Livy
02/18/20 • 27 min
Join Natalie Haynes and guests for half an hour of comedy and the Classics from the BBC Radio Theatre in London.
Natalie is a recovering comedian who is a little bit obsessive about Ancient Greece and Rome. Each week she takes a different figure from the Ancient World and tells their story through a mix of stand-up comedy and conversation.
Today she stands up in the name of Roman historian Livy, who gave us Hannibal crossing the Alps and the inspiration for Shakespeare's Coriolanus. Meticulously researched facts or a damn fine story? History or myth? Mostly the latter, but priceless nonetheless.
Elephants, early science and a lot of essential information from a thousand years ago.
With special guests comedian - and history buff - Al Murray and classicist Professor Llewelyn Morgan. Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.
Join Natalie Haynes and guests for half an hour of comedy and the Classics from the BBC Radio Theatre in London.
Natalie is a recovering comedian who is a little bit obsessive about Ancient Greece and Rome. Each week she takes a different figure from the Ancient World and tells their story through a mix of stand-up comedy and conversation.
Today she stands up in the name of Roman historian Livy, who gave us Hannibal crossing the Alps and the inspiration for Shakespeare's Coriolanus. Meticulously researched facts or a damn fine story? History or myth? Mostly the latter, but priceless nonetheless.
Elephants, early science and a lot of essential information from a thousand years ago.
With special guests comedian - and history buff - Al Murray and classicist Professor Llewelyn Morgan. Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.
Previous Episode
Euripides
Join Natalie Haynes and guests for half an hour of comedy and the Classics from the BBC Radio Theatre in London.
Natalie is a recovering comedian who is a little bit obsessive about Ancient Greece and Rome. Each week she takes a different figure from the Ancient World and tells their story through a mix of stand-up comedy and conversation.
Today she stands up in the name of playwright Euripides. Feminist, anti-war, ironic, full of subtext: his work displays strikingly modern sensibilities and his Medea still has the power to shock.
With special guests playwright Mark Ravenhill and classicist Professor Edith Hall. Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.
Next Episode
Aristotle
Natalie Haynes stands up for Greek philosopher-scientist Aristotle, with Dr Adam Rutherford and Professor Edith Hall.
This week Natalie explores why it's so easy to fall in love with Aristotle, have fun with his Nicomachean ethics and how we know he had 20:20 vision. It seems he hated being tutor to Alexander the Great, although he did manage to stay alive in the lethal court of Philip of Macedon, where the usual toll of suspicious deaths was fourteen a week. But how much did he really know about elephants' tongues and bivalves on Lesbos? We love a bit of gossip from a couple of thousand years ago.
Natalie is a reformed comedian who is a little bit obsessive about Ancient Greece and Rome. Each week she takes a different figure from the ancient world and tells their story through a mix of stand-up comedy, extremely well-informed analysis, and conversation. The series is – in part – about how the modern world is more interesting when it's refracted through the prism of the ancient one. Natalie picks out hilarious details and universal truths, as well as finding parallels with modern life, or those parts of life which are still influenced by ancient thought.
Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/natalie-haynes-stands-up-for-the-classics-18366/livy-3238168"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to livy on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy