Woman's Hour - Sarah Hadland, Men Fixated on Violence, Author Jennifer Saint

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

Sarah Hadland will be a familiar face to many, having played numerous roles over the years, but is probably best known for her role as Stevie in the BAFTA-nominated sitcom Miranda. Currently on stage in London’s West End, she joins Nuala McGovern to discuss her latest role as Alice in The Truth, a fast-paced comedy of infidelity and duplicity. The Southport inquiry – set up after Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice da Silva Aguiar were murdered at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in 2024 – will resume in September this year. It will look into the government's anti-extremism programme ‘Prevent’. Last week, the chairman of the public inquiry, Sir Adrian Fulford, promised that his team will look at strategies to handle boys and men who fixate on violence. Nuala discusses with David Anderson, the Independent Prevent Commissioner from July 2025 to April 2026, and Dr Ruth Tulley, a consultant forensic psychologist.The author Jennifer Saint has retold some of the best-known stories from Greek literature and mythology through the eyes of women: Ariadne, Atalanta, Electra and Hera. In her latest novel, This Immortal Heart, Jennifer turns to Aphrodite, the ancient Greek goddess of love and reimagines Aphrodites’ relationship with Ares, the god of war. Jennifer joins Nuala to talk about how stories that originated over two thousand years ago and their themes can tackle contemporary questions about female agency and identity – and what happens when two seemingly opposite forces – love and war - are drawn irresistibly together.Presented by Nuala McGovern Producer: Louise Corley

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Hello, this is Newellamogh. and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to the program. Well, in a moment, Lord Anderson, who carried out in an independent review into prevent, the government's anti-radicalisation program will be with us. We're going to discuss whether misogyny should be considered more widely in government schemes. Also, as you've been hearing in the news bulletin, the UK's third heat wave off the year is set to intensify again this week.

This hour will discuss how to keep a baby cool overnight during. a heat wave. We have the actor, Sarah Hadland, in this studio coming up. Sarah's starring in The Truth. It is a comedic play about adultery. And it asks, is telling the truth always the right thing? Now, the characters in the play debate whether brutal honesty ultimately destroys relationships or preserves them, particularly in relation to infidelity. One of the characters, Michelle, says, if everyone started telling the truth tomorrow, there would hardly be a couple left. If you are prepared to talk about infidelity even and the truth, I am ready to hear it. Or if you'd like to talk about other situations where honesty was tested in your relationship,

you can also get in touch. The number is 84844 to text us on social media. We're at BBC Woman's Hour or you can email us through our website. On most smart speakers, you can say Alexa, ask BBC sounds to send a comment, or you can send a WhatsApp message or voice note using the number 0-3700-100-444. Yes, you can be anonymous too. Also, staying with couples. Jennifer Saint brings us a passionate love affair in her new book, This Immortal Heart.

It's between Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and Ares, the goddess god, I should say, of war. And yes, sparks fly. That is all coming up. But let me begin. Looking at the Southport Inquiry, which you might have seen the second phase of that, will resume in September. You will remember it was set up

after B.B. King, Elsie Dot Stancombe, and Alice de Silva O'Gir, were murdered at a dance class in 2024. Its chairman, Sir Adrian Fulford, wants to find ways to respond to the dangers posed by violence-fixated individual. That is, individual. who may carry out extreme violence

where ideology is not the primary driver. The government program, Prevent, focuses on tackling extremist ideologies that lead to violence, and it aims to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. Lord Anderson was the independent prevent commissioner from January 2025 to April 26 and published an independent review,

Lessons for Prevent, which looked at why Prevent failed to stop the Southport attempt. Some are asking whether misogyny should be considered an ideology within government schemes. Lord Anderson says many violence-fixated individuals have misogyny as a common thread within their thinking. Also with us to discuss this is Dr. Ruth Tully, a consultant forensic psychologist. Great to have both of you this morning with us and women's hour. Welcome to you both. David, let me begin with you.

How does the UK and prevent currently deal with boys or young men who are, fixated on violence but aren't attached to a certain ideology. And I could say individuals, but it is mainly boys and men. It is 90% boys and men. Preventors originally conceived was all about the classic terrorist ideologies. So initially the Islamist ideology, later neo-Nazism and other extreme right-wing ideologies. But what we're seeing now, particularly over the last eight or 10 years is a sizable movement towards people who, although they're fascinated by violence, they may have fantasies about school massacres, they pick up bits of videos here and there, showing torture, showing civil wars in Africa, showing violence in the Middle East.

