How a video game helped the British Library bring lost history to life
From a Disney comic book starring Scrooge McDuck to a never-ending reel of scenes from India’s most expensive TV series, the British Library’s latest exhibition is eclectic to say the least.
Billed as a tribute to Alexander the Great’s legacy, this is as much an exhibition about storytelling as it is one man, culminating in a display of how technology can bring such legends to life.
Born in Macedon in 356BC, in reality Alexander travelled so far as northwest India, his vast empire from Greece to Egypt recorded here across paintings, tablets, and scriptures that would look right at home in any of the world’s greatest museums.
His legend, though, knew no such geographical limits. Whether the son of a serpent magician (Nectanebo, not Voldemort), or a brave warrior who stared down a mighty dragon, George-style, mythical stories starring Alexander began during his lifetime and have survived throughout the years since.
Bringing such adventures together is the Ebstorf map. First made in Germany around 1300, it was the largest world map in existence from the Middle Ages until it was destroyed during the Second World War.
It boasted more than 2,000 entries across more than 30 parchment sheets, hundreds of which were illustrated, including more than a dozen explicitly related to Alexander – including some of his fictional escapades.
A reproduction of the lost map on display at the library. Pic: Kloster Ebstorf/British Library
A new interactive version has been created for the library by students from visual effects school Escape Studios, the producer of young talent which has worked on films including Star Wars and games like Assassin’s Creed.
Displayed akin to an opening credits sequence from Game Of Thrones, it presents landmarks and milestones from Alexander’s real and imagined lives, just as the original map did, but now in 3D.
“A mix of real places, physical locations, and sheer fantasy,” is how Yrja Thorsdottir, the library’s digital content exhibition curator, describes it.
She tells Sky News that the new map is a case of how technology is allowing curators to “bring lost things to life”.
The digital version of the map is fully interactive. Pics: British Library
‘Technology allows us to bring lost history back’
Perhaps the most striking example of that is saved for last.
Upon his death aged 32, the likely cause of which continues to divide historians, Alexander’s body was transported from Babylon to Egypt and placed inside a long-lost mausoleum at Alexandria.
The exhibition – unafraid to jump from ancient manuscripts to films and even anime – culminates with a detailed reconstruction of the tomb from the video game Assassin’s Creed Origins, scaled up and projected on to the walls.
“We’ve lost the tomb, we’ve lost the map, technology allows us to sort of bring them back,” says Ms Thorsdottir.
Assassin’s Creed has made its recreations of history’s great cities something of a calling card since it debuted, way back in what now feels positively ancient 2007.
From Constantinople to Athens, each choice has required a world larger in scope – yet still greater in detail – than any that came before.
“Our colleagues who made the first Assassin’s Creed (set in the Holy Land during the Crusades) did an excellent job and paved the way for what it has become,” Thierry Noel, in-house historian at developer Ubisoft, tells Sky News.
“But as it became such a well known franchise, it became obvious there would be more and more need to recreate bigger worlds, to be more accurate, to find more information, and that’s why the team I lead was born.”
Greek puppets depicting Alexander fighting a dragon. Pic: British Library
Alexander depicted on an Ethiopian scroll. Pic: British Library
‘It’s about creating an experience’
Origins, released in 2017 and set in Egypt from 49 to 43BC, was the first entry to benefit from Mr Noel’s team, who scour museums, libraries and historical locations around the world to bring them to life digitally.
“We used everything we had to imagine how the tomb could have been,” he says.
Such research is what led to the collaboration with the library, as his team took inspiration from a prior exhibition of Anglo-Saxon art during development of 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, set in England during the time of Vikings.
For some players, such locales may only ever act as a sandbox within which to carry out brutal murder. The idea of such a game being leveraged at an institution like the British Library may sound to some – like many of the stories passed on about Alexander – like fantasy.
But to those behind this exhibition, they present opportunities for storytelling that are here to stay.
“It’s about engaging people in different ways,” says Adrian Edwards, head of printed collections.
“An element of an exhibition like this is theatre, it’s about creating an experience.
“The level of detail they invest in now to visualise these places from history, it gives you a real sense of what it might have been like.”
Alexander the Great: The Making Of A Myth is open at the British Library until 19 February 2023.
Entertainment
Stalker who believed Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas was his aunt avoids jail
A man who stalked Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas for six years has avoided jail.
Kyle Shaw, 37, got a 20-month suspended sentence and a lifetime restraining order on contacting Ballas, her mother, niece, and former partner.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that he thought Ballas was his aunt and “began a persistent campaign of contact”.
“He believed, and it’s evident from what he was told by his mother, that her late brother was his father,” said prosecutor Nicola Daley.
The court heard there was no evidence he was wrong, and “limited evidence” he was correct.
Ms Daley said Shaw’s messages had accused Ballas of being to blame for the death of her brother, who took his own life in 2003 aged 44.
He also set up social media accounts in his name.
Shaw had pleaded guilty to stalking the former dancer between August 2017 and November 2023 at a hearing in February.
Incidents included following Ballas’s 86-year-old mother, Audrey Rich, while she was shopping and telling her she was his grandmother.
The court heard in messages to Mrs Rich, Shaw had asked: “Where’s my dad?”
Ballas was so worried for her mother’s safety that she moved her from Merseyside to London.
Kyle Shaw outside court on the day of his sentencing. Pic: PA
In October 2020, Ballas called police after Shaw messaged her and said: “Do you want me to kill myself, Shirley?”
