Dan Snow interview: ‘Dad would read me Herodotus – I was a little know-it-all twit’
Snow at Christmas. Guaranteed. Imagine it! The BBC is coming up trumps by fulfilling many a dream with Strictly Come Dancing featuring history buff Dan Snow. But rather tragically (for him as much as us) there will be no glistening fake-tanned heavage on show beneath a shiny unbuttoned shirt.
“I was quite looking forward to all that,” muses Snow with a hint of wistfulness. “But I think they took one look at gangly old me and instantly thought ‘character’ rather than snake-hipped Mr Sexy. I’m actually going to be dressed as...”
“STOP!” I cry. Yes, I am here to talk about his chassé and foot rotations, but first, a spot of Man’s Business; my husband has sent a long email under the heading Things That Annoyed Me About [the recent film] Napoleon. He would like to cross-reference his pedantic gripes (sorry, I mean his entirely legitimate dismay at so many egregious inaccuracies) with Snow, who pointed out that Napoleon did not fight at the pyramids nor did he ever witness Marie Antoinette’s execution and was lambasted by the film’s director Ridley Scott for his troubles, who snapped he should “get a life”.
Snow’s eyes widen in delight as he skims through my spouse’s list, nodding vigorously at comments about the trenches (so wrong!) at Borodino and the lake at Austerlitz that never existed before mildly taking issue with Scott’s “failure to convey the polyglot nature of the French army” as being “an overly tough criticism”. “Wow,” he concludes finally.
“Women don’t write those sorts of emails,” I point out. He nods with all due solemnity. “I’m sorry you had to see it. No woman should be exposed to that sort of thing. Men, we’re a strange lot. It’s why I really think it’s best for us to keep things bottled up.”
Quite so. But generally speaking, midlife, middle-class husbands either want to be Dan Snow or Bear Grylls. Me, I prefer to watch Snow, 45, on the box, exuding energy and authority in equal measure as he strides about Syria or Congo or Second World War battlegrounds. Last year he travelled to Antartica and witnessed the seabed discovery of explorer Ernest Shackleton’s ship, Endurance, lying where it sank on November 21, 1915.
These days he’s back to presenting his popular History Hit podcast and appearing on its eponymous channel on YouTube, which won the Best Specialist channel award in this year’s Broadcast digital awards. The past never had such a promising future.
“I think young people are really engaged with history these days,” he says. “They are watching what’s happening in Ukraine and the Middle East and seeing the forces of history in action. I know Rishi Sunak wants kids to learn maths until they are 18, but I think they should study history until the age of 16 at least.”
“History isn’t just about dates and monarchs,” he continues. “It is thrilling and terrifying and uplifting and astonishing. It is about the most exciting, meaningful things that have ever happened on this planet. History explains how Britain got where it is today; why we speak English not French, why we are a peaceful nation. Everything we do is built on the breakthroughs and innovations of the past; how amazing is that?”
To be fair, Snow – who was awarded an MBE in 2019 – has the gilded ability to find most things amazing. A bona fide nepo baby before nepo babies were even a thing, he was privately educated, read history at Oxford and is the son of the television journalist and author Peter “Swingometer” Snow, with whom he made his TV debut in 2002, co-presenting a 60th anniversary special on the Battle of El Alamein.
“I’m a complete nepo baby, the product of immense privilege,” he says. “From a young age my dad strongly advised me not to work in television. But he would read me Herodotus and Tacitus, so from the age of six or seven I was a little know-it-all t--t, making home history documentaries with a JVC camera.”
“Rather inevitably my kids are obsessed with history too. My daughter Zia made a brilliant history documentary on Boudicca when she was younger in which I was a Roman and she played Boudicca, wearing her bright orange Merida wig from Brave.”
Snow, who lives in the New Forest, also has two other children, Wolf aged nine and Orla who is eight, with his wife, Lady Edwina Grosvenor, 42. A criminologist and philanthropist who is dedicated to prison reform, she also happens to be the sister of the 7th Duke of Westminster, Hugh Grosvenor, one of the wealthiest men in Britain and godfather to Prince George.
“I’m keenly aware that I don’t need to work for financial reasons, so I have thought long and hard about ensuring I do something that has meaning and is purposeful,” reflects Snow.
“One thing I have learned in my middle years is that it’s important to learn new skills; I get emotional nourishment from that and it’s good for my mental health. I love dad-dancing at weddings, so of course I immediately said yes to Strictly. I was hoping for a little rock’n’roll number or maybe a sophisticated American Smooth – I was given the jive. The jive! Anton Du Beke was walking past in the corridor and said ‘Somebody really hates you’.”
To add to the ignominy, when viewers take to their sofas to enjoy the Strictly Christmas magic, they will see Snow dressed as – wait for it, wait for it – a 6’5” gingerbread man, performing flicks, kicks and lifts.
“After my first rehearsal I got into my car to go home and I was so exhausted I thought I would have to pull over and sleep. The previous weekend I climbed up Ben Nevis with my kids, carrying all their stuff, but three hours of dancing and I was so shattered, I genuinely believed it was inconceivable that I would ever get to dance on TV.”
No spoilers here, but suffice to say this gingerbread man does not crumble under the pressures of prime-time entertainment.
I get that it’s good clean fun, but sometimes I can’t help wondering why nobody wants to be un homme sérieux anymore? These days, I would aver, relatability isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s impossible, oh all right then, unseemly, to imagine Civilisation presenter Kenneth Clark ever doing the Cha Cha Cha.
“I would never compare myself to Kenneth Clark in terms of cultural impact or importance,” Snow cries. “But attitudes have changed. Social media has given us more access when it comes to commentators, politicians and royalty; you wouldn’t have seen George VI having afternoon tea with Paddington Bear, but the late Queen did it and the whole country absolutely adored it.”
Mores may evolve in the public sphere but tradition is the byword for the Snow family festivities. On Christmas Eve they will make their way to nearby Beaulieu where A Christmas Carol is being performed in the atmospheric ruins of the Abbey. Then on the 25th they all go for a swim in the sea.
“Technically it’s less of a swim and more of a quick run in and run out again,” he says. “It’s freezing but exhilarating and I’m pretty sure my 86-year-old father will join us.”
After their dip the extended family will sit down to a full turkey roast for 20. “Bread sauce of course. My father is obsessed; I suspect bread sauce might be the thing he cares about most in the world – it’s downright Proustian.”
And as their claggy Dickensian plum pudding settles, the children will hunker down in front of the telly to admire a seasonal display of dad-dancing extraordinaire. Will Dan clinch the Glitterball? Who cares; let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special is on BBC One at 4.40pm on Christmas Day