They are not actually motivated by a specific set of ideas. Inside them, almost always, there is some personal grievance, there is some anger. but it finds an expression in a desire to perpetrate mass violence. And Prevent, which was this very ideological program, is having to adapt itself in order to ensure that people like that can get the very unique kind of help that Prevent can provide. And Prevent being part of the Home Office's counterterrorism program, it's relatively well-funded.

So there is money in Prevent for individual mentors to be assigned to people who have these disturbing ideas and these violent tendencies to try to talk them out of it and talk them around. And very understandably, people are saying that this should be available not just to those with already fixed ideologies, but those whose ideologies are mixed or unclear or unstable or just hard to identify. So with that, considering prevents origins and what you're discussing right now, would what is in place at the moment need to adapt?

Well, it's adapted pragmatically. As long ago as 2019, guidance came out saying you should be looking at people who are of this kind. They idolize people like the Columbine school shooters in the United States. And to some extent that is happening. I think it was the Southport attack of 2024 that really turbocharged this

because the attacker was, a very typical violence-fixated individual who had no clear ideology. And Prevent is taking these people on board and it is providing mentors for them. The difficulty is really one of scale. There are a lot of people being referred to Prevent at the moment, about 6 or 8,000 a year. Of those, maybe 6 or 800 might be going through to Channel where they actually stand a chance of getting some bespoke help. Can you explain what channel is? Well, it's really a multi-agency system where there is a meeting chaired by a local authority,

but the police are present, health are present, education are present, and they work out a plan tailored to the needs of the particular individual who's been referred to them. And the unique thing about prevent is the intervention provider, that is the jewel in the crown, if you like. And when you meet these people and talk to them, they are incredibly impressive. Some of them have knocked about a bit themselves. They understand the milieu that the young people, it's not always young people, but they're usually young people come from. And they can be extraordinarily successful in talking people out of whatever ideas have got into their head. Of course, in other cases, they don't succeed.

You wouldn't expect them to succeed every time. And in the case of young people who spend nearly all their time online, and that was the case, for example, with the Southport Killer, there is obviously a generational issue there, and there is a need to have people who, can understand that online world. I was struck, as you said, that many of these individuals have a grievance. Now, whether that is perceived or actual, how do you understand that or can you explore that a little bit further with me? Well, I think this might be one for the psychologist or the psychiatrist that you very

sensibly invited along. But I was talking to somebody yesterday who's done thousands of these cases. he said actually the commonest feature, leaving aside the actual ideological component, the commonest feature in what had gone wrong with these boys was an absent father or a violent father. Now, people more learned than me will explain that, but I simply state that as a fact. Well, let me bring you in here. Dr. Ruth Tully, good to have you with us as well. I thought it was interesting that aspect that David was bringing up of a grievance perceived. by many of these individuals.

How do you see it? There is often a grievance, and this is present across different recognised ideologies that I see, and the more general things that you guys were just discussing around mixed ideology or unclear ideology, there is some sort of grievance, and that is extremely common. I think that in light of what you've just been discussing, there does seem to be a gap for these people

who have mixed ideologies, and while prevent may have the funding, etc, I think there would be some thought needed as to how to address the more nuanced issues about these mixed and fluctuating or unclear ideologies to make sure that expertise is there. And I certainly think that peer support and modelling is key, especially for young people

who will feel that generally professions don't understand their grievance and don't understand their perspective on the world. Where, David, does misogyny figure into the thinking of violence-fixated individuals, as they're called, or VFIs, as you've seen it? You hear a lot about in-cell ideology, and you know what that is, the sense that some boys and young men have, that they will always have to be celibate because 80% of the women go after 20% of the men. that is recognised as a category of extremism under Prevent, but it's pretty rare, actually surprisingly rare. What is much more common is basic misogyny,

the sort of stuff you might learn from Andrew Tate. And incidentally, the incels would have no time for Andrew Tate because he's one of the successful 20%, whereas they see themselves as condemned to celibacy. And I think the way misogyny is currently viewed by Prevent is as something that underpins and intersects with other forms of extremist and indeed gender-based violence, but not usually the dominant force. It's in that sense a bit like anti-Semitism. It's something that Islamist networks, far-right networks have in common,

but it's not necessarily the prevalent or the most prominent feature of their thinking. Ruth, let me bring you in here. How much of this concerning behaviour, so an obsession with violence, be that also violence against women and girls, is taking place online or escalated online as you see it? Nowadays, most of it, I would say, because people are engaging in groups, what we might call comm networks, which are messaging groups of like-minded individuals or forums where they're essentially in an echo chamber of misogyny. and an echo chamber of interest in that shared focus, whether that's extreme violence or something else.

