Monarchy By David Starkey (C4)

THE Government would do well to enlist David Starkey in getting pupils interested in history. Why not go the whole hog and rename this series Davie's School History Lessons? What chef Jamie Oliver did to revolutionise youngsters' meals in Jamie's School Dinners, Starkey could do to enliven history lectures.

As his recollection of the kings and queens of our fair land reached Henry VIII this week, you could be excused for sighing, "oh, no, not again, I've had my fill of fat old Henry and his wives".

But Starkey has a way of making it fresh and interesting, turning historical turkey twizzlers into something much more nutritional for the brain.

Henry, we learnt, embarked on a "quest for fame as obsessive as any modern celebrity". And I thought he was just someone who stuffed his face when he wasn't doing the same thing to his many wives.

The Tudors were a dynasty in trouble - although you wouldn't know it from the reconstructions of a young prince skipping and doing handstands in the castle corridors. Growing up, Henry could afford to be carefree because his elder brother Arthur was next in line for the throne.

So young Henry had a "modern, unkingly kind of upbringing", raised by his mother and sisters. This early experience of women's love made him a romantic (when he wasn't changing religions or putting up taxes).

At 18, he was crowned king and his problems began. He wasn't allowed to play his favourite extreme sport - or jousting, as the Tudors called it - so he decided to live dangerously and become a great warlord, like Henry V and King Arthur, upon whom he modelled himself.

Starkey relates all this as he strolls about big halls, gardens, libraries, corridors, courtyards and even a church pulpit. This stops the eye becoming bored, while his lecture is always full of life. By necessity in a 50-minute programme, he has to omit things. I don't actually remember him mentioning all six wives. But it was one particular wife - actually, his desire to divorce her - that caused all the trouble.

He married his dead brother's widow, Catherine of Aragon (presumably wanting to keep it in the family) and then took a fancy to Anne Boleyn, who refused to sleep with him before marriage. She must have had something alluring as he changed his religion - and made everyone else do the same - just to get rid of Catherine.

A prospect of a "quickie divorce" (not a term usually spoken by historians) took Starkey to his most unexpected location, the Ministry of Defence in London. Beneath the modern building is a bit of Tudor England, the wine cellar of what was Cardinal Wolsey's house. Here, the secret trial of the marriage of Henry VIII took place.

And so it went on with the dissolution of monasteries, followed by noblemen and peasants joining together in revolt. They weren't equal when it came to punishment. Posh people were swiftly beheaded. Poor people suffered the horror of being hanged, drawn and quartered. Happily for the squeamish, the director didn't feel it necessary to reconstruct this bit of history.