“When the story has been told on TV, it’s usually told by a well-off British presenter, traipsing around the world”

As anybody who has watched SBS or ABC history documentaries knows, they are usually well-made deep dives into the past, through the eyes of the presenter or production company and their own culture.

In Stuff the British Stole, Marc Fennell hopes to address some of the imbalance.

“When the story has been told on TV, it’s usually told by a well-off British presenter, traipsing around the world. And that’s fine. I have no problem with that,” he tells TV Tonight.

“But what’s missing from that draft of history? Who gets left out of that story? That’s really what this show is. And it’s not to say that those projects aren’t worthwhile -some of them are great and I love them.

“But if you were to tell the story of the Empire from the point of view of those who were colonised, whom things were taken from, how different does that history actually look?”

Based on his own podcast, the six part series unravels the mysterious true histories behind objects in museums, and meets those who want them back.

“It’s Indiana Jones in reverse!”

“Stuff the British Stole came out in 2020 and went to number one on Apple iTunes really fast. I thought ‘Shit! People are actually liking this!’ Very quickly off the back of that I thought, ‘There’s a TV series in this.’ I always set out to make it quite cinematic, and I joke ‘It’s Indiana Jones in reverse!'” he explains.

“Indiana Jones goes around the world and says, ‘Hey that belongs in a museum,’ but I come along and go ‘Actually it doesn’t.’ This is the story of how it got there. There’s a million objects, not just in the UK, but around all the countries that made up the British Empire, including Australia and Canada. If you pull the thread of an object, what does it start to tell you about how we ended up with the world we have today? And that’s really the key. It can’t just be about weird ephemeral museums.”

Filming took place in Australia, Canada, Israel, Palestine, Scotland, Ireland and England. Fennell examines the stories behind some of the world’s most iconic and priceless relics including the Kohinoor diamond at the heart of the crown jewels that millions of Indians and Pakistani’s claim was stolen.

Fennell, who is of Indian-Singaporean and Irish descent, admits some parts of the story resonate deeply even if it was a revelation.

“I was sort of just raised in Australia in a fairly standard Australian context. Beyond food, I wasn’t really exposed to (my heritage). Partly why I was interested in the podcast, and something I wanted to reflect in the TV show was, it is a part of your story whether you are cognisant of it or not,” he continues.

“In the first episode of the podcast, I realised that the object that was taken was literally from a place where my grandparents are from. So that was a genuine surprise. The Kohinoor Diamond is taken from a different area from where my family’s from, but it kind of speaks to a bigger idea of’ ‘What was the British impact on India?’

Since filming UK scenes, the Commonwealth was witness to the death of Queen Elizabeth II, but Fennell says it didn’t result in too much change in post-production.

“I’m quite careful with my language which you’ll see in pieces to camera. In terms of what we actually had to change since the Queen passed away, I think there was one voice over in the second episode. We obviously had lots of conversations about it on the day that it happened and in the weeks (that followed). We were paying lots of attention to the public mood,” he insists.

“I think she is, broadly-speaking, an enormously respected and much loved Monarch. And I think we, as a people, are smart enough to acknowledge that whilst that is true the British Empire and its exploits throughout history are broader and more complicated than the woman herself.

“I think the time is right for us to re-evaluate our relationship with British Empire”

“I think the time is right for us to re-evaluate our relationship with British Empire. Now, I’m not making a judgment about what that should or shouldn’t be. I’m really very careful about not necessarily having an opinion. But I do think it’s not a bad time for us to sit back and go ‘What is our relationship with these massive globe-shaping institutions, and where do we sit within that?’

“I’m really respectful of people’s feelings about the Royal family.”

Fennell reveals the wild heist of a Scottish relic that has been crucial to the crowning of almost every British Monarch right up until Charles the 3rd and pieces together the mystery of arguably the most controversial artwork in Australia – a mosaic looted in the middle of a war that saw Britain and Australia clash.

“As the series progresses, the stories actually get curlier, and harder and a bit more twisty.

“There’s a lot of complicated twists in the story”

“You can see in the first episode, there’s a lot of complicated twists in the story. The show starts with a question: Was it stolen?

“Most of the episodes do land on the fact it’s actually more complicated. But it’s through the complications that you realise the power dynamics of history. There are very rarely clear-cut villains and victims.

“Those mysteries allow you to tell that story.”

Stuff the British Stole airs 8pm Tuesday on ABC.