Notes from the Time Vortex

Dispatches from the newsletter — survival guides, historical rabbit holes and what we learned getting comedians killed in the past.

27 April 2026

PastMaster's third birthday!

Join the crew as we try to stage the greatest party in history

19 December 2025

PastMaster Christmas special

Can Thots TV save the spirit of Christmas?

24 November 2025

MC Wicked and DJ Awesome

Bringing beatbox to Woodstock

14 November 2025

PastMaster Live!

A gladiatorial challenge and hair gel in ancient Persia

31 October 2025

Busted

It's back to the year 3000 with a quest to save all human art and to 3D print Charlie Simpson

29 September 2025

Tea leaves or snake oil?

Time travel film director Chris Reading heads to the Great Exhibition to make a killing with his elixir of long life

25 September 2025

PastMaster LIVE is back!

Come and see us in person at the Cheerful Earful podcast festival

25 September 2025

Find your Past Selfie

Introducing the PastMaster Portal. Transform yourself into an historical trading card

19 September 2025

Mr Blobby tries to save the Titanic

And we experiment to find which AI chat bot is the best Game Master

15 August 2025

Keon and King Harold

A quest to update the Bayeux Tapestry, save King Harold and introduce medieval peasants to the moonwalk

1 August 2025

Executioner's ball

Ryan makes a quantum leap in Monday's episode of PastMaster, but whose body will he be inhabiting?

18 July 2025

I predict a riot!

With a handful of alien gadgets and a winning pitch for Netflix, can our heroes save the day and defeat the ultimate horror?

11 July 2025

Apocalypse Now!

Dan Wheeler and Joseph Chance from The Apocalypse Players join PastMaster for a terrifying occult investigation

4 July 2025

When Sioux become fun

Nick Horseman dons his cowboy suit and heads for the Wild West

30 May 2025

See you in July!

The PastMaster team is taking a short summer recess in June to charge up the time travel machine

16 May 2025

Penal punishment: Aussie rules speed run

Ryan, Tan and Nick Horseman head to Australia for a dose of death wish mayhem

2 May 2025

Mansa Musa's Marvellous Golden Flying Machine

Ryan travels back in time to the Mali Empire to meet the richest man who ever lived

26 April 2025

Gallic 'battle magic'

Inspired by the adventures of Asterix, PastMaster cooks up a heady brew to get the indomitable Gauls pumped for action

18 April 2025

Bath tub time machine

Comedian Matthew Crosby is hoping to save Victorian London from a deranged criminal

11 April 2025

Beware of Greeks bearing chocolate fountains

PastMaster heads for Troy and attempts to come up with a better idea than the Trojan Horse

4 April 2025

Henry VIII incoming

After a slight delay due to the late monarch's legendary stubbornness, S4E9 is out on Monday

28 March 2025

We need to talk about Henry

Alice and Kim tell King Henry VIII he is rotten and to tidy his room

21 March 2025

Horseman's death wish

Nick Horseman goes berserk in a Grand Theft Auto-style rampage in ancient Mesopotamia

20 March 2025

Introducing the PastMaster World Map

Find out exactly where we've been in this interactive map of PastMaster episodes

14 March 2025

Danny Dyer vs the Big Bang

Thots TV are heading for the ultimate metaphysical adventure

7 March 2025

Tesla vs Edison

It's Keon vs Tan and ChatGPT vs Claude in our highly charged battle of the bots

28 February 2025

Weekend at Byron's

The stars of Thots TV podcast join PastMaster on Monday for a gothic romp

21 February 2025

Claude of the Rings

We're going back to Middle Earth to have a word in Boromir's ear

14 February 2025

One small misstep for man...

Chris Dillon attempts to take the place of Buzz Aldrin and walk on the moon

7 February 2025

What the actual Zuck?

Writer Chris Dillon tries to destroy social media by stealing Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook plans

31 January 2025

PastMaster is back for Season 4!

Comedian Micky Overman has her finger on the trigger in episode one, out on Monday

13 December 2024

Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!

S3E15: The Ghost of Christmas PastMaster

27 September 2024

Plato’s Wrestlemania

S3E12: In search of Atlantis

20 September 2024

PastMaster goes LIVE!

Come to our first ever live show: 20th October - London. Tickets on sale now

7 July 2024

Robin Hood vs Claude

s3E10: Heidi Regan joins the Merry Men

4 July 2024

Play your own game of PastMaster

28 June 2024

Samurai Claude

s3E9: Player vs GameMaster

21 June 2024

Area 51

S3E8: The truth is out there... isn't it?

16 June 2024

Meeting Pablo Escobar

S3E7: Cakes, hippos and gift bags

9 June 2024

Pure gold

S3E6: Clever Claude's occult alchemy

31 May 2024

The best drama. Period.

S3E5: Pheasants and Phlatulence

24 May 2024

Sunil's Roman Rampage

S3E4: Patel's wagon of death

17 May 2024

Murder mystery

S3E3: Move over, Hercule Poirot

10 May 2024

Saving Walt Disney

S3E2: Stop Walt from smoking! Out on Monday 13 May

8 May 2024

A word about Claude

Mad, bad and completely freakin' deranged

2 February 2024

The Mary Celeste

S2E12: Mystery solved

2 February 2024

Deep Arnold

A reimagining of The Lord of the Rings starring Arnold Schwarzenegger

26 January 2024

Dinner party disaster

S2E11: Stalin, Gandhi and Liz Truss walk into a bar…

25 January 2024

Patrick Bateman on Tinder

Internet man used AI to get 500 girls' numbers

19 January 2024

Man vs machine

S2E10: Gambling and drinking in Jacobean London

18 January 2024

Could you rebuild civilisation?

I'd start with a bit of old soap

5 January 2024

Hard Mode

S2E9: God, King George and England!

4 January 2024

PastMaster: the final frontier

Where next for the PastMaster crew?

15 December 2023

Operation: Rescue Jesus

S2E8: A two player race to save the saviour

15 December 2023

AI will eat itself

Reverting to the average will minimise diversity

8 December 2023

FutureMaster

S2E7: We've been to the year 3000

6 December 2023

AI art getting better and bigger

What if we take it to the extreme?

1 December 2023

The Berlin Conference 1884

S2E6: Can we stop the colonisation of Africa?

30 November 2023

It's a Continent

African history - a blank sheet in my education

24 November 2023

Stonehenge origins

S2 E5: Who exactly put them stones there?

21 November 2023

Making PastMaster harder

How realistic can we make the game?

17 November 2023

Backpool, 1959

S2 E4: Who says time travel isn't political?

16 November 2023

Does AI exist?

'Narrow AI' versus 'general AI'

10 November 2023

Catching Jack the Ripper

S2 E3: Can AI be used to solve real life murders?

7 November 2023

Can AI solve true crimes?

Using ChatGPT to solve the Jack the Ripper murders

3 November 2023

Getting nautical with Nelson

Episode 2 of Pastmaster season 2 is out on Monday 6 November

3 November 2023

Is AI a threat to humanity?

Tech thinkers warn of AI dangers at Bletchley Park Summit

23 October 2023

PastMaster Season 2

Launches Monday 30 October

23 October 2023

AI in the news

Writers threatening legal action against ChatGPT

9 May 2023

Welcome to PastMaster

Strap on your ruff, pull up your pantaloons and get ready to reshape history!