And so to the first BBC Promenade Concert ever to be presented by a rodent. Rattus Rattus it was, rising from the Victorian sewers of Knightsbridge to help a handful of humans tell a selection of Horrible Histories on a sunny Saturday morning.
A Free Family Prom! And all those singalong Terrible Tudors, Gorgeous Georgians, Slimy Stuarts and Vile Victorians — all there in the flesh, to the enraptured delight of thousands of children aged from 18 months to 80 years. Songs from the television series were fired off between cunningly chosen pieces of classical music, all rat-tailed into an immaculately directed and performed breakneck survey of world political, social and musical history.
As well as the glove-puppet presenter and the TV cast, there were