Brought to you by Penguin.

Hello and welcome to the Penguin.

Where we talk to writers about writing.

I'm Izzy Soutie and today we're speaking

to the fantastic David Mitchell. David is a comedian, writer and actor who's starred in many

of the UK's best-loved TV shows, including that Mitchelan Webb look, Upstart Crow and, of course,

peep show. He's a team captain on Would I Lie to You,

the host of The Unbelievable Truth on Radio 4, and one of the observers' most popular columnists.

He's also a history graduate from Cambridge University, and unruly, a history of England's

Kings and Queens, is his first history book book and mine, which will come on to,

not claiming I wrote any of it, is the first time I've read one.

Hello, David, welcome to the Penguin podcast.

Hello, thanks for having me.

So this is the first history book I've ever read.

I'm not counting GCSE history books, of course.

I really, really loved it.

It's so funny. And I think once you've been

reading funny things for a few decades and sort of reading scripts and things, it takes a lot more

to make me laugh. I don't know about you, but I was genuinely bursting out laughing so many

times. Like there's so many brilliant jokes in it. But

also it really conveys your passion for history. And I think that's reflected in the detail

you go into and the glee with which you view all these monarchs. And the language that you use

...