In ‘The Adventure of English’ (2002), a British television series, Melvyn Bragg narrates the history of the English language from its origins in the 5^th century to its status as a global language at the beginning of the 21^st century. In over 400 minutes of television, Bragg tells a story of growth and expansion, challenge and change, trade and invasion, religion and politics, technology and migration, literature, film, music and popular culture. In the process, Bragg travels throughout the British Isles, to America, to India, to Australia, to the Caribbean, and elsewhere as he tells his story.

For the student of English Language and Literature, the programmes are a rich source for understanding how English came to be the global lingua franca, revealing how languages change and develop, and underscoring how language is always embedded in a complex contextual relationship with social, political, and economic life.

The programmes, however, present a paradox: On the one hand, the length and detail included in the series make them difficult to be usefully used in their entirety in the English classroom. On the other hand, the series is sometimes like long-distance air travel, where much of the detail between points is never seen or understood. This is, after all, ‘The Adventure of English’, not ‘The Unabridged Stories of Englishes’. The programmes are, naturally, selective in detail, often focusing on kings and queens, the great and the good, conflict and dramatic battles. Arguably, there is less attention to the lives and language of everyday folks, and women seem underrepresented. Whilst the programmes do not entirely present English as a benign language – Empire, slavery, resistance, and the notion of English as a killer language are all discussed – the programmes tend to affirm a historical perspective that is positive and confident.

Overt linguistic nomenclature and explanations are underplayed in the programmes, and there is a particular emphasis on lexical change, with rather less emphasis on grammatical and phonological change. Melvyn Bragg presents much of the narrative; opportunities to listen to other voices are sometimes lost, and Bragg can at times seem insipid in his presentation.

Nevertheless, the series provides an excellent introduction to the history of the English language. The eight, fifty-minute programmes take the viewer from ‘Beowulf’ to Alfred the Great, and to the Norman Invasion of 1066; from French language dominance in 11^th to 14^th century England to Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales; from the invention of the printing press, to the Great Vowel Shift, to the Protestant Reformation, and to Shakespeare; from the Pilgrim Fathers to the influence of Noah Webster on American English, and to Mark Twain; from the Age of Reason, to Jonathan Swift, to Samuel Johnson, Robert Burns, William Wordsworth, Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, and to the Industrial Revolution; from the East India Company to Proto-Indo-European, to pidgins and creoles in the Caribbean, and to fair dinkum in Australia; from World War I to World War II, from jazz and blues to the American Dream, and from the World Wide Web to an uncertain future for English. It’s all included. Seen this way, the programmes are a remarkable assembly of complex, interrelated ideas and issues. Language – here, the English language – is seen as part of a story that is fundamentally social. ‘The Adventure of English’ represents an excellent introduction to the English language and it may be some time before an alternative series of programmes emerges that it is as ambitious and wide ranging in scope.

The programmes are available online in their entirety. They can be viewed here and here. Alternatively, the series is available as a DVD box set, and there is, inevitably, an accompanying book.