Professor Hutton’s Curiosities

Series one, episodes one and two
Blah, blah, British Museum. Yadda, yadda, Tate Modern. Sometimes London’s real treasures are off the beaten track, as Bristol University history boffin Ronald Hutton discovers during this 12-part series. The professor certainly looks the part – bespectacled, straggly hair, tweedy jacket – although you couldn’t call him a TV natural. Still, his slight awkwardness on camera adds to the sedate, low-key charm of a series which forgoes bells and whistles in favour of straightforward and informative tours around assorted institutions in the company of their curators.

We start tonight with a double bill taking in the Magic Circle Museum, the creepy Grant Museum of Zoology (exhibits include pickled foetuses and a walrus’s penis bone) and east London’s Dennis Severs’ House – the latter a truly peculiar example of living history. A slight but engaging tribute to some genuine London oddities – as well as the museums they run. Later episodes will feature everything from Kew Bridge Steam Museum to the MCC Museum.