So these beliefs and behaviours are entirely, you know, socially acceptable within these groups, if not admired. So people can actually be driven, and I've seen this, to plan and execute extreme acts through the encouragement and incitement of others, in part to achieve status within that group. It's absolutely, it's really scary what we're seeing now.

And I see David nodding along as well, but let's go further with that, Ruth. I mean, what is it that you're seeing or what would that escalation be or what would those steps be as somebody goes further in or a red flag, as you may call it? It's very difficult to say. I mean, in terms of being brought into comm networks, what I've seen with the young people and the young adults that I've worked with, people who start with a specific interest online. and then they get asked to join a different platform.

So they might start on a social network, a typical social network sign, and then the site, and then they get asked to go over to an encrypted chat group, and this is where these discussions really intensify. So a red flag for parents is if a child is moving over to these encrypted chat networks. But it's just really, really difficult.

I think young people spending the really focused periods of time online, all of these are red flags. And of course I don't have the answer to how we resolve all of these things. But I think there is a tech responsibility as well as a social and home responsibility and a school responsibility to deal with these things effectively. David, your thoughts on that? Well, that's absolutely right. And these comm networks in a way radicalise very much in the same way

as other online networks radicalise that are dedicated to ideologies. They bond people into a misogynistic identity. They normalise hatred. they erode moral restraint. And of course, all this is now amplified by recommender algorithms by deepfakes and all the rest of it. I mean, you ask whether misogyny should be recognized as a specific terrorist ideology. And I think you can go back a bit and ask whether in the last 25 years in the aftermath of the dreadful 9-11 attacks in New York with 3,000 people killed, we have been so concerned about terrorism

that maybe we have taken our eye off some other balls. About five people a year have been killed by terrorism in this country, this century. It feels like more because a big attack like the Magistra Arena is just so shocking that everybody knows about it and everybody remembers it. But, I mean, you will have the up-to-date figures, but it's something like 90 women a year are killed by partners or former partners. The government now has a strategy, violent against violence against women and girls, but I think it would be fair to say it's not as well funded as the counterterrorism strategy is funded.

So I do see the argument for identifying misogyny as a specific ideology for the purposes of prevent. And in fact, when there was a parliamentary inquiry into this a few months ago, some people, some academics in particular, did suggest this. And there's been some research I know at the University of Manchester suggesting that that would be appropriate. Do you think there's the political will for that? I suspect there is the political will for it. But the one thing I would say is I wonder how much difference it would make in practice. The channel panels who consider these cases, the intervention providers who intervene in these young men's lives, are extremely familiar with misogynistic thinking because they see it.

I wouldn't say in almost every case, but they see it very, very frequently. And I think they would claim to have some expertise in it. And it may be that there are people with expertise, for example, in anti-seek hatred. or Islamism and it may be that misogyny doesn't require specialists in quite that way. What it certainly does require

is that everybody who has dealings with potentially very violent young men and boys has some understanding of these comm networks of the forces that are operating on them. I mean that's a really interesting thought. Are there experts in misogy

within the scheme to that? same level as other ideologies, for example? Well, I have to be a bit careful because I think the spread of competences is classified for some reason by the Home Office. But my sense is there is certainly not the same body of expertise, specifically in misogyny, that there would be, for example, in Nazi ideologies, in Islamist ideologies, possibly because it's thought to be something that everybody really needs to understand, at least to some extent. Yes, but whether they do, because, I mean, there is, we've had many debates here and discussions and we'll continue to do,

on root causes of misogyny or indeed ways to prevent it, using that word again. The prevent scheme is voluntary. Young people cannot be forced to participate. Is there an argument, David, and then I'll come to you, Ruth, for making some referrals mandatory? Most people who work in prevent want it to stay voluntary because they think they get better results that way. but the consent levels are woefully low.

They were published for the first time last year. More than half of people or their parents, if they're under 18, consent to an intervention, but it's not a huge amount more than half. So there would certainly be some sort of argument. I suggested in my report that people have a look at this, even if it's not made compulsory, whether there should be some other power in the background that might induce people to take the voluntary route

rather than be subject to that power or that order. And I know Sir Adrian Fulford in his Southport inquiry is very interested in that and may well come up with some recommendations himself. Do you have thoughts on that, Ruth? Yeah, I mean, the level of motivation tells us a lot about the needs of the individual in any event. People will only make changes at a time that they're ready

and motivated to do so you can throw all the intervention in the world at them, psychological intervention and peer support. If they're not willing to engage, they're not willing to engage. So it depends what you mean by mandatory. If it's an order, you might get someone turning up to a session they're required to attend. But whether it'll facilitate meaningful change is a different question.

