Galilee, 25 AD. The Roman Empire is at its height, Jesus Christ is performing miracles down the road, and Tan's just been caught stealing bread. Not the most auspicious start for a man about to style himself as "Baron Saffron" — the region's most ambitious spice dealer. His plan: build a condiment empire in the ancient world. His methods: questionable at best.

Tan's business model: undercutting, aggressive recruitment, and transport theft. When a local merchant introduces him to Mordechai, who controls the saffron trade with the weight of Roman authority behind him, the question isn't whether Baron Saffron's ambition outpaces his survival instinct but by how much. His chief enforcer goes by "the Iron Fist" and definitely gave himself that nickname. His mentor is an old shopkeeper he impressed by pretending to turn one loaf of bread into two. The empire is being built on bluffing and stolen donkeys.

Roman-occupied Galilee was a crossroads of trade, religion, and political tension. Saffron was worth more than gold by weight, and the merchants who controlled it wielded real power. Mordechai's estate, his personal guard, and the ever-present threat of Roman authority create a world where one wrong move could land you in a Galilean dungeon. Tan's approach to this world is to immediately make the most powerful man in town very, very angry.

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 | 25 CE | Jerusalem, Israel

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The Jurassic era, 65 million years BCE. There are no humans, no language, and no reason whatsoever to attempt diplomacy with a T-Rex. Tan's doing it anyway. As "Tanimus Maximus," he's arrived with a plan to befriend the dinosaurs, arm them with wooden helmets, and teach them the cultural rewards of song and dance. The mammal revolution starts here.

PastMaster's parameters get pushed to breaking point. Tan's strategy for prehistoric dominance: control the water supply, divide the dinosaur population into good ones and evil ones, and use dog-training techniques on creatures that predate dogs by about 60 million years. His endgame is to become "Dino Lord" and rule a prehistoric empire built on mutual respect, wooden armour, and choreography. The Game Master goes along with all of it. When pressed on how exactly a human communicated with dinosaurs, the answer is "clicks and whistles," delivered without a shred of embarrassment.

The Jurassic and Cretaceous periods were ruled by creatures that made the planet's current apex predators look like hamsters. Crocodiles were once the dominant species before dinosaurs took over, and mammals hid in the shadows waiting their turn. Partly inspired by Steve Brusatte's The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs, Tan's contribution to this 165-million-year power struggle is finger painting and a dance routine. Brusatte probably didn't envision his research being used this way.

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 | ~65m BCE | Hell Creek, United States

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Medieval England, 1415. The Battle of Agincourt is looming, Henry V is rallying his troops, and comedian Sunil Patel has gone straight to a tavern to ask a group of merchants if anyone's got a job going. His pitch: "I have a very particular set of skills that will only become apparent once you give me the job." The merchants are intrigued. They probably shouldn't be.

Sunil's approach to 15th-century England: refuse military service under any circumstances, befriend a portly moustachioed merchant, and pitch an invention so vague that nobody can explain what it actually does. "Patel's Device" is delivered with total conviction — it opens doors, it impresses people, and it may or may not be a box. His real secret weapon is that he can read and write, which in 1415 puts him ahead of roughly 95% of the population. Whether that's enough to build an empire while England's most famous battle rages on without him remains to be seen.

The real Agincourt saw Henry V's outnumbered English army annihilate the French through a devastating combination of longbow tactics and muddy terrain. Oxford in 1415 was a university town with a dark underbelly, and the merchants were the rising class. Sunil knows which side he's on. The swords can wait.

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 | ~1415 CE | Oxford, United Kingdom

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Sunil Patel: Instagram @sunilpatelcomedy | X @sunilpatel | sunilpatelcomedy.com

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Victorian London, 1851. Charles Darwin is working on the most important scientific text in history, and Ryan's just turned up at the pub under the deeply suspicious pseudonym "Ryland Mulchroneforth." His plan? Gaslight the father of evolution, steal credit for the Theory of Natural Selection, and demand a piggyback across town.

The Game Master this week is Marvin the Paranoid Android from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, so the AI is depressed, sarcastic, and deeply unimpressed by everyone's existence. Ryan's approach to Victorian science: walk into a pub, shout for noble scientists, and then inform Charles Darwin that On the Origin of Species was actually his work all along. The gaslighting is relentless, the robot companion is threatening violence, and there's a mysterious banned word that must not be spoken. And for reasons that remain unclear, local cheese production keeps coming up.

The Great Exhibition of 1851 had just opened at Crystal Palace, showcasing Britain's industrial might to the world. Darwin, meanwhile, was at Down House obsessively breeding pigeons and building towards the publication that would reshape biology forever. He was not, historically, the sort of man who gave piggybacks to strangers who claimed to have invented evolution first. But then, historically, nobody had ever asked.

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 | Down House, United Kingdom

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The Shire, Middle Earth. Gandalf's got a plan to destroy the One Ring. Tan thinks it's rubbish. Arriving as "Thokk the Unthinkable" — a friendly orc, which is already a contradiction — Tan's here to fix Tolkien's plot holes. The Fellowship spent three books and eleven hours of cinema walking the Ring to Mount Doom. Tan reckons he could sort it in about twenty minutes. It involves the Eagles.

