About the writers: Terry Deary and Neal Foster
Returning for another fun-filled season, the Terrible Thames river tour sets sail during the school holidays from April 2025. Based on the bestselling Horrible Histories books by Terry Deary, this enlightening boat ride is packed with facts about the English capital and its famous waterway. Join a teacher and his unruly student for the 45-minute trip and get ready for a history lesson with all the nasty bits left in.
Writers Terry Deary and Neal Foster are behind the Terrible Thames tour, which is produced by Birmingham Stage Company. Let’s find out more about them.
Terry Deary
Professional actor and writer Terry Deary has no fewer than 351 books to his name, published over almost half a century. His bestselling titles are the Horrible Histories series, the first of which was published in 1993. He has also written 160 novels for children and a range of books for adults, including A History of Britain in Ten Enemies.
Born in Sunderland, Terry began his career as a professional actor in 1972 and before writing the Horrible Histories series, worked as a theatre director, museum manager, drama teacher and television presenter. He began to write novels in 1976 as a way to make the characters from theatre shows ‘live on’ once the tours had finished. In the 1990s he was commissioned to write a funny history book - and Horrible Histories was born.
The books have sold over 38 million copies in 45 languages and were developed into a major television series in 2009 by the BBC. Ten years later ‘Horrible Histories: Rotten Romans The Movie’ was released, with Deary making a brief appearance. The Terrible Thames tour is one of his latest endeavours, bringing history to families in an accessible and fun way.
Neal Foster
Born in Birmingham, Neal Foster trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and, aged just 19 years old, created Birmingham Stage Company in 1992. His aim was to produce high quality children’s theatre, and the company’s first production, ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’, was a huge success, drawing in 17,500 people. Since then, Foster has staged productions of further Roald Dahl books, as well as adapting The Jungle Book and Micahel Morpurgo’s Why the Whales Came.
In the early 2000s a phone call to Terry Deary resulted in the pair working together to launch ‘Horrible Histories Live on Stage’ in 2005. No fewer than 18 productions have been staged to date, including ‘Groovy Greeks’, ‘Ruthless Romans’, ‘Awful Egyptians’, ‘Terrible Tudors’ and ‘Vile Victorians’. The production of ‘Barmy Britain’ has toured across the world, from the Middle East to Sydney. Foster has also staged productions of children’s books by other prominent authors, including Philip Pullman, Liz Pichon and David Walliams.
Climb aboard the Terrible Thames tour
If you want to experience the unique Horrible Histories Thames river tour, book your tickets today with KX Tickets. Tours run between 9.45am and 3.45pm depending on tides, and set sail from Tower Bridge Quay (formerly St Katherine’s Pier). A world of grisly facts awaits!
