O`Hanlon`s heroes

presents
Ibn Batutta
O’Hanlon’s
heroes
After the success of the first series, Redmond O’Hanlon – the man who
was born in the wrong century – will once again set off on his travels.
The format is unchanged: O’Hanlon takes us in the footsteps of his heroes;
explorers in the days that three quarters of the world still had to be
discovered.
Redmond’s unique combination of self-mockery, infinite wisdom and an
almost childlike ability to leave the world in complete confusion wherever
he goes, has turned out to be a sure-fire recipe for often hilarious and
even more exciting television.
But we now have more time, and more importantly, we know what to do after previous eight episodes.
After the tales of the first man in Africa to
come eye-to-eye with a gorilla, the horrors
of present-day cannibals in Gabon, the three
loved-up balloonists in the North Pole, the
lost city of the Amazon and the desperate
attempts of a gay Russian colonel to reach
Tibet, O’Hanlon hasn’t finished his storytelling by a long shot. And this time he can’t
deny that he also has heroines!
What’s in store?
A series of journeys, ranging from the desert
of northern Africa to Japan, and from Angola
to the hidden gold mines deep in Papua
New Guinea.
For example:
second series
In the previous series, we were inevitably
forced to drop many stories as some countries were inaccessible due to war, tribal
conflicts or other disasters that prevented us
from retracing some wonderful expeditions.
And on a number of occasions, the journey
was just too expensive.
Ibn Batutta, who travelled the world going
as far afield as China.
The Tinne Ladies
Alexandrine Tinne grew up in The Hague
as the daughter of an immensely wealthy
businessman. After her father’s death, she
and her mother took ever more adventurous holidays to Africa. Her expeditions were
like moving house, with an army of bearers
carrying iron bedsteads and mahogany cabinets from which port was served at their
camp in the evening. Her attempt to meet
the Tuareg people of North Sudan ended
What has changed?
1. We have no longer restricted ourselves
to just the 19th century, we broadened the
scope to include the 18th through to the
early 20th century.
2. Redmond O’Hanlon has since moved
to Amsterdam, so it makes sense for each
episode to begin in Amsterdam where the
chaos in his new house has almost taken on
similar dimensions to his cottage in Oxford.
He’s also become part of the furniture at
‘Happy Corner’, a Chinese restaurant in Amsterdam next to Artis Zoo.
3. We also hope to find non-western explorers who themselves come from Asia or Africa
and who therefore do not want to explore
these continents. Instead, these people are in search of what they regard as the unexplored West. Like the famous Berber,
Alexandrine Tinne
Lady Hester Stanhope
Richard Burton
combination of travel, unbridled sex and
delusions of grandeur.
in disaster. She was murdered although her
body was never found and whether the jealous desert prince whom she had refused to
marry a few days earlier was responsible for
her death has never been proved.
But Redmond has some new theories…
Lady Hester Stanhope
Born on a country estate in Kent, she was so
rich and eccentric that she had no idea how
the rest of the world lived. Even so, in 1810
she travelled to the Middle East and those
who met her for the first time would never
forget it.
Lady Stanhope expected everyone to treat
her with subservience and admiration. She
scared the living daylights out of many a sultan or prince as she behaved as their equal
by demanding shelter and a royal reception. She also had a preference for wearing
men’s clothes in which she’d ride fearlessly
through the gates of every town. She was
not only the first woman to do this, but also
the only woman who lived to tell the tale.
She became famous not only for her temper
if anything or anyone tried to thwart her, but
also for her affairs especially with handsome
younger men which made a return to her
puritanical fatherland impossible. London
newspapers called it a disgrace: Lady Stanhope was seen riding normal saddle, completely disregarding the side-saddle sit as
every lady had been obliged to do until then.
She came to a sticky end, of course. She believed she was a clairvoyant and slowly went
mad. She squandered away her fortune and
was convinced that the Mahdi would appear
at any moment to join her in battle. Eventually, she died a lonely death after a serious
illness at the ruins of a fort in Lebanon.
Richard Burton
Not the actor of the same name but a man
who was just as famous or notorious in his
day. Burton spoke twenty-nine languages
and hung around in the brothels of northern India for a long time at the request of
the British army’s top brass to report on
the misdemeanours of British soldiers, but
apparently he really enjoyed himself there
too. Vilified in England for his loose sexual
morals (with both men and women alike) he
incidentally translated the Kama Sutra for
Luigi Maria D’Albertis
The Kama Sutra
friends in London, who published the masterpiece in short editions.
By this time, Burton was again on the road
making his way to Mecca as part of a caravan.
He was to be one of the first non-believers
to visit the holy city, although he was almost
caught when he walked away from his tent
in the evening to take a pee standing up. Arabs do this sitting down and a little boy who
saw him was aggressively silenced before he
could unmask him.
Later, Burton would just go off with Speke in
search of the sources of the Nile and he was
also involved in this same Speke’s mysterious death.
Again, plenty of subject matter for O’Hanlon,
who is particularly looking forward to the
And there is much more. An intrepid female in search of butterflies in Suriname, an
opera-loving Italian who travels a long way
down river in search of gold in Papua New
Guinea and manages to intimidate the hostile tribal chiefs by hiding firecrackers under
their hut that had long fuses leading to his
tent. As soon as the tribal chiefs threatened
him, he called noisily on the gods then surreptitiously lit the fuses so when the tribal
chiefs hungrily advanced he blew up their
reed hut behind them. It seems he had far
more success with this method than many a
missionary who came after him.
Redmond O’Hanlon seems to know his
heroes and heroines as if they are personal
friends. It’s more than just adventures alone,
as he takes us on a crazy journey through the
vagaries of the time, brings the dreams of his
heroes and heroines to life, but he also describes the hypocrisy and ignorance of their
compatriots left behind in Europe. And the
shock the discovery of totally new cultures
triggered there.
In addition to the series:
Among students in particular, O’Hanlon now
has an almost cult status. As a result of the
series, he travels the country giving lectures
to packed halls where he sweeps his audiences along in a merry-go-round of bizarre
stories, intriguing facts and his eternal and
unconditional love of nature.
Like a true showman, in the months that
the series is aired he will perform each time
a show is broadcast. And months before
that, O’Hanlon will start a blog on the trials,
tribulations and preparations for the tough
journeys. That will teach them.
Roel van Broekhoven | VPRO 2012
Illustration by Maria Sibylla Merian
Series Editor
Directors
Camera
Sound engineer
Editor
Producer
Roel van Broekhoven
Maaik Krijgsman and
Roel van Broekhoven
Jacko van ’t Hof
Rik Meier
J. P. Luysterburg
Nicole Frints