Annabel Crabb returns with new series of Further Back in Time for Dinner
Annabel Crabb’s popular TV show will take viewers back to the 1900s when there was an outbreak of the plague. The parallels to the COVID-19 pandemic even stunned her.
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Filming the second series of ABC’s Further Back in Time for Dinner, production had no idea of the eerie parallels the series would have with modern-day Australia. It was December last year and the country was consumed by heatwaves and deadly bushfires. COVID-19 was just some virus in China.
So when host Annabel Crabb explained to the Ferrone family they’d be fleeing 1900s Sydney because of an outbreak of the plague or that there would be no toilet paper, she truly had no concept of how prophetic her words would be.
“I can’t even tell you how bizarre it is that all of these parallels emerged after we finished filming,” Crabb tells The BINGE Guide. “All of the things that are happening to us 120 years later. Actually it makes such interesting viewing right now to look at human beings coping domestically with some very similar things.”
The writer and political and commentator is grateful she’s based in Sydney with her three kids with Jeremy Storer, but is “freaking out” wondering if she’ll be allowed back into her home state of SA for their planned three-week holiday at Christmas.
“My mother keeps saying ‘I don’t even know what my grandchildren look like anymore”,” Crabb says.
It was a packed house in the early days of the pandemic, with all three kids learning at home, two adults working from home plus a dog and two budgies.
“Luckily both of the adults could work from home – I’ve been very grateful for that privilege,” she says. “But look it’s been weird I think everybody has felt – no matter what your circumstances – very disjointed. Children feel restless and out of sorts. We’ve definitely been much more reliant on screens and technologies than beforehand and that’s going to have a huge effect on us going forward.”
The celebrated baker – she’s written a couple of cookbooks – resisted the urge to initially make sourdough, but then “hating herself” she did jump on the iso-bandwagon. “In fact I’ve just fed my starter right now and I’ll turn out a loaf today,” Crabb shares. “I need no excuse to cook though because I find cooking almost like a mental health exercise.”
While we usually learn about history from the big events such as The Great Depression or the World Wars, the beauty of Further Back In Time for Dinner is you can see what those events look like at the ground level. How households dealt with the extraordinary times.
“It’s so fascinating watching the Ferrones living through those events and we can compare to what is happening in all our homes right now,” Crabb says. “It’s encouraging in the sense we know by looking back at those incredibly dark times that happened more than 100 years ago that humans are able to adapt and recover and good times do return in quick succession.”
In 2018, Australia fell in love with the Ferrone family, who’ve returned to take on the time-travelling challenge once again. Peter, Carol, Julian, Sienna and Olivia, previously discovered the trials and joys of living through 60 years of Australian history from the ‘50s to the present day. They are an average family of five, who are all comfortably accustomed to the perks of a very modern world, and this second series have a whole new challenge sourcing, cooking and eat their way ‘further back in time’, living a new decade each week.
How would Crabb’s own family of five fare in the experiment?
“I think my family – like most modern families – would struggle,” she says. “Everything was harder. They didn’t have any of the labour saving devices. There was little in the way of entertainment that wasn’t connected to something productive. Things weren’t designed to be just fun. It was pretty much hand to mouth in those days.”
You can’t have a chat with Crabb and not bring up ABC colleague Leigh Sales. Their banter and barbs on social media are reminiscent of the Hugh Jackman-Ryan Reynold feud. It’s all for fun though, right?
“Look I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” Crabb says, with a laugh, as we try to confirm they are indeed good mates. “Oh, I hardly ever talk to her – only through lawyers. She’s such a b***h.”
Crabb confesses one of her most treasured outlets is mocking Sales on social media, especially just prior to The 7.30 Report host interviewing the Prime Minister.
“I love putting out the call on social media that she is really looking for suggestions and guidance with questions to ask and then she gets an absolute barrage of uninvited suggestions.”
She then removes her tongue from where it was planted her cheek, saying “don’t ever let Sales read this, I wouldn’t like to say it to her face, but, she’s done an amazing job with this whole COVID disaster. I think when things like this happen, having somebody reliable whose face is there every day who you can understand is just so incredibly valuable.”
Crabb’s much more accustomed to being on the other side of the interview, directing the questions, and she prefers that. But she is happy to chat all things Further Back in Time – as she says, it’s such a gift for people going through lockdown who’ve changed the course of their life hugely over this year. So essentially all of us. She ponders the effect of the pandemic on this era’s children – just as the children of the Depression, or of the War years were irrevocably changed.
“I hope they will become resilient and experience first hand that humanity can recover from these terrible events,” Crabb says. “This series is an illustration of that too which I think is encouraging.”
Further Back in Time for Dinner, Tuesday, 8,30pm ABC + iview
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Originally published as Annabel Crabb returns with new series of Further Back in Time for Dinner