PastMaster: Reshaping History

Alexandria, 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

Tikal, 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

Samarkand, 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

Northumbria, 687 CE. The nuns have survived Ryan's naked Jesus act and Nick's witchcraft-and-Christina-Aguilera gambit. Now it's Tan's turn. His character name is Wee Willy Winky, the Beast Master. That's the energy we're working with. The Death Wish Speed Run finale: Ryan tried blasphemy, Nick tried seduction, and Tan's approach is to demand that Claude let him summon a bear called Rufus. Claude's response ("You don't have a bear") does not deter him. His relationship with the turnip cart, the nuns, and the basic laws of nature that PastMaster tries to uphold is adversarial from the first second. After three episodes of trying to provoke medieval nuns into violence, someone has to be crowned the pound-for-pound Death Wish Champion. St. Hilda's Abbey in Northumbria was a centre of learning that produced five bishops and hosted the Synod of Whitby, one of the most important ecclesiastical debates in English history. None of those bishops had to deal with anything like this. Tan's ultimate fate is historically accurate for how Anglo-Saxon religious communities dealt with people they really didn't like, and the way it happens is both deeply sad and deeply funny. Stay tuned to the end for a rich, untapped vein of historical exploration that suggests the Nuns of Death series might not be finished yet. Part 3 of 3. 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 | 687 CE | Whitby, England Part 3 of 3 EPISODE LINKS Follow Tan'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

Northumbria, 687 CE. A 7th-century Anglo-Saxon nunnery. Prayer, scholarship, deep Christian patience. The last place in history you'd expect someone to get murdered quickly. Which is exactly why we chose it. Death Wish Speed Run is back, the game where you try to die as quickly and stylishly as possible in the past, and after the Australian penal colony the difficulty needed raising, so the setting is deliberately peaceful. Ryan goes first with a plan to strip naked and claim to be Jesus. His problem: Sister Edberg, built like an ox and carrying a wooden staff, who has absolutely no interest in a theological debate. Claude refuses to grant quick theatrical deaths, instead enforcing grim 7th-century religious justice. Ryan's backup plan involves hymns, fermented turnips, and running up walls like a motorbike. Scoring categories this time: speed, artistic impression, and gritty realism. Whitby Abbey, founded around 657 AD by Abbess Hild, was one of Northumbria's most important double monasteries and hosted the Synod of Whitby in 664 CE. It was a centre of learning and devotion. These women wrestled livestock, hauled water, and worked the fields. They were not the meek nuns Ryan was expecting, and Claude's commitment to historical accuracy means they are far more interested in locking him up than putting him out of his misery. Part 1 of 3. 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 | 687 CE | Whitby, England Part 1 of 3 EPISODE LINKS Follow Ryan'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

Woodstock, 1969. Four hundred thousand flower children, Jimi Hendrix finishing his legendary set, and one man backstage who literally cannot stop beatboxing. Tan has been sent back to Max Yasgur's farm as MC Wicked, a hip-hop pioneer arriving roughly a decade too early, with a mission to get on the main stage and blow the counterculture's collective mind. There's a problem: Tan knows almost nothing about hip-hop. His strategy is relentless beatboxing, robot dancing, and a vocal rendition of Daft Punk's "Human After All" performed for an audience who won't hear electronic music for another thirty years. The festival organiser's response to MC Wicked's act is a question that perfectly captures the confusion of everyone present: "Are you broken? Are you stuck in some kind of loop?" MC Wicked responds with more beatboxing. Whether this counts as inventing hip-hop, inventing electronic music, or inventing a new category of public disturbance is a question for the ages. The Woodstock Music and Art Fair ran from August 15-18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York. Three days that defined a generation's relationship with music, mud, and what Claude diplomatically calls "herbal creativity." Now imagine dropping a man doing call-and-response Daft Punk chants and mechanical robot dancing into the middle of it. The hippies don't know what they're witnessing. Neither does MC Wicked. Part 1 of 2. 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: Modern | 1969 CE | Bethel, United States Featuring: Nick Horseman — comedian (The Rhyme Scheme, Edinburgh Fringe Comedy Awards nom) Part 1 of 2 EPISODE LINKS Follow Tan's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Nick Horseman: X @rociouspun | opencomedy.com/nickhorseman 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

