Broadcast in a Sunday-night time slot from 19 June 2011 to 31 July 2011 on BBC One, the programme features a compilation of sketches from the first two series of Horrible Histories, as chosen by that show's producers.
From a production standpoint, all that was needed was to choose the sketches that seemed most suitable for an adult audience and then to write appropriate linking material for Fry.
[3] However, the choice of a children's series for an adult-oriented channel drew some criticism as to whether the same educational methods were suited to an older demographic.
History Today editor Paul Lay called the idea "frightening".
[4] Historian and Labour Party MP Tristram Hunt, while admitting that he had not yet actually seen the programme,[5] voiced his concerns that the show's content was not "challenging and stimulating" enough for the BBC, adding that "For children, Horrible Histories is an exciting aid to engage with the guts and gore of the past, but there are more sophisticated, populist ways of getting people involved in history than this.