But I also think there needs to be some sort of mechanism for people who don't wish to engage. There have been concerns about them to be referred in terms of conducting a thorough risk assessment. And in particular, I'm thinking of people who fall through the gaps. So they're not in mental health forensic services. They're not under probation. they're not willing to engage with prevent,

but maybe they're not yet at that level of concern where all of the security agencies are all over them. And one of the recommendations I made as an expert witness to the Nottingham inquiry was around potentially a process where police forces can instruct or have attached an expert risk assessor, a psychologist or whichever professional discipline is needed in that case, to conduct a risk assessment to better understand that individual. But there are, of course, issues then with getting information

if the person doesn't want to engage, you'd want health records, school, social care. And I don't have the answers to those complex data protection issues other than that people should be encouraged, services should be encouraged to share information to assist in comprehensive risk assessment and management. And we shouldn't have this culture where people are more afraid of sharing information between services than they are of somebody getting killed. David, you want to come in there.

I think Ruth has hit on an absolutely crucial point there. We can argue as much as we like about whether violence-fixated individuals belong in prevent and whether misogyny belongs in prevent. But ultimately, the problem of extreme violence is so much bigger than just ideology. And if you're asking people to consent to walking through a door that says terror over the top, or if you're asking teachers or doctors or family members to refer people through that door, it's not very surprising that you're not getting maybe the consent rates that you would like. You know, what I would really love to see, and I hope and believe that Sir Adrian is looking at this in his Southport Inquiry in more detail, is for Prevent to be connected to a broader strategy for violence reduction.

So there is a big front door, and it doesn't say terror over the top. And there is some process of triage when you get through that decides what sort of intervention you need. If you do need ideological intervention, well Prevent will remain there in the background. And the Imam or the expert in far right or whatever it is will be there to talk to you. but there will be a much more seamless process of handing you through to the people that you really need, avoiding the sort of stigma that I'm afraid still goes with with Prevent and stopping people falling through the cracks to the extent that they do now. Problem, of course, is funding. Because Prevent has funding, people tend to flock towards it.

And the fear is that if you downplay Prevent or you put it somewhere around the back, then what is left will not be funded as well as Prevent is. I should say we asked the Home Office for a response as well and a statement we have not heard back yet but before I let you go David last week the Home Secretary Shabana MacMood gave the government's formal response to the inquiry accepting your report's recommendation

and promising to do and I quote whatever is needed to protect the public unquote what did you think of that statement and their acceptance of your recommendations well she did accept all my recommendations so it would be shellish to say I had reservations about it but I just hope they're serious about looking at this problem holistically. We've got a jumble of schemes. We've got multi-agency safeguarding hubs. We've

got violence reduction units. We've got potentially dangerous persons panels. We've got little pots of money everywhere. We've got practice that varies from one part of the country to another. And I think what we want is a cohesive, coherent process for dealing with potentially very violent individuals. And if that comes out of this exercise that Sir Adrian Fulford is conducting, then I think we should be very pleased. We will continue following us. If you have to be. have been affected by anything in this item, please do go to the BBC Action Line

where you will find links to help and support. I do want to thank both of my guests this morning for our conversation, Lord Anderson, who is the Independent Prevent Commissioner from January 25 to April 26th, and also Dr. Ruth Tully, a consultant, forensic psychologist. Thanks to both of you this morning. Thanks for your messages coming in.

We're going to be talking about whether telling the truth is always the best way, the right way, particularly when it comes to infidelity. Let me see somebody got in touch, anonymous. On infidelity. As someone who has just divorced her husband for serial cheating, infidelity and lying is romance, fraud. The person you're supposed to know best

pretends to be someone and feel or not feel things in order to maintain their goal, either staying married or not dealing with the repercussions of their actions. One-off mistakes that are revealed immediately can be different because the person is showing that they can trust their partner's reactions and are brave enough to face the consequences. But repeat liars are just cowards. and no matter how much they pretend they are trying to protect another's feelings.

It's going to be the subject that I'll be talking to Sarah Hadland about she's in a play called appropriately the truth. Now, I also want to let you know that a new episode of the Woman's Hour Guide to Life is out now. This time our subject is speaking in public, something that many of us can find difficult. And we're better to explore that than in front of a live audience of hundreds of people at the Crossed Wires Festival, where we had a great time recording this a couple of weeks ago. Here's a tip from one of my guests, Viv Groskop. She's author of How to Own the Room. It's about an aspect of our working lives.