The Colosseum, 80 CE. Fifty thousand Romans screaming for blood, Emperor Titus presiding from his box, and two time travellers with ten minutes to get rich, get notorious, and not die. Recorded live at the Bedford in Balham for the Cheerful Earful comedy podcast festival, this is PastMaster with a room full of people shouting suggestions. Nick Horseman and Tan go head to head in ancient Rome, with Tan betting on gladiators from the stands while Nick spawns backstage and immediately makes a decision about a tiger that the tiger does not appreciate. Meanwhile the audience gets their own game: ancient Persia, 550 BCE, playing as "Persia McPersia" armed with nothing but hair gel and a diplomatic strategy best summarised by the Game Master: "That's not how physics works. That's not how combat works. That's not how spears work." Claude, told to "be mean and be concise" for the live format, delivers ten-minute speed runs that give nobody time to think. From the gladiatorial arena of Rome to the Achaemenid Empire, this episode covers more ground than most PastMaster adventures and resolves approximately none of it well. Whether hair gel, a Swiss Army knife, or a man literally named after the country he's visiting can survive ten minutes of compressed ancient history is a question best answered at volume. 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 | 80 CE / 550 BCE | Rome, Italy / Persepolis, Iran Featuring: Nick Horseman — comedian (The Rhyme Scheme, Edinburgh Fringe Comedy Awards nom) EPISODE LINKS Follow the adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Nick Horseman: X @rociouspun | opencomedy.com/nickhorseman 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

Neo-Singapore, 2999. A vertical city-state stretching from the ocean floor to the stratosphere. Humanity's entire pre-digital cultural heritage is stored in a quantum archive, and a virus is about to wipe it all. Comedy producer Al Clayton has 72 hours to save the future. His first priority? 3D printing Charlie Simpson from Busted. Al's mission is clear: recover three cultural artifacts before they're permanently lost. Al's approach is to immediately petition for the resurrection of a 21st-century pop star at a cost of roughly one small moon. The Game Master, playing Sherlock Holmes, is withering: "You've been in the future for precisely 30 seconds and already believe you can casually resurrect a 21st century pop star." Al is undeterred. His creative enthusiasm and 30th-century technology are about to collide, and the consequences will echo through what remains of time. This is PastMaster's leap into science fiction, where the stakes are literally all of human culture and the person tasked with saving it is armed with nothing but enthusiasm, pop culture references from a thousand years ago, and an unshakeable desire to share a bowl of Frosties with a member of Busted. David Attenborough, for the record, died in 2047 at age 121. His consciousness was backed up. Al's was not. 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: Fiction | 2999 CE | Singapore Featuring: Al Clayton — comedy producer and director (Turtle Canyon Comedy) EPISODE LINKS Follow Al's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Al Clayton: IG @turtlecanyoncom | X @turtlecanyoncom | turtlecanyoncomedy.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

The Great Exhibition, Hyde Park, 1851. Six million visitors. The Crystal Palace. The pinnacle of Victorian innovation. And Chris Reading has just rolled up in a quack-mobile to sell miracle tea bags to the most sceptical audience in the British Empire. Chris's mission: acquire serious power in Victorian London under the tutelage of Game Master Gregor MacGregor, history's most audacious conman. His product line includes "Longevity Tea" (guaranteed to extend your life by at least 5%), shiny thermos flasks, plush toy lions, and a slogan that means something very different to the ladies than it does to the colonel. Chris knows exactly what he's doing. The Victorians are less convinced, and the Game Master's patience for his schemes has a shorter shelf life than the tea. The Great Exhibition of 1851 drew the world to Joseph Paxton's iron-and-glass Crystal Palace, showcasing genuine marvels from steam engines to the Koh-i-Noor diamond. Gregor MacGregor was a real Scottish conman who invented an entire country called Poyais and sold land rights to it. Chris is channelling that exact energy at the grandest showcase of innovation the world has ever seen, armed with a winking-face logo, a dubious medical degree, and the kind of confidence that historically ends with a walking stick to the knuckles. 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: Industrial | 1851 CE | London, United Kingdom Featuring: Chris Reading — comedian (ALIEN: CONTAINMENT, Time Travel Is Dangerous) Contains: Bad language, historical anachronisms and con artistry. But no drugs, disappointingly. EPISODE LINKS Follow Chris's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Chris Reading: IG @chrisjreading | X @ChrisReading | chrisreading.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

