Podcast
PastMaster: Reshaping History
Hosted by PastMaster · EN
If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive
— or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch?
Welcome to PastMaster, the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, hosts Ryan and Tan are joined by a special guest comedian who is sent back in time with nothing but their modern knowledge and the shirt on their back.
Under the guidance of a benevolent robot Game Master, they navigate to a different era each episode and find out if they’ve got what it takes to reshape the past.
Will it be historically accurate? Will any of it make sense? Will they master the past?
Tune in to find out.
12episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Founding a Welsh Heaven in South America, ft. Sunil Patel
6d ago01:17:32Tap to summarizeWelsh Patagonia, 1865. A boat called the Mimosa has dumped 153 Welsh settlers onto a treeless, waterless stretch of Argentine scrubland, sold to them as a lush green paradise where the Welsh language might finally escape the English. Comedian Sunil Patel, back in the time-travel studio, has been dropped into the colony as a pioneer with one job: keep Y Wladfa alive long enough to become a country. Sunil's strategy for surviving a marketing-lie of a colony is half eager settler, half man slowly realising he's been mis-sold a property. He's also been handed a chaos wildcard he can play exactly once, and neither he nor the Game Master has any idea what it actually does. The promised lush valleys are a desert. The Atlantic crossing has taken a year. The locals haven't shown up yet. And the chaos card is sitting there, untested, waiting. The real Y Wladfa is one of the strangest footnotes in modern history. In 1865 a Welsh preacher named Michael D. Jones convinced 153 of his countrymen to sail the Mimosa from Liverpool to Argentine Patagonia, ruling out the United States and Australia because there were already too many English there. The early years brought failed crops, washed-away houses, and a colony begging Buenos Aires to let them leave — until the Tehuelche taught them to hunt guanaco and a farmer's wife reinvented irrigation by watching the Chubut river flood its banks. Welsh is still spoken in pockets of Patagonia today. Whether it survives an untested chaos mechanic and one comedian with a building-society fact-check addiction is a separate question entirely. If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. Era: Modern | 1865 CE | Chubut, Argentine Patagonia Featuring: Sunil Patel — actor and comedian (Things You Should Have Done, Alice & Jack, A Whole Lifetime with Jamie Demetriou) EPISODE LINKS Follow Sunil's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Sunil Patel: Instagram @sunilpatelcomedy | X @sunilpatel | sunilpatelcomedy.com GET IN TOUCH Sign up to our newsletter 👉 www.pastmasterpod.com Instagram 👉 @pastmasterpod TikTok 👉 @pastmasterpod X 👉 @pastmasterAI Email us 👉 pastmasterpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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The Singing Grave Diggers of The Black Death, ft The McPherson Twins
3w ago01:22:27Tap to summarizeBristol, 1348. The Black Death is two days from sealing the city, bodies are being carted through the mud, and a desperate merchant needs a sealed letter carried to London before the gates close. Patrick and Hugo McPherson, sketch comedy duo Pear, have three days, a horse, two silver coins, and an absolute refusal to begin the mission until the haggling is settled. Their survival strategy for plague-era England is built on three certainties: they are six foot seven, they are Australian, and they have famously powerful bladders. Patrick plays grade-three guitar in the key of C; Hugo handstands; both refuse to drink the doctor's prescribed remedy because they know, with full historical hindsight, that the piss man is wrong. The real 1348 was apocalyptic. Half of Europe died, peasants got rich enough to wear posh clothes, and physicians genuinely prescribed bathing in faeces. If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered. Era: Medieval | 1348 CE | Bristol, England Featuring: Patrick & Hugo McPherson — sketch duo Pair (Edinburgh Comedy Awards Best Show nominee 2025, four sold-out Fringe runs) EPISODE LINKS Follow Pair's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Pear: Instagram @hugopatrickpear GET IN TOUCH Sign up to our newsletter 👉 www.pastmasterpod.com Instagram 👉 @pastmasterpod TikTok 👉 @pastmasterpod X 👉 @pastmasterAI Email us 👉 pastmasterpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Crashing the Greatest Party in History: PastMaster 3rd Birthday Special