Posts on X included one alongside an image of her home address that warned: “You ruined my life, I’ll ruin yours and everyone’s around you.”
Another referenced a book signing and said: “I can’t wait to meet you for the first time Aunty Shirley. Hopefully I can get an autograph.”
The court was told Ballas’s niece Mary Assall, former partner Daniel Taylor and colleagues from Strictly Come Dancing and ITV’s Loose Women were also sent messages.
‘I know where you live’
On one occasion in late 2023, Shaw called Mr Taylor and told him he knew where the couple lived and described Ballas’s movements.
The court heard the 64-year-old TV star become wary of socialising and stopped using public transport.
Prosecutor Ms Daley said: “She described having sleepless nights worrying about herself and her family’s safety and being particularly distressed when suggestions were made to her that she and her mother were responsible for her brother taking his own life.”
Ballas has been head judge on Strictly Come Dancing since 2017. Pic: PA
Shaw cried and wiped away tears as he was sentenced on Tuesday.
The judge said the stalking stemmed from his mother telling him Ballas’s brother, David Rich, was his biological father.
“I’m satisfied that your motive for this offending was a desire to seek contact with people you genuinely believed were your family,” he said.
“Whether in fact there’s any truth in that belief is difficult, if not impossible, to determine.”
Shaw pictured at court in February. Pic: PA
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Defence lawyer John Weate said Shaw had been told the story by his mother “in his mid to late teens” and had suffered “complex mental health issues” since he was a child.
He added: “He now accepts that Miss Ballas and her family don’t wish to have any contact with him and, importantly, he volunteered the information that he has no intention of contacting them again.”
Shaw, of Whetstone Lane in Birkenhead, also admitted possessing cannabis and was ordered to undertake a rehab programme.
Gary Glitter has been made bankrupt after failing to pay more than £500,000 in damages to a woman he abused when she was 12 years old.
She sued the disgraced singer, whose real name is Paul Gadd, after he was found guilty of attacking her and two other schoolgirls between 1975 and 1980.
Glitter, 80, was jailed for 16 years in 2015 and released in 2023 but was recalled to prison less than six weeks later after breaching his parole conditions.
A judge awarded the woman £508,800, including £381,000 in lost earnings and £7,800 for future therapy and treatment, saying she was subjected to abuse “of the most serious kind”.
The court heard she had not worked for decades due to the trauma of being repeatedly raped and “humiliated” by the singer.
Glitter was jailed for 16 years in 2015. Pic: Met Police/PA
Glitter was made bankrupt last month at the County Court at Torquay and Newton Abbot, in Devon – the county where he is reportedly serving his sentence in Channings Wood prison, in Newton Abbot.
Richard Scorer, head of abuse law at Slater and Gordon, the law firm representing the woman, said: “We confirm that Gadd has been made bankrupt following our client’s application.
“As he has done throughout, Gadd has refused to cooperate with the process and continues to treat his victims with contempt.
“We hope and trust that the parole board will take his behaviour into account in any future parole applications, as it clearly demonstrates that he has never changed, shows no remorse and remains a serious risk to the public.”
Glitter was first jailed for four months in 1999 after he admitted possessing around 4,000 indecent images of children.
He was expelled from Cambodia in 2002, and in March 2006 was convicted of sexually abusing two girls, aged 10 and 11, in Vietnam where he spent two-and-a-half years in prison.
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His sentence for the 2016 convictions expires in February 2031.
Glitter was automatically released from HMP The Verne, a low-security prison in Portland, Dorset, in February 2023 after serving half of his fixed-term determinate sentence.
But he was back behind bars weeks later after reportedly trying to access the dark web and images of children.
Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan will play Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in the upcoming Beatles films – with a Stranger Things star also portraying one of the Fab Four.
The two Irish actors will be joined by London-born performers Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison.
The cast for the Sam Mendes project was revealed at the CinemaCon event in Las Vegas, with all four appearing on stage and taking a bow together in Beatles style.
(L-R) Mescal, Quinn, Keoghan and Dickinson appeared together at the announcement. Pic: Reuters
Mendes is making four interconnected films – one from the perspective of each of the band members – and they are all set to be released “in proximity” to each other in April 2028.
It marks the first time The Beatles and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison have granted full life story and music rights for a scripted film.
Playing McCartney is another big role for 29-year-old Mescal, who recently starred in the Gladiator sequel and was nominated for an Oscar in 2023 for Aftersun.
Barry Keoghan – who also got an Oscar nod for The Banshees of Inisherin – will portray the other surviving Beatles member, Ringo Starr.
Pic: PA
Meanwhile, Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn, who appeared with long hair as Eddie Munson in the fourth series, takes up the role of George Harrison.
Harris Dickinson has the challenge of stepping into the shoes of perhaps the most famous Beatle, John Lennon.
The 28-year-old recently starred in erotic thriller Babygirl with Nicole Kidman and also appeared in satire Triangle of Sadness.
Mendes told the industry audience at CinemaCon there is “still plenty to explore” despite the Beatles’ rise having being well chronicled.
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The Oscar-winning British director is known for films including American Beauty, First World War movie 1917, and Bond outings Skyfall and Spectre.
Sony Pictures boss Tom Rothman said the close release of all four films in three years’ time will be “the first bingeable theatrical experience”.
“We are going to dominate the culture that month,” he added.
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