Many of us are still struggling to get used to. How to approach online meetings. Always remember that there has been no training for anyone for these calls. And if you think about a television newsreader, they've been trained for that. And now, effectively, we are making. news readers of ourselves. Really quick fix though is to look at the camera, put a post-it next to that with a sign saying like look here or a picture of Harry Styles or of your child. Anyone who will make you smile and remind you to look at that camera. Because the self-view can be so distracting and

destructive. You can hide self-view because psychologically it's like a mirror. Why would you, would you put a mirror next to your face the whole time that you? You can hide self-view. You can hide self-view because psychologically, it's like a mirror. Why would you put a mirror next to your face the whole time that you're working. No. So hide it if you can and resist the temptation to look at it because it will mean you're looking down, not at people. Got that, everyone. Viv Groskopp there. The Woman's Hour Guide to Life speaking in public, why it feels so hard and how to do it anyway is available to listen to now.

Love meeting all of you in Sheffield. Thanks to those of you who came and to those of you that listen to the episode. It's on the Woman's Our feed on BBC Sound. Now, Sarah Hadland will be a familiar face to many of us having played numerous roles over the years known of course as Stevie in the BAFTA nominated sitcom Miranda she's currently starring in the West End production

of The Truth a fast-paced comedy of spiraling infidelity and deception she plays Alice a woman embroiled in an affair with her husband's best friend setting off a chain of increasingly complicated lies duplicity and humour it has to be said as well I got to go and see it on Saturday night. Oh, did you? Oh my goodness. I loved it. Oh, thank you so much. We had such a laugh, I have to say, and everybody was kind of on tender hooks around. I can see them holding onto their partners at certain times as well. Just for a few that are on stage, which is really quite something. And it begins with two of you in an opening scene. No allusions to what's just happened. You're in bed with Stephen Mangon, Michelle, as his name is. It's a French play, I should say. It's written by Florian. Zella, brilliant French writer, and it's translated by Christopher Hampton.

So you've got two brilliant, brilliant people there. And so we have two of you, both on stage, in a bed, both married, but just not to each other. No. And that's where we begin. That's where we begin. And what I think quite quickly, I don't know how you experienced this as an audience member, that it appears that it's quite straightforward. This is a farce about infidelity.

But as the play unraveled over the course of seven scenes, you start to realize that nothing as it seems. Everything is much more complicated. Who is lying? Who is telling the truth? Right until hopefully the very last second of the play, the audience are wrong-footed. And it's really lovely listening to that backstage because you can hear. It's fascinating, actually, women and men react at different points to different things. It's generally the women that catch on faster to the end of the play, which is so fascinating. You can hear a sort of, ooh. Oh, yeah, I should have asked my husband exactly. was in the cup. Now I was sitting between two men.

Oh, okay. And did you find that the men and women reacted to different things? I think I was so gripped by it. If I'm completely honest that definitely we were laughing so heartily, you probably could hear my husband actually. He has been told off by Ardlo Hanlon previously at a comedy show of Ardell's up.

Yeah, he has got form. So I was kind of laughing at him at times as well. But no, I mean, I think it's also such a fast play, right? It's 90 minutes. You're in it. and you're totally gripped to it from beginning to end. And you need to keep your wits about you or you're going to miss a trick.

I mean, the wool has been pulled over everybody's eyes. I mean, when Lindsay Posner, our brilliant director, and when he directed us, he was absolutely meticulous that we keep the pace going the whole time. And, you know, there's a lot of bickering goes on in the play, particularly Stephen and myself. And, you know, when you're arguing, you tend to argue fast.

You repeat what people say, you talk over each other to get that energy and that feeling of close relations. I mean, sometimes we've done the show in 83 minutes, which is a bit too fast. You find yourself sort of slightly, but you're right. It's like a train. And that's what I love about the fact that it's 90 minutes is you're gripped. The audience can't get distracted by an interval. You're in it.

You're locked in and it goes. And yeah, it's great fun to be part of because the audience's reaction. I just wish on the way out you could kind of have people could be miced and we could hear what's going on. I did see a couple rowing on the corner outside the theatre. I mean, it was about something else, not about the play. But I thought, I wonder how many people, because obviously it's about telling the truth. Well, you know, I threw it out to my listeners, 844. If you'd like to text in, you might have heard one of the messages that came in there,

recently divorced a serial cheater as a husband. And is furious about this, you know, this thought that could you ever, could ever withholding the truth be a kinder. way of behaving? Well, I mean, this is what the play is all about. What do we think, what does each individual person think is the truth for them, for their partner within a relationship?

