
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


"The Queen Boadicea, standing loftily charioted, Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like, Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters in her fierce volubility": so wrote Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the 19th Century, celebrating the story of an ancient English warrior queen who sparked a brutal and bloody rebellion against Roman rule in the first century AD.
Today, Boudica - or as the Victorians renamed her, Boadicea - remains a symbol of bravery, independence, and that indomitable British underdog spirit; although how much of that is true and how much should be attributed to the romanticising of her story in later years, is open to debate...
Bringing that debate to the Great Lives studio is comedian and erstwhile Boudica impersonator Jessica Fostekew, along with expert insight from Professor Miranda Aldhouse-Green, known for her research on the Iron Age and the Celts as well as books including 'Boudica Britannia: Rebel, War-leader and Queen'.
So was Boudica a brutal giant of a women hell-bent on personal revenge, or a forward-thinking feminist leader determined to overthrow her country's conquerors?
Presented by Matthew Parris, produced for BBC Studios Audio by Lucy Taylor.
By BBC Radio 44.2
463463 ratings
"The Queen Boadicea, standing loftily charioted, Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like, Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters in her fierce volubility": so wrote Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the 19th Century, celebrating the story of an ancient English warrior queen who sparked a brutal and bloody rebellion against Roman rule in the first century AD.
Today, Boudica - or as the Victorians renamed her, Boadicea - remains a symbol of bravery, independence, and that indomitable British underdog spirit; although how much of that is true and how much should be attributed to the romanticising of her story in later years, is open to debate...
Bringing that debate to the Great Lives studio is comedian and erstwhile Boudica impersonator Jessica Fostekew, along with expert insight from Professor Miranda Aldhouse-Green, known for her research on the Iron Age and the Celts as well as books including 'Boudica Britannia: Rebel, War-leader and Queen'.
So was Boudica a brutal giant of a women hell-bent on personal revenge, or a forward-thinking feminist leader determined to overthrow her country's conquerors?
Presented by Matthew Parris, produced for BBC Studios Audio by Lucy Taylor.

7,709 Listeners

368 Listeners

882 Listeners

1,046 Listeners

5,428 Listeners

1,806 Listeners

3,196 Listeners

949 Listeners

1,871 Listeners

1,797 Listeners

1,072 Listeners

1,931 Listeners

2,064 Listeners

109 Listeners

46 Listeners

127 Listeners

163 Listeners

246 Listeners

88 Listeners

43 Listeners

3,192 Listeners

740 Listeners

1,623 Listeners

109 Listeners