
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Comedian and classicist Natalie Haynes talks to Michael Berkeley about her favourite music, making the classics funny and the joy of running.
Just like the ancient Greek dramatists she loves, Natalie excels in both tragedy and comedy. She has written three novels, which retell stories from Greek myth, and she has had a long-running parallel career as a stand-up comedian, including her hugely popular Radio 4 series, Natalie Haynes Stands up for the Classics. Central to all her work is her focus on the much-neglected stories of women in the ancient world and particularly in Greek myth.
Natalie talks to Michael about why stories and myths from the ancient world continue to resonate so powerfully today and how classics is changing as women scholars and novelists reclaim ancient stories and retell them from a female perspective.
She chooses music by Elgar, by Cole Porter, and by two contemporary women composers, Annelies van Parys and Calliope Tsoupaki, who have been inspired by women in Greek myth. And we hear one of the best-loved pieces inspired by a classical story: Dido’s Lament, from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.
We hear the music by Lin-Manuel Miranda, which Natalie loves to run to, and a surprising choice, which for her conjures up the beauty and power of the music of Orpheus.
Producer: Jane Greenwood
By BBC Radio 34.4
3636 ratings
Comedian and classicist Natalie Haynes talks to Michael Berkeley about her favourite music, making the classics funny and the joy of running.
Just like the ancient Greek dramatists she loves, Natalie excels in both tragedy and comedy. She has written three novels, which retell stories from Greek myth, and she has had a long-running parallel career as a stand-up comedian, including her hugely popular Radio 4 series, Natalie Haynes Stands up for the Classics. Central to all her work is her focus on the much-neglected stories of women in the ancient world and particularly in Greek myth.
Natalie talks to Michael about why stories and myths from the ancient world continue to resonate so powerfully today and how classics is changing as women scholars and novelists reclaim ancient stories and retell them from a female perspective.
She chooses music by Elgar, by Cole Porter, and by two contemporary women composers, Annelies van Parys and Calliope Tsoupaki, who have been inspired by women in Greek myth. And we hear one of the best-loved pieces inspired by a classical story: Dido’s Lament, from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.
We hear the music by Lin-Manuel Miranda, which Natalie loves to run to, and a surprising choice, which for her conjures up the beauty and power of the music of Orpheus.
Producer: Jane Greenwood

7,913 Listeners

1,067 Listeners

5,576 Listeners

1,808 Listeners

1,729 Listeners

1,018 Listeners

1,996 Listeners

488 Listeners

148 Listeners

113 Listeners

49 Listeners

154 Listeners

129 Listeners

299 Listeners

241 Listeners

67 Listeners

3,245 Listeners

1,024 Listeners

779 Listeners

1,010 Listeners

100 Listeners

47 Listeners

529 Listeners

26 Listeners

44 Listeners