughout South and West Asia. Even if the British decided to give it back tomorrow, four different modern states — India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran — claim the stone is rightfully theirs.
"I think every object has its own story," says Fennell. "Everything is a case-by-case basis, and often there are really strong arguments for and against [whether the object] should be returned."
The idea for the show initially came to Fennell as a joke between him and the co-host of another program he was working on. (Fennell is a veteran of Australian broadcasting, having started his career in his teens.) But the idea kept rattling around in his head, and when he found himself in the U.K. after being nominated for an award "I 100 percent knew I was going to lose," he decided to explore making it a reality.
"Remember there's no such thing as a short flight for Australians," he says. "So I'm like, 'I'm going to go all this way and lose — I might as well do something else and make it worthwhile.'"
"I organized one meeting with a historian… and I asked, 'How many stolen objects would you reckon there are in British museums?' And she almost did, like, a comedy spit-take, and then sort of laughed, and then started rattling off this list of things like, 'That one there that was stolen, that was stolen, that was was a gift, but it was a gift while they were pointing guns at him, so I don't know if it really counts.'"
Fennell says that turning the podcast into a TV series, going to the places where these objects were originally from, and working with largely local crews gives the show a deeper understanding and context than the podcast. But the switch in mediums also came with challenges.
"One of the great things about working in audio is that you can build an image in the listener's mind," he says. "You can completely leverage the audience's imagination. Whereas in television you really do have to … show people [the objects.] And of course, a lot of these museums and galleries really don't want to be involved … But that's OK, we have all kinds of different tools to bring the past to life: animation, replicas."
One of the goals of the show is to shake up what Fennell calls the "cultural amnesia" that both Canadians and Australians tend to suffer from.
"One of the things that I think really linked Canada, Australia, and New Zealand is there is a sense that we just kind of happened as nations," he says. "But these are choices that were made."
"It was a choice to set up a colony somewhere. It was a choice to start collecting human remains. It was a choice to bring these things [to museums]. And I think just illuminating that this didn't happen by accident is a worthwhile thing to do."
Stuff the British Stole premieres Jan. 6 at 8:30 p.m. (9 p.m. NT) on CBC, and is streaming on CBC Gem.
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