PastMaster goes off-piste, dragging the AI Game Master out of history and into Middle Earth. Tan's pitch to Gandalf: skip the walking, fly the Ring to Mount Doom on the Eagles, drop it in the volcano, job done. Gandalf's response is furious and absolute. Tan's counter-argument is that the wizard literally calls an Eagle to rescue himself later in the story. What follows is a battle of wills between a 21st-century management consultant and a fictional wizard, and the Game Master is stuck in the middle trying to keep Tolkien's plot intact.

Tolkien's world is built on ancient grudges, impossible quests, and one very questionable ring-disposal strategy. Tan's turning up at Bag End with operational efficiency complaints and zero patience for quest logistics. Whether Middle Earth can handle this level of corporate scrutiny is the question. Whether Gandalf can handle Tan is another one 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: Fiction | Middle Earth

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Scandinavia, circa 850 AD. The Viking Age is at its peak, longships are terrorising the coasts of Europe, and Keon's just arrived with one goal: be worshipped as a god. His opening move? Walk up to a rival chieftain called Bjorn, shout "what are you looking at?", and headbutt him in the face. Subtle, it is not.

Styling himself as "Jarl Olaf," Keon's approach to Viking politics is pure aggression. His economic policy is communist redistribution where he keeps most of the gold. His diplomatic strategy is headbutting. His relationship with rival chieftain Bjorn is deteriorating at a speed that impresses even the Game Master, who this week has been instructed to channel Malcolm Tucker from The Thick of It. Whether Scandinavian warrior culture can survive Keon's particular brand of leadership remains to be seen.

The Viking Age saw Scandinavian raiders and settlers reshape the map of Europe, from the monasteries of Lindisfarne to the courts of Constantinople. Jarls rose and fell on the strength of their raids and their reputation. The idea that you could headbutt your way to the top isn't historically inaccurate so much as historically on-brand.

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 | ~850 CE | Uppsala, Sweden

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Medieval England, circa 1300. The ancient capital of Winchester is bustling, the local lord's court is in full swing, and a mysterious traveller called "Ryanardo" has just materialised in the marketplace whistling Chuck Berry. His plan? Introduce Guns N' Roses to the Middle Ages using nothing but a lute and sheer audacity.

Ryan's strategy for medieval stardom: form a partnership with a local bard, invent a fusion of 14th-century folk music and 1980s rock, and ride the resulting fame all the way to the royal court. The rockstar ego arrives on schedule. So does the terrible decision-making. Somewhere between the lute solo and the lord's wife, the plan takes a turn that no amount of mead can fix. And when the dust settles, Ryan's backup plan involves badgers, breakdancing, and a Game Master who is visibly losing patience.

Winchester in 1300 was the old capital of England, a city of stone walls, market fairs, and social hierarchies so rigid that a wrong word at court could end your career or your life. The idea that you could rock up, perform Guns N' Roses on a lute, and then make a move on the lady of the house? That's not a cultural revolution, it's a death wish with a backing track.

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 | ~1300 CE | Winchester, United Kingdom

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The Wild West, 1865. The Civil War's just ended, the frontier is wide open, and Keon has arrived in Lexington, Kentucky with one mission: invent fast food a century early. He knows nothing about history. He knows nothing about RPGs. He definitely doesn't know how fried chicken actually works. But he's got $50 in gold coins and the confidence of a man who's never been to Kentucky but has definitely been to KFC.

Naming himself Colonel Sanders, Keon walks into a saloon and immediately gravitates toward the most suspicious person in the room. His business plan: a secret recipe involving 11 herbs and spices, a franchise model roughly 85 years ahead of schedule, and a supply chain built on an alliance with a man whose previous employer was a notorious outlaw gang. The entrepreneurial confidence is absolute. The due diligence is nonexistent. The finger lickin' is non-negotiable.

Post-Civil War America was a powder keg of opportunity and violence, with outlaws, prospectors, and carpetbaggers all scrambling to carve out a piece of a country putting itself back together. Lexington sat right in the middle of it, a border state town that couldn't decide whose side it was on. Now add a 21st-century Londoner whose entire knowledge of Kentucky begins and ends with a bargain bucket, and whose idea of a hostile takeover involves chickens.

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 | 1865 CE | Lexington, United States

EPISODE LINKS

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If you could go back 10 years what would you do? Buy a bunch of bitcoin probably. What about 100 years, 200, 500? Could you survive and thrive? Or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch?

Well now you can find out. PastMaster is the time-travel adventure show with a twist. Each week our hosts Ryan, Tan and Keon explore a different era of history with the help of our maverick and benevolent AI GameMaster.

It’s simple. We give the AI the rules of the game and then it acts as our narrator and guide. Will it keep things historically accurate? Will we become masters of the past? Will any of it make any sense?

Tune in and find out!

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