The Battle of Hastings, 1066. The day that ended Anglo-Saxon England, crowned William the Conqueror, and changed the English language forever. Now Keon's been sent back to stop it — armed with a red leather jacket, a single sparkling glove, and an unstoppable urge to moonwalk. As the mysterious "Agent M," Keon has one shot to save King Harold from the Norman invasion and — more importantly — get himself embroidered onto the Bayeux Tapestry. His strategy? Hand Harold a red leather jacket because it's "a very sturdy leather zipper" that'll definitely stop arrows. Convince an 11th-century army that pop choreography is a legitimate battle tactic. And somehow explain what a zipper is to a man who's never seen a button. DeepSeek AI plays Game Master this week, and it is in absolutely no mood to let any of this slide. What follows is a glorious collision of medieval warfare and modern pop culture — terrible French accents, creative reinterpretations of Norman battle strategy, and a one-man campaign to introduce hip-hop to Anglo-Saxon England while there's still an Anglo-Saxon England to introduce it to. History says Harold took an arrow to the eye at Senlac Hill and the Normans swept in to give us the Domesday Book, feudalism, and about 10,000 French words. But what if one moonwalking time traveller could change all of that? And what if the answer is: absolutely not, but it's hilarious to watch him try? 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: Warfare | 1066 CE | Battle, England Contains: Mild language, historical anachronisms, and some surprisingly smooth medieval moves. EPISODE LINKS Follow Keon's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com The Bayeux Tapestry (the real one) 👉 https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/ 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

Medieval England, date unknown. You wake up on cold stone. Your hands aren't your hands. Someone is shouting for Thomas, and there's a strong implication that Thomas needs to sharpen an axe. Welcome to PastMaster's Quantum Leap episode, where Ryan doesn't get to choose who he is, where he is, or what century he's in. In a twist cooked up by Tan, Ryan is dropped blind into history with zero context. No character brief, no mission, no era. Just a dark chamber, the stench of tallow candles and unwashed bodies, and a gruff voice demanding Thomas come quickly. Ryan's first guess at his own identity is Thomas Cromwell; his second is Thomas the Tank Engine. His approach to medieval executioner training involves requesting bog roll from a man who has never seen a button, and a relationship with tallow grease that Edmund finds deeply concerning. The Tower of London served as a fortress, prison, and execution ground for centuries, soaked in blood, political intrigue, and the kind of medieval justice that makes modern life look extremely comfortable. The Quantum Leap format strips away every safety net PastMaster usually offers. Ryan has no idea what century he's in, what his mission is, or why everyone keeps handing him axes. What he does with the axes once he figures out who Thomas is remains between him, Edmund, and God. 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 | 1400s CE | London, England EPISODE LINKS Follow Ryan'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

What started as a missing persons case in 1920s Arkham has gone catastrophically sideways. Ezra Whitmarsh is alive but changed. Forbidden books are burning. Alien technology is doing things to mortal flesh that mortal flesh was not designed for. And T.G. Fells has one obsession that overrides cosmic horror, sanity loss, and the basic instinct for self-preservation: he needs to know who killed Christopher Marlowe. Dan Wheeler and Joseph Chance return as Gert and T.G. Fells to conclude their investigation, and "conclude" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. The Arkham mystery has spiralled into something involving Yithian technology, temporal displacement, and a nervous businessman who turns out to be far more dangerous than he appeared. Where the investigation leads and what Gert does when he arrives there involves iambic pentameter, a tavern that goes very quiet, and a conspiracy that makes the Syndicate look like amateurs. Marlowe's death in 1593 is one of history's genuine unsolved mysteries. Theories range from a pub brawl to government assassination to a faked death by the man some believe was the real Shakespeare. The Yithians, from Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time," are beings who swap minds across millennia. Put those together with two podcast veterans improvising their way through cosmic horror and Elizabethan murder, and the question isn't whether they solve the mystery. It's whether there's enough reality left to solve it in. 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: Fiction | 1926 CE / 1593 CE | Arkham, United States / Deptford, England Featuring: The Apocalypse Players (Dan Wheeler, Joseph Chance, Al Clayton, Chris Reading) Part 2 of 2 EPISODE LINKS Follow Dan and Joseph's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Dan Wheeler: X @danwheeleruk | danwheeler.org Joseph Chance: X @JosephChance2 Al Clayton: IG @turtlecanyoncom | X @turtlecanyoncom | turtlecanyoncomedy.com Chris Reading: IG @chrisjreading | X @ChrisReading | chrisreading.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

