Horible Histories author Terry Deary was last seen on MasterChef explaining the origins of humble pie.

In Tudor times ‘umbles’ was the offal from cattle that was given to servants for them to make into a pie, hence humble pie.

There’s a lot about the history of Britain we don’t know. That’s going to be rectified next month when Horrible Histories: Barmy Britain comes to Bradford.

Among other things Alhambra audiences will be invited to groove with party Queen Victoria and prepare to do battle in the frightful First World War. The theatre itself opened in March 1914, three months before the horrors of the Somme.

Barmy Britain is adapted by Terry Deary and Neal Foster from Deary’s best selling Horrible Histories books. Deary reportedly is the world’s best selling non-fiction author for children. His 50 Horrible Histories titles have sold over 25 million copies worldwide from China to Brazil.

Terry said: “When I wrote my very first fiction book 38 years ago my publisher said, ‘Writing is like a sausage machine and you have to keep stuffing in at one end so something comes out the other end – it is like a process’.

“I kept writing book after book – 50 fiction titles before Horrible Histories came along – but I never imagined I would have a series that would still be selling 20 years later.

“I get all my facts from research. I do my research and say ‘You will never guess what I discovered’ and ‘Phwoar, this is great’. It is actually a simple answer. I say I am not an expert in history and this is why they work.”

As you may have gathered, Terry Deary is not an apologist for official histories, for example, he’s not fond of the Romans.

“When I went to school it was all about the Romans. It was the Romans who brought civilisation, the Romans who gave us water supplies and aqueducts, the Romans who brought us straight roads – that is what they told us all the time.

“But the Romans were the most evil people there were. They are the only people who killed people for sport. Thousands of them would go to an arena and watch people killed for sport and they are held up as models of civilisation.

“Because teachers are telling them that, children grow up thinking the Romans were really civilised. Horrible Histories tell the truths that, in the past, teachers have cut out from history,” he added.

In spite of all his Horrible Histories he doesn’t claim to be an expert on the subject, far from it.

“I have only got about three brain cells. I often forget what I have written because I can’t hold all those facts. I pick up a Horrible Histories book, maybe to revise it, and I read something and think ‘I never knew that!’ “But I can be an anorak with facts. I was watching Horrible Histories on television and up came the Vile Victorians and along came Burke and Hare, the body snatchers.

“I was jumping up and down, shouting at the television: ‘No, they were 1827 – 12 years before Victoria came to the throne. They weren’t Vile Victorians!’ Now that is anorak.”

The show at the Alhambra from June 17-21 starts at 7.30pm. There is signed performance at 10.30am on June 20. For tickets ring 01274-432000 or visit bradford-theatres.co.uk.