In the grey corner is Tom Devine, the erudite professor of history who boasts unrivalled knowledge of Scotland’s past and the respect of the country’s academic community.

In the glossy black corner is Neil Oliver, an eager, populist television presenter and proud owner of an impressive mane of long, dark hair.

The pair have become un-likely combatants in an unseemly spat over the BBC’s attempt to bring the subject of Scottish history to the masses.

Devine, who is head of the school of history, classics and archaeology at Edinburgh university, has described A History of Scotland, the BBC series fronted by Oliver, as “fatally flawed”, “profoundly disappointing” and resembling a “mediocre B-movie”.

He derided Oliver, a former local newspaper reporter and press officer, as “hapless” and speculated he was hired for his looks rather than his academic expertise.

Oliver has responded, dismissing Devine as a “fool” with a narrow knowledge of Scottish history. He suggested that it was unwise for a “plump old man” to comment critically on the personal appearance of others.

The first of a second tranche of episodes will be broadcast tonight. Devine, who declined a place on the programme’s advisory board, was openly critical when the first episodes were aired last year.

Writing in today’s Sunday Times, Devine said that he believed the BBC had missed an opportunity to make a groundbreaking series on Scotland’s history.

“Perhaps naively, I thought the makers would have been able to scale the heights and hence really capture the epic story of a small country,” he said. Rather, he claimed that the series was “emasculated by multiple flaws” adding: “Instead of focusing on the few big themes which have fashioned the modern nation, the producers elected to go for a narrative, blow-by-blow account, from earliest times to the present, of the kind which used to bore school kids of my generation to death.”

Devine was also critical of the decision to use Oliver, who has a degree in archaeology, rather than an established historian as the programme’s presenter.

“Then there is the hapless long-haired presenter who must have been signed up because he is physically in the old visual tradition of Braveheart and the Highlander movies,” he said.

“He does, to be fair, try his enthusiastic best but sheer effort cannot conceal the sad reality of lack of personal authority or presence to convince. It is not entirely his fault. He has been given a lame, boring and flaccid script to memorise and repeat to camera.”

Devine gave his verdict after watching the first five parts of the series last year and a preview of the latest episode, to be broadcast this week.

He was also given reading notes by BBC Scotland on the remainder of the series. The academic claimed the show would have been considerably improved if the script had been written by an experienced writer such as Andrew Marr, James Naughtie or the journalist and author William McIlvanney.

“That would indeed have been worth the watch and the listen,” he said.

Oliver laughed off Devine’s remarks and questioned his credentials as a TV critic.

“Tom specialises in a very narrow range of Scottish history. His business is lecturing students in a classroom and he doesn’t know anything about how to make a television series.

“By attempting to make that critique he comes across as a silly old fool.”

Oliver insisted he was not offended by the personal criticism aimed at him.

“I could not be less interested in what a plump old man thinks about my physical appearance,” he said. “His thoughts won’t distract me for more than a nanosecond. To go on at greater length would be like hunting a domesticated cow with a high-powered rifle and a telescopic sight. I’m just not inclined to torment him further.”

Devine’s broadside is the latest blow to the series, which has been dogged by criticism since before it first aired last year. One Edinburgh University scholar, who refused to give his name, was quoted as saying he hated it.

Author and historian Paul Henderson Scott said the episodes were long and muddled: “I feel it’s a bad way to present history, one individual wandering about and making remarks,” he said.

Professor Allan Macinnes, of Strathclyde University, resigned from the programme’s advisory board after its first meeting, saying the project was flawed and “Anglocentric”.

“I thought the whole production was dreadful,” he said. “It was written on the basis that Scotland was a divided country until the union with England came along and civilised it. It was just nonsense.”

Last week BBC Scotland insisted the Bafta Scotland-nominated series had been a major success with some 1.6m Scottish viewers tuning in to earlier episodes.

“Professor Devine is, as ever, entitled to his opinions but the vast majority of the feedback we had on the first five parts of the television series pay their own testament,” said a spokesman.

“The viewing public in Scotland liked the series and they liked Neil Oliver and the passion and vigour he brings to the series.”

Oliver made his television debut in 2002 in the BBC 2 series Two Men in a Trench with his former university friend Tony Pollard, an archaeologist. Pollard returned to a career in academia while Oliver became a presenter on the BBC series Coast and wrote a book about heroes and adventurers.

Devine’s tome The Scottish Nation was a bestseller in Scotland and knocked JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire into second place in the book charts when it was published in 2000.

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