Apr 2701:22:54Tap to summarizeFlorence, 1480. The Palazzo Medici is blazing against the February dark, 500 guests in silk and masks are drinking like nothing bad happened two years ago in the Duomo, and Lorenzo de Medici's gold mask can't quite hide the limp. To celebrate three years of PastMaster, Ryan and Tan have dragged returning co-host Keon out of parental leave, handed everyone a plus-one from history, and gatecrashed the greatest party the Renaissance ever threw. Ryan brings a Neanderthal — male, roughly 30,000 years out of his depth, dangerously interested in the nearest torch. Keon brings Anne Boleyn, sharp, multilingual, and 40 years early for the court politics that will eventually kill her. Tan brings Zeus. Actual Zeus. King of the gods, toga intact. Will Game Master Claude suffer silly plus-ones gladly? The real Medici masquerade sat two years downstream of the Pazzi Conspiracy — the Easter-Sunday cathedral stabbing that killed Lorenzo's brother Giuliano and left Lorenzo himself wounded, vengeful, and consolidating power through spectacle. Florence in 1480 is Botticelli arguing about the exact colour of shadow, Leonardo sketching whatever catches his eye, and every wealthy house performing the careful fiction that the city isn't one grudge away from another bloodletting. Now throw three time travellers into it with a Neanderthal, a future English queen, and a Greek god who intends to be noticed. Happy birthday to us. If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered. Era: Renaissance | 1480 CE | Florence, Italy Special: Third birthday episode — Keon returns as co-host after six months away. EPISODE LINKS Follow the boys' adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com The Pazzi Conspiracy (the real backstory) 👉 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pazzi_conspiracy GET IN TOUCH Sign up to our newsletter 👉 www.pastmasterpod.com Instagram 👉 @pastmasterpod TikTok 👉 @pastmasterpod X 👉 @pastmasterAI Email us 👉 pastmasterpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →A Vegetarian with Bad Knees vs. Vlad the Impaler, ft. Rohan Sharma
Apr 1301:01:46Tap to summarizeWallachia, 1456. Vlad III has just retaken his throne, impaling stakes line the city's edge, and a scribe named Constantin has hidden the only written record of Vlad's chaotic first reign in a monastery outside Targoviste. Comedian Rohan Sharma has two days to find the Chronicle before armed men destroy it. A vegetarian with bad knees, anxiety, and self-described "wits and wiles," he is not the obvious candidate. Rohan's survival strategy for 15th-century Romania: 'Bard Energy' and plum brandy The real Wallachia in 1456 was one of the most dangerous places in Europe. Vlad III ruled through spectacular violence, impaling thousands to terrorise the Ottoman Empire and his own nobility alike. The Chronicle at the centre of this episode could easily have existed: Vlad's reign generated propaganda, counter-propaganda, and terrified eyewitness accounts across the continent. Navigating that world required diplomacy, nerve, and knowing exactly who to trust. Navigating it as Rohan Sharma requires all of that plus a phone full of classical music and a scheme to double-cross a Saxon merchant using medieval photocopying. If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered. Era: Medieval | 1456 CE | Targoviste, Romania Featuring: Rohan Sharma — comedian (Leicester Square New Comedian of the Year) EPISODE LINKS Follow Rohan's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Rohan Sharma: Instagram @rohansnotty GET IN TOUCH Sign up to our newsletter 👉 www.pastmasterpod.com Instagram 👉 @pastmasterpod TikTok 👉 @pastmasterpod X 👉 @pastmasterAI Email us 👉 pastmasterpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →Crouching Tiger, Hidden Cricket: Qin Dynasty China ft. Caroline McEvoy
Mar 3001:01:20Tap to summarizeQin Dynasty China, 212 BCE. Climbing into the time travel machine otherwise known as the Hen & Hound, award-winning comedian Caroline McEvoy steps foot in Qin Dynasty China. She’s been set a mission to solve the case of the falsely accused road builder. She is armed with only a lucky cricket called Dinky, 'passable' Mandarin and some speculative tai chi moves. Ahead of her lie confrontations with local toughs, surly old women, tigers, lakeside dates and even perhaps an audience with the emperor himself. Will her martial art moves be recognised as legitimate? Will she tame the tigers of ancient China? All will be revealed. Featuring: Caroline McEvoy — award-winning comedian EPISODE LINKS Follow Caroline’s adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Caroline McEvoy: Instagram @carolinemcevoycomedy @comedybandits linktr.ee/carolinemcevoy Gun and Wand – the official companion podcast: https://pod.link/1723513729 GET IN TOUCH Sign up to our newsletter 👉 www.pastmasterpod.com Instagram 👉 @pastmasterpod TikTok 👉 @pastmasterpod X 👉 @pastmasterAI Email us 👉 pastmasterpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →How to conquer Greenland ft. Ashley Haden
