Herring was assisted each week by TV 's Emma Kennedy , Dan Tetsell and Danny Robins . Tetsell and Robins never appeared as themselves ( bar a couple of short segments ) , but rather as characters in sketches or as special guests . Each show would contain sketches based on historical events , the anniversary of which would be around the date of transmission . A running joke in the second series was that Radio 2 had commissioned it so that the final episodes went out at the same time of year as the first episodes of the first series , meaning that exactly the same anniversaries were coming around as for the first . The earlier part of the series featured a running joke as to whether such a show should acknowledge the anniversary of the September 11 attacks , and debate as to whether ignoring it would be more offensive than not ignoring it
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
That Was Then, This Is Now (radio series)