And certainly I know people who have been in relationships where they know a person is cheating and they are kind of okay with it. But it's, and equally, you know, people that are like, well, I would want to know. But it also, the bigger question is just about truth in general.

What do we consider? Oh, well, that's a little white lie. I mean, I have a a small child and there is obviously the conversations about lying and what is a little white lie. Like you don't want your child if somebody says, do I look nice in this? And your child say, no, that looks horrible. You look awful. I mean, they might say that to you. But you don't, you want. So what are you saying there when you say, oh, well, that's not a very nice thing to say. And so that already begins that. And in fact, I've often had my, I'm a single working mum and I bring my child into the theatre sometimes with me. and, you know, they ask about the play

and I say, well, it's a grown-up play, it's not for children, and what is it about? And I say, well, it's about people telling fibs. And it's really interesting that, you know, then your child might say, oh, but you said, I famously said you couldn't get YouTube on our TV. And then they found out you could, mommy, you've told a massive lie. You're a liar, and you're like, well, yeah, I did like.

So it's complicated. And then that grows, doesn't it, as you become an adult, as to the lies become more impactful. And, yeah, I suppose it's the boundaries and the lines. I mean, I mentioned this line by Michelle, played by Stephen Mangon, which is if everyone started telling the truth tomorrow, there would hardly be a couple left. It would be the end of civilisation.

Yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, what human being walking this earth can say that they've never lied and that they've never lied to their partner, even on some small The honesty within a relationship Yeah I mean it's like sometimes if you've sort of you know Or do you think they're attractive

It's almost like a test question Isn't it either way to a man or a woman Or whoever your partner is It is a bit of a test You know what's the right answer If you say oh yeah they're gorgeous Oh right So you think they're gorgeous

What do you say It can start with little things like that Where you might say oh no no you're the most And then it can become much bigger things But I think that's an interesting aspect that you bring up there because within this play as well there is so much of testing

the couple to see what they know or what they don't know instead of just coming straight out and saying it is kind of as opposed a form of passive aggression yeah absolutely and the way that also I think when you're there are so many elements

involved in a relationship and I think when lust is involved you can kind of certainly for my character Alice there are moments when she's so wrapped up in Michelle that he's talking absolute nonsense. But in the moment, she's so kind of confused and is in love with him and having this physical relationship that she's kind of thinking, is that right? I don't know.

She's also not being truthful to her partner. So she's in this quagmire of she doesn't know which way is up anymore. So when he's talking nonsense to her, she's thinking maybe it's right. And then later in the play, she just definitely, in the words of Love Island, I've definitely got the ick. I look at him and I think, what was I doing with you? The scales fall away. And you kind of think

you're an absolute shambles of a human being. What was I doing? And, you know, what goes on behind closed doors, I suppose? Nobody knows. Oh, I think that is also the appeal of the play. And it's part of, like I say, I was drawn to this couple arguing. I love saying people argue

because we don't, we so rarely, rarely see what really goes on in relationships. We're all guilty of it and social media has made it 10 times worse that we post these pictures going, going for dinner with this one, a heart emoji. And then you might know that couple in real life and think, well, I know that he's having an affair.

She hates him. But they're still putting out this having a dinner with this one. And you think, oh, what a load of... But we all do it. And there is, of course, great comedy in that as well. Yes. You have played, as I mentioned, a wide variety of Alice here, but people know you as Stevie in Miranda.

That was 2009 to 2015. So a long time to be playing a character. Yeah. I was thinking as well, you need to take up space on stage as you do. And with comedy, some people might say that humour is a shield, that you can kind of hide behind it. But in another way, playing comedy, you're really putting all your vulnerabilities out there. Like in a physical way, I know Miranda was like six foot one.

