Would you like history better if everything wasn’t so old? This ad campaign to promote UKTV Yesterday Channel’s new 14- part series called “The Secret Life of…” makes over famous figures to help us understand how they might present themselves if they were alive today. The Yesterday channel — which uses the tagline “Entertainment inspired by history” — commissioned award-winning author/historian Dr. Suzannah Lipscomb to work with a team of digital artists to give classic portraits an up-to-date twist. Queen Elizabeth I looks like an “iron lady” CEO who enjoys downsizing under performers.

Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson finally got a prosthetic for the hand he lost in the Napoleonic War. Henry VIII, who married six times, looks like a lounge lizard in Las Vegas. William Shakespeare has that eccentric college professor look, and Marie Antoinette exudes flirtatious charm with her false eyelashes, little-girl bangs and breast implants. The ads are a great tease – too bad the program is only shown in the UK.