Arkham, Massachusetts, 1926. Businessman Ezra Whitmarsh has vanished from a locked study. The air smells of ozone. His business partner is sweating through his suit. And someone called "the Syndicate" is already following you from the train station. This is Lovecraft country, and PastMaster has gone full cosmic horror. The Apocalypse Players bring their Call of Cthulhu expertise to PastMaster. Joseph Chance plays T.G. Fells, an electrical tinkerer with a lighter and a dangerous curiosity. Dan Wheeler plays Gert of the Well, a professional liar who hasn't lied yet but is absolutely planning to. Claude, playing Game Master in the style of Lovecraft himself, delivers prose so atmospheric the players forget they're improvising. When something in a Georgian mansion blinks at them with wet, alien intelligence, Gert's instinct is to hit it with a blackjack, and the situation does not improve. Set during Prohibition in Lovecraft's fictional Arkham, a New England town where Jazz Age prosperity sits on top of something ancient and deeply wrong. The 1920s period detail is immaculate: working-class Massachusetts accents, the social dynamics of small-town paranoia, and a reality that becomes increasingly unreliable the deeper the investigation goes. Part 1 of 2, and it ends on the kind of cliffhanger that makes Part 2 essential listening. 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: Fiction | 1926 CE | Arkham, United States Featuring: The Apocalypse Players (Dan Wheeler, Joseph Chance, Al Clayton, Chris Reading) Part 1 of 2 EPISODE LINKS Follow Dan and Joseph's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Dan Wheeler: X @danwheeleruk | danwheeler.org Joseph Chance: X @JosephChance2 Al Clayton: IG @turtlecanyoncom | X @turtlecanyoncom | turtlecanyoncomedy.com Chris Reading: IG @chrisjreading | X @ChrisReading | chrisreading.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

Dakota Territory, 1875. The Black Hills gold rush is ripping the West apart, the Sioux are losing their sacred lands, and a full-scale war is brewing between miners and the native population. Nick Horseman has arrived in Deadwood as Thorne Jackson-Reynolds, a refined English gentleman with a piano, Spice Girls lyrics, and absolutely no survival instinct. His peace plan involves artisanal cheese, a dance studio, and a Guns N' Roses impression. The armed outlaws of Deadwood are not immediately convinced. But when hat diplomacy enters the picture and Nick tells his own deputy to "stop being a pussy, it's only a hat" in front of a Sioux delegation, the negotiation takes on a momentum that has nothing to do with diplomacy and everything to do with one man's refusal to read a room. The Dakota gold rush triggered the Great Sioux War of 1876 and the death of Custer at Little Bighorn. It was one of the most violent land disputes in American history, driven by broken treaties and gold fever. Nick's proposed alternative to cavalry and conflict is monthly peace concerts and career changes into cheese-making. Whether the Wild West is ready for a posh Englishman with a business plan built on dairy products and Spice Girls covers is a question history never thought it would have to answer. 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: Industrial | 1875 CE | Deadwood, United States Featuring: Nick Horseman — comedian (The Rhyme Scheme, Edinburgh Fringe Comedy Awards nom) EPISODE LINKS Follow Nick's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Nick Horseman: X @rociouspun | opencomedy.com/nickhorseman 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