I think you're about... Five foot one. Five quarter. Hold on to that quarter. Although I might be shrinking, so maybe I have five foot one. Stick out of here, you'll be grand. But you know the importance of visual comedy there. But I'm just wondering about you, the thought of taking up space

or how you take up space as a woman. I think that it's really interesting that I never, ever have thought of myself as being small. And I think certainly when I was little, even littler, I think my parents raised to, I have an older sister who is three years older than me. We were certainly raised that we could sort of do anything. and we were raised to be very confident young women. And I think that makes you kind of feel like, well, I have a voice and I'm going to, you know,

go out to the world and do my thing. And I think that I've never considered myself to sort of be little. And I think I've probably got quite a big personality. So I think, yeah, it's not something that ever really crosses my mind. I saw a piece by Emma Beddington today in the garage. We said, are middle-aged women really invisible? I see them everywhere. Do you know what's really interesting is after doing Strictly,

I went into Strictly come dancing thinking, not really thinking I was the flag bearer for older women. Again, not really thinking I was 53 when I did it. But as Shirley Ballas reminded everybody every week, ladies and gentlemen, this young lady is 53 years old. That's five in a three, 53, seven years she'll be 60. I mean, I got told that every week. And I became constantly middle-aged women coming up to me and saying,

you're really making us think we can do things. And that was a really big moment when I thought, God, yeah, I am. I'm middle age now. And that made me feel even more like, right, I want to do everything and be really out there. Because, yeah, you know, why shouldn't we be? And if anything, as you get older,

you have a lot more to say, you've got life experience, you care a lot less. You think, well, you know, I think there was definitely a time as a younger woman where I remember people said, you mustn't do this, you know, in having a career in show business, you must be very careful what you do and you mustn't do this and you mustn't take this job.

And you get, oh, do you think it doesn't matter? You know, just do what you want. Do what you want to do? It's good advice. Do you want to hear a couple of the messages coming in? Oh gosh, go on. I'd never cheat on my fiancé, but she thinks I shouldn't find anyone else beautiful.

But of course, I do. On infidelity, another, I'm a relationship counsellor, especially in non-monogamy, a very common case, non-monogamy, not infidelity, non-monogamy. A very common case, I see... None monogony. Can't even say it.

It's difficult. I see that one person, a common case I see, is that one person in a young couple finds they're attracted to someone they've met early on in a partnership and square that emotional infidelity in their mind by thinking that they must be polyamorous. And so their poor partner is thrust into a relationship with someone who is suddenly allowed explore relationships with other people, less they stifle their significant others newly discovered in 8-Bent to be sexually and romantically open. Oh, that's a bit, that's a bit ropey, isn't it?

That's another play. That's another play to come. Yeah, that is definitely another play. I mean, I think, wow, yeah, this whole thing about open relationships, any people I've ever met in an open relationship aren't that many as far as I'm aware, that it seems that one person is always much more into it than the other person. And, yeah, I think it's probably very difficult to find somebody that wants that. And if one person's not really into it, it's a bit bleak, isn't it?

Really, very, very bleak. We're taking the honesty, relationships, infidelity or other parts of your relationship, taking your comments this morning, 84844. But I want to thank Sarah Hadlam for coming in. The Truth is on at the Apollo Theatre in London's West End until September 12th. Enjoy it all. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for coming in to us in the middle of our third heat wave off the year. He's widely recognized as one of the greatest footballers in history. He's won the prestigious Ballandor Award five times. He's the all-time leading goal scorer in professional football. And according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he's the first active footballer in history to achieve billionaire status. Guess who we're talking about yet? That's right. Good Bad Billionaire is exploring the life and fortune of football icon Cristiano Ronaldo.

That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcast. Temperatures set to climb again later this week after a bit of a break for some of us today. Scientists say that what makes this year's heat waves distinct is that right across Europe, temperatures have remained high overnight as well as during the day. In June, London alone recorded five consecutive nights over 20 degrees Celsius. That's what meteorologists call tropical nights. The temperatures inside many homes will have been much higher.

Lots of us are reporting struggling to sleep. But what if you're caring for a young baby? And all the advice is to keep the room cool. Dr. Goody Singh is a consultant pediatrician. She's along with GP. Dr. Sarah Jarvis, good to have both of you back with us on Women's Hour. Dr. Goody, let me begin with you. How alarming are high temperatures for parents off young babies?

Good morning. I think the first thing to call out here is that this is not just simply an unfortunate spell of summer weather. This is climate change. And so actually it's making extreme heat much more frequent and intense in the UK. And I'm saying that because heat does not affect everyone equally. And I want to just say this because all families who are listening to this must feel like they are somehow guilty. And the fact is that some of the families who are suffering the most are those who are living in overcrowded or poor quality housing. They're in top four flats, you know, that trap heat or they might be on streets that have fewer trees and have less shade.

