Robinson takes walk through Canberra's past - Canberra Times - The Canberra Times

Tony Robinson, in Canberra to record an episode of his Time Walks program. Photo: Graham Tidy

Tony Robinson believes Canberra should come up with a cunning plan of its own to fill the lifeless spaces that give the capital an otherwise unfair reputation as soulless.

In town for four days of filming for Time Walks series two, Mr Robinson of History Channel and Blackadder fame, said the city was far larger than he remembered.

Standing in Garema Place after shooting a segment on King O’Malley and meeting a number of fans, Mr Robinson said more needed to be done to fill the voids between the lively areas of the city.

Tony Robinson spent time with many people wanting to shake his hand and have photographs. Photo: Graham Tidy

“I still feel that I would like to see more evidence of human life,” he said.

“This is lovely here [in Civic], but there are so many of those really big buildings which are so colossal, and so [few] bits of small activity in between them to make them breathe. Maybe with all these utopian cities it takes quite a long time before that happens, I hope it will one day.”

Mr Robinson said the Canberra episode, due to be shown on Foxtel’s History Channel in early 2014, would focus on the political history of the capital, but would also touch on the city’s poor image in the eyes of the nation.

Ryan Ellis, 21 of Palmerston, gets a photo with Robinson. Photo: Graham Tidy

“We found a number of insults that have been leveled by Australians in other places over the last century, and insulted a number of Canberrans to see if they still felt offended by them or see if they were sufficiently mature to laugh them off,” he said. About 75 per cent passed the test.

Centenary historian David Headon was interviewed by Mr Robinson on Thursday, and said it was “an absolute delight”.

“I knew him as Baldrick amongst other things with Blackadder,” Mr Headon said.

“He obviously enjoyed the whole occasion, said how much he was enjoying Australia. It was fun, there was no preciousness about it at all.”

Mr Headon said they spoke about Canberra’s birth, particularly the battle of the sites and the different names suggested for the city, and said the program offered an opportunity to celebrate Canberra’s history and growth.

“You never know quite how it’s going to be placed, but on the basis of what he was saying and the stuff we gave him for the Centenary … you pretty much can’t do anything other than present it very positively. And that’s how it should be,” Mr Headon said.