Port Jackson, 1788. Britain's brand-new penal colony at the edge of the known world. The convicts are starving, the guards are brutal, and Australia's wildlife is doing what Australia's wildlife does best — trying to kill everyone. Ryan, Tan, and returning guest Nick Horseman have not come here to survive. They've come to compete in PastMaster's second Death Wish Speed Run: who can achieve the fastest, most stylish demise in colonial Australia? Scored like figure skating: technical marks for speed, artistic marks for style. DeepSeek is back as Game Master, and it is in no mood for dignity. Nick's character name is "Speedy." Tan's is "Doggy Doggy Ballbags," to which DeepSeek responds: "Sure, let's roll with that, because clearly you've got the maturity of a medieval jester with a head injury." Their strategies for achieving a stylish colonial death range from confronting armed guards with improvised weaponry to smuggling Australia's most venomous wildlife in a sack. DeepSeek scores every attempt with the withering precision of a disappointed figure-skating judge. The First Fleet's arrival at Port Jackson established one of history's harshest penal colonies — limited rations, rampant disease, and punishments that made the convicts' original crimes look tame. Now three idiots are actively trying to speed-run the dying part, judged by a Chinese AI with a gift for insults. It's Aussie Rules, PastMaster style. 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: Special | 1788 CE | Port Jackson (Sydney Cove), Australia Featuring: Nick Horseman — rapper and comedian (The Rhyme Scheme, Edinburgh Fringe 2019) EPISODE LINKS Follow the Death Wish Speed Run on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Nick on X 👉 @rociouspun Nick's website 👉 opencomedy.com/nickhorseman 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

Timbuktu, 1330 CE. The Mali Empire at the height of its power. Gold dust literally fills the air. And sitting at the centre of it all is Mansa Musa — the richest human being who has ever lived, with a net worth of roughly $700 billion in today's money. Elon Musk is small fry by comparison. Ryan's been dropped into medieval West Africa with one mission: convince this golden emperor to fund humanity's first space programme. The logic is simple: if modern billionaires spend their fortunes going to space, surely history's richest man should have got there first. The Mali Empire under Mansa Musa controlled most of West Africa's gold production. His famous hajj to Mecca included 60,000 people and so much gold that he crashed Cairo's economy for ten years. Keon recognises the name from an Anderson .Paak song but knows nothing else. Ryan's elevator pitch to the wealthiest man in history involves optical illusions, mechanical curiosities, and a prototype that gets progressively darker as the engineering challenges mount. Medieval Africa's golden age meets one man's wildly ambitious space proposal. The empire is real. The wealth is staggering. The space programme is not going to happen — but the pitch is something else 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. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered. Era: Medieval | 1330 CE | Timbuktu, Mali EPISODE LINKS Follow Ryan'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

Gaul, 55 BCE. Julius Caesar's legions are marching north. A small Gallic village of thatched roundhouses stands in their way. And Tan has just arrived as "Risky Dave" — a cockney wide boy inspired by Asterix and Obelix, but with one critical substitution. Instead of magic potion, he's brought cocaine. In the Asterix comics, the druid Getafix brews a strength potion. Risky Dave has Colombian marching powder. Risky Dave can't speak the language, doesn't know the geography, and his entire communication strategy is pointing at his mouth and rubbing his stomach. His plan: find the village druid, replace the magic potion with class-A substances, and rally the Gauls to "bash the Roman pigs up." The substitution raises questions that the Asterix comics never had to address, chiefly what happens when an entire war party has access to battle stimulants but zero tactical coordination. And what happens when Caesar himself gets curious about the new magic. Caesar's conquest of Gaul was one of antiquity's most devastating military campaigns — eight years of warfare that killed an estimated one million Gauls and enslaved another million. The beloved Asterix comics reimagined this as a plucky village holding out with magic potion. PastMaster reimagines the reimagining with class-A substances and even less historical accuracy. 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 | 55 BCE | Gaul, France Contains: Drug references, Roman military violence, and a profound misunderstanding of Asterix lore. EPISODE LINKS Follow Tan'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

