Cleopatra picked by Kate Williams
"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety." She's the most famous character in antiquity, made more famous by Shakespeare and Hollywood films. But this Cleopatra is not the one Kat...
1 Kesä 27min
Ade Edmondson on singer Sandy Denny
Ade Edmondson - star of The Young Ones, The Comic Strip Presents, Bottom and much more besides - chooses the singer Sandy Denny. "I think a large part of my Englishness comes from Sandy Denny," he say...
19 Touko 27min
Tony Garnett picked by Harry Bradbeer
Tony Garnett was born in Birmingham and, after a brief career as an actor, found a new role behind the scenes of The Wednesday Play. These rapidly gained a reputation in the sixties for social realism...
19 Touko 27min
Peter Cook picked by Jon Harvey aka Count Binface
Peter Cook was at the centre of the satire boom of the early sixties, both on stage with Beyond the Fringe and with his Soho club, The Establishment. Later he became a famous double act with Dudley Mo...
19 Touko 27min
Coco Khan picks Edith Garrud, the jujitsu fighting suffragette
Writer and podcaster Coco Khan nominates the little-known but formidable Edith Garrud, a woman who turned Edwardian expectations on their head. A pioneer of ‘Suffrajitsu’, she taught women Japanese ma...
19 Touko 27min
William Gladstone, four-time PM
"Gladstone became prime minister at 82, and not as a figurehead. That is the Gladstone who has inspired me." Trevor Lyttleton.Born in 1809, William Gladstone's political life straddled the century - h...
19 Touko 27min
Alistair McGowan on HE Bates
HE Bates is probably best known for the Darling Buds of May and Fair Stood the Wind for France, but Alistair McGowan is surprised that he is not known for his short stories, which he believes are the ...
11 Touko 27min