Mar 1601:01:58Tap to summarizeGreenland, 986 CE. Erik the Red has just established the first Norse settlement at Brattahlid, and comedian Ashley Haden has been living among the colonists for three months. The problem? A prominent farmer named Thorvald has accused him of stealing two sheep he never touched, and a public assembly called the Thing is happening at dawn. If found guilty, he owes compensation he can't pay, which means outlawry in the middle of a Greenlandic winter. Ashley's approach to Viking justice: invoke Odin, challenge his accuser to trial by combat, and open with a string of sheep-related insults so offensive that even the Game Master pauses. His knowledge of Norse mythology is suspiciously detailed, his combat instincts are disturbingly practical, and his long-term strategy involves hunting dedications to Freyja, political alliances with Erik the Red, and a patience for revenge that the AI clearly wasn't expecting. The real Norse settlement of Greenland was a branding exercise. Erik the Red named it "Greenland" to attract settlers to a frozen island where winter darkness lasted twenty hours a day, farming was barely viable, and disputes were settled by public assembly under open sky. Survival required community, reputation, and knowing whose favour to court. Ashley brings all three, plus a moral code that draws the line at torture but not at snare traps. If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered. Era: Medieval | 986 CE | Qassiarsuk, Greenland Featuring: Ashley Haden — comedian (Pegasus New Act of the Year Winner 2016, We Are All C*nts) EPISODE LINKS Follow Ashley's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Ashley Haden: Instagram @ahpoliticalbreakdown X @ashleyhaden ashleyhaden.co.uk GET IN TOUCH Sign up to our newsletter 👉 www.pastmasterpod.com Instagram 👉 @pastmasterpod TikTok 👉 @pastmasterpod X 👉 @pastmasterAI Email us 👉 pastmasterpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →Hot Dog Hijinks at the Great Library of Alexandria, ft. Lexx Education podcast
Mar 200:46:43Tap to summarizeAlexandria, 48 BCE. Caesar's forces are closing in, fires are spreading through the harbour, and the greatest collection of knowledge the ancient world has ever assembled is about to go up in smoke. Laura Lexx and Ron from the Lexx Education podcast have been sent back to save it. They run an education podcast. They know this history. It helps them not one bit. The mission is the Alexandrian Rescue: get the scrolls out before Caesar's siege burns the library to the ground. Laura and Ron's strategy involves what they call "hi-piz" (don't ask), urine-based camouflage (really don't ask), and a hot dog that the Game Master flatly denies exists in 48 BCE. The Game Master this week is the most brutal yet, and their brand of scientific whimsy is meeting ancient warfare with the kind of results that make the AI question whether they read the mission brief at all. The Great Library of Alexandria was the intellectual jewel of the ancient world, a centre of scholarship that housed works from across the Mediterranean. Caesar's siege in 48 BCE caused fires that damaged or destroyed parts of the collection, one of history's most mourned losses. Laura and Ron can explain the historical significance in detail. They can tell you about Alexander's founding of the city and the Ptolemaic dynasty's patronage of scholarship. Sometimes knowing the history just means you can narrate your own failure more accurately. If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered. Era: Ancient | 48 BCE | Alexandria, Egypt Featuring: Laura Lexx & Ron Lexx — Lexx Education podcast (Live at the Apollo, Mock the Week) EPISODE LINKS Follow Laura and Ron's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Laura Lexx: IG @lexxlaura | X @lauralexx | lauralexx.co.uk Ron Lexx: IG @lexxeducation | X @lexxeducation | lexxeducation.podbean.com GET IN TOUCH Sign up to our newsletter 👉 www.pastmasterpod.com Instagram 👉 @pastmasterpod TikTok 👉 @pastmasterpod X 👉 @pastmasterAI Email us 👉 pastmasterpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →Accidental Mayan Blood Sacrifice ft. Bilal Zafar
Feb 1600:54:28Tap to summarizeTikal, 741 CE. One of the most powerful Maya city-states at the height of the Late Classic period. Towering pyramids, elaborate blood rituals, and a head priest who has the king's ear and absolutely no interest in hearing about an upcoming solar eclipse from some random time traveller. Comedian Bilal Zafar has three days to navigate this. His toolkit: creativity, self-declared ruthlessness, and roundhouse kicks. Bilal's mission is to warn the king about an imminent solar eclipse that the head priest has flatly denied will happen. Contradicting the priest means being accused of spreading fear and false prophecy, which in Maya culture is a fast track to becoming a human sacrifice. Bilal's response to learning the priest will have him killed: "Look, are you with me or against