Victorian London, 1873. A string of ritual murders is forming a pentagram across the city map. Comedian and writer Matthew Crosby has stepped out of his bathtub time machine and into a proper murder mystery. His cover identity? French detective "Inspector Pompidou." His qualifications? Absolutely none. His modern object of choice? A fidget spinner, because "it wouldn't freak people out. It would draw people in." Matthew brings the energy of a man who'd happily time-travel to the Black Death and give everyone "the old razzle dazzle." His approach to Victorian detective work involves paying a newspaper boy to suppress the news, sizing up crime scenes for their property value, and the kind of confidence that only a fake French inspector armed with a spinning toy can muster. When Game Master Claude accidentally throws a certain fictional detective into the mix, Matthew doesn't question it — he embraces the space-time paradox and asks to share an opium pipe. Victorian London was a city of fog, gaslight, and genuine public fascination with the occult — seances were mainstream entertainment and secret societies thrived in the shadows. It was also, crucially, a city without CCTV, background checks, or any reliable way to verify whether "Inspector Pompidou" was a real person. 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: Industrial | 1873 CE | London, United Kingdom Featuring: Matthew Crosby — comedian and writer (Hypothetical, Dave; Badults, BBC Three; 1/3 of Pappy's) EPISODE LINKS Follow Matthew's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Matthew on Instagram 👉 @matthewcrosby1 Matthew on X 👉 @matthewcrosby Matthew's website 👉 comedy.co.uk/people/matthew_crosby/ 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

Troy, 1200 BCE. The siege has dragged on for a decade. The Greeks are bored. The Trojans are smug. And "Tanchilles" and "Keonkeles" have just arrived with modern minds, Bronze Age materials, and a burning question: what if the Trojan Horse wasn't a horse at all? Keon has never heard of the Trojan War and thinks Achilles is a job title ("Achilles, like he kills"), while Tan brings a C in design technology GCSE. Armed with these credentials, they compete to build history's greatest deception. Their proposals range from the Trojan Diplodocus to the Trojan kebab van, and Game Master Claude in full science-obsessed mode ruthlessly fact-checks every pitch against what Bronze Age craftsmen could actually build. No dinosaurs, no advanced metallurgy, just timber, rope, and increasingly desperate ingenuity. The Trojan War, if it happened, likely took place around 1200 BCE at the site now identified as Hisarlik in modern Turkey. Homer's account gave us the original Trojan Horse. PastMaster's version involves two blokes whose combined engineering credentials amount to a C grade and some scones, trying to improve on one of history's most famous military deceptions. 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 | 1200 BCE | Hisarlik, Turkey Contains: Competitive siege warfare design, rejected dinosaur proposals, and a Game Master with very strong opinions about anachronisms. EPISODE LINKS Follow Tan and Keon'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

Hampton Court Palace, 1522. Henry VIII is still married to Catherine of Aragon, but Anne Boleyn has just returned from France and is about to catch the king's wandering eye. Kim and Alice from the Fetch the Smelling Salts podcast have been sent back to save his wives — armed with a battery-powered smoke machine, a Halloween makeup palette, and their Catholic background. They didn't do any research. But they did write roast jokes about Henry VIII, and in PastMaster that's arguably more useful. The plan is beautifully unhinged: infiltrate the palace, gain Queen Catherine's trust, then scare the living daylights out of Henry until he changes his ways. Think less diplomatic negotiation, more haunted house with fog effects. Kim wanted to just kill him outright, but Alice vetoed that. Their strategy for getting past palace staff relies on sheer audacity, and Game Master Claude's "charmingly optimistic" response to their rescue mission suggests it won't be making things easy. The challenge: deploying theatrical haunting techniques on a king who executed people for less, while navigating Tudor court politics as "an American and a Singaporean" with zero knowledge of the period. Henry VIII's break with Rome reshaped England forever — dissolving monasteries, creating the Church of England, and costing two wives their heads. Now imagine two podcasters trying to prevent all of that with props from a party shop, knowledge of "Catholic shit," and absolutely no plan B. 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 | 1522 CE | London, United Kingdom Featuring: Kim & Alice — Fetch the Smelling Salts podcast (Shortlisted, International Women's Podcast Award) EPISODE LINKS Follow Kim and Alice's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Fetch the Smelling Salts on Instagram 👉 @fetchsmellingsalts 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