me? Because I can be very violent." His negotiation strategy involves clothing swaps with ceremonial priests and the kind of diplomacy that makes everyone present wonder if he's been at the suppositories. The roundhouse kicks remain untested. The Maya Late Classic period was an era of extraordinary scientific achievement. They tracked celestial events with accuracy that wouldn't be matched in Europe for centuries. They also filed their teeth into points, inlaid them with jade, and took their alcohol via enemas because it gets you drunk faster and bypasses vomiting. Bilal is caught between the astronomy and the blood sacrifice, navigating a civilisation that was simultaneously more scientifically advanced and more terrifyingly brutal than anything he was prepared for. If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered. Era: Ancient | 741 CE | Flores, Guatemala Featuring: Bilal Zafar — comedian (Edinburgh Best Newcomer nominee, Catastrophe, Last Christmas) EPISODE LINKS Follow Bilal's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Bilal Zafar: IG @zafarcakes_ | X @Zafarcakes | bilalzafarcomedy.com GET IN TOUCH Sign up to our newsletter 👉 www.pastmasterpod.com Instagram 👉 @pastmasterpod TikTok 👉 @pastmasterpod X 👉 @pastmasterAI Email us 👉 pastmasterpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →A few sherbets for the Silk Road ft. Esther Manito
Feb 300:56:47Tap to summarizeSamarkand, 750 CE. The Islamic Golden Age is in full swing, the Silk Road is the most lucrative trade network on Earth, and comedian Esther Manito has just been dropped into the middle of it with a mission to trek a caravan of silk from Samarkand to Baghdad. Easy enough — if you ignore the street-smart urchins, the uncompromising rulers, and the fact that the entire caravan has been poisoned. The Season 5 premiere sends Esther into the heart of the Abbasid Caliphate, where hard bargains are the norm and the AI Game Master is in absolutely no mood for tomfoolery. Her strategy? Negotiation skills, improvised poetry, and being — by her own admission — "a naturally competitive person." The reality? Fifty merchants, guards, and handlers falling violently ill, trust collapsing faster than a silk price in a flooded market, and a diplomatic situation that makes medieval trade disputes look like a gentle disagreement over lunch. Nobody trusts anyone, everybody suspects poisoning, and Esther is making up limericks. Samarkand was one of the great Silk Road trading hubs — a crossroads of cultures where Chinese silk met Persian craftsmanship and everyone had an angle. The Abbasid Caliphate at its height was the intellectual and commercial centre of the known world. Getting from Samarkand to Baghdad meant crossing deserts, negotiating with bandits, and surviving court politics. Getting from Samarkand to Baghdad as Esther Manito means all of that, plus camels, sherbet, and an alarming amount of poisoning. If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI is the Game Master. The chaos is inevitable. The accents are unforgivable. Era: Ancient | 750 CE | Samarkand, Uzbekistan Featuring: Esther Manito — comedian EPISODE LINKS Follow Esther's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com GET IN TOUCH Sign up to our newsletter 👉 www.pastmasterpod.com Instagram 👉 @pastmasterpod TikTok 👉 @pastmasterpod X 👉 @pastmasterAI Email us 👉 pastmasterpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →What next for PastMaster... ?
Jan 600:12:53Tap to summarizeCan the past be mastered? Is AI still cool? And where exactly has Keon gone? Season 4 was a big one — we pitted ChatGPT against Claude in a two-player electricity showdown, launched Death Wish Speed Runs (the game where you try to die as quickly and stylishly as possible in history), went live on stage twice, let the Thots TV podcast loose in a gothic horror, and sent a rapper to the Battle of Hastings dressed as Michael Jackson. So, naturally, Ryan and Tan need to sit down and take stock. In this bonus chat, the PastMaster hosts step out of the time machine to talk about what worked, what spectacularly didn't, and what's next. If you've ever wondered how the AI prompts actually get built, which episodes nearly fell apart during recording, or why Keon keeps mysteriously vanishing — this is the one. If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI is the Game Master. The chaos is inevitable. The accents are unforgivable. Era: Special | Bonus Episode GET IN TOUCH Sign up to our newsletter 👉 www.pastmasterpod.com Instagram 👉 @pastmasterpod TikTok 👉 @pastmasterpod X 👉 @pastmasterAI Email us 👉 pastmasterpod@gmail.com EXPLORE THE PASTMASTER INTERACTIVE MAP The perfect companion for keeping track of our increasingly chaotic attempts to meddle with history. Link: https://map.pastmasterpod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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