And they don't often have the money for fans or cooling systems. And that's many of the families that I see as a paediatrician. And so when we're talking about keeping rooms below 20 degrees, we've got to recognize that this is actually, some people have got much more control over this than others. And this is really a question then about housing, poverty and climate inequality. But you ask a really important question, which is that why is this so troubling for babies? And they're especially vulnerable because babies basically regulate their temperature much less effectively than adults. They have a larger surface area relative to their body size. And all that means is that their temperature can change much more quickly and they can become dehydrated.

faster. The key thing to know here is that overheating is associated with a higher risk of sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS or cot death in common language. Now, the standard advice is for babies to sleep on their backs, on a firm, flat mattress in a clear space. And parents are advised to keep the room between 16 and 20 degrees where possible. And as you've just described, that's just not possible in the current and current condition. And so I would say that where possible is a really important kind of caveat to all of this advice because it's we can't use this as a test of being a good parent can we you know it's not about perfect conditions it's about instead how can we have some control here in the home that I actually live in and what can they do well so when I'm advising

parents I would advise them really to keep it simple so in our homes what we can do is close the curtains or blinds on the sunny side of the house during the day we can open the windows when it becomes cooler outside if it's safe and use the the coolest safe room that's available. A lot of parents are asking about fans and fans are good for circulating air, but do keep them out of reach, obviously, of small children and babies and don't point them directly at babies. The key thing here is reducing clothing and bedding. So in a really warm room, a baby might only need like a lightweight vest or a nappy. And here's a key thing. If you're trying to test whether your baby is too hot, feel the chest or the back of the neck.

So not just the hands and feet, because that can be inaccurate, essentially. And if the baby feels hot, sweaty or clammy, then remove a layer. A really important piece of advice is to continue your normal milk feeds. For breastfed babies, that might mean more often, but for formula, please don't dilute the formula. And what is going on there or why are you saying that? So this is about dehydration. So we're talking here about the fact that often what is harmful in these hot conditions is dehydration. And what we need to recognize here is that feeds need to happen if not at the same level more frequently. And sometimes in hot weather, babies can be more sleepy,

which might mean that they're not asking for their feeds as often, but you as apparently to make sure that you're doing what you normally do, otherwise you're going to fall behind and they will get dehydrated. Okay, so dehydration, the big one. Dr. Sarah, let me bring you in here. We have spoken previously on Women's Hour, how women can be more affected by the heat than men. But getting into the overnight temperatures,

as we're mentioning for babies, it can also affect women's sleep. Tell me a little bit more about that aspect. For instance, for instance, around the other cause. Nolets sweats are mainly caused by those fluctuating levels of estrogen. And what happens there is that hormone change

confuses your hypothalamus. That's the bit of your brain that regulates your body temperature and your brain goes, oh no, I'm overheating. And that triggers, of course, cooling mechanisms like heavy sweating. And that's what can wake you up. But if we go back to bed, I know we've spoken about it before, but women are fundamentally at a disadvantage, at several disadvantages.

We produce less sweat, which is one of our main ways of regulating our body temperature. We start sweating at a higher temperature, and we often have a higher core body temperature, just slightly higher, but it's enough to basically make our bodies feel hotter. We've also, naturally, for the same weight, or for the same sort of ratio of weight, we've got more body fat, and that body fat acts as a sort of extra insulated. of extra insulating layer. So then the impact of sleep deprivation, as you're seeing it, because this has been going on weeks,

I think anybody can manage a night or two of disturbed sleep. Well, let's face it, you know, sleep deprivation is not used as a method of torture for no reason. It can have a huge impact on your ability to cope. If you're a young parent who's trying to look after a baby, they're more irritable. You find it more difficult to cope with their irritability. your patience is going to be lower, your concentration is going to be lower.

Everything just feels like harder work. And the problem is that if you're a mother looking after a young child, if you're a woman, if you're a squeeze middle, looking after older parents and younger people, more women are likely to be working in low-paid jobs, where, unfortunately, it's much more likely that heat regulation is not prioritised. They may well have extra stresses. They're more likely to be trying to juggle lots of things,

and that can make it really, really tough for women. This is, you know, this is not a woman problem. This is a society problem. And for pregnant women, Sarah? Pregnant women. So basically, your progesterone levels fluctuate during early to mid-pregnancy, and that can make you feel hotter. And then that gradually rises along with estrogen.

Now, during the later stages, that will bring your body temperature back down a little bit. But the problem is that by that stage, you've got another human being inside you, and they're getting bigger and bigger. And that's going to make a significant difference to, your ability to cope with heat. And it's this rapid change in your size, in your hormones that happen during pregnancy. Let me come back to you, Dr. Goody.

Even though it is not in the guidelines, we know that lots of women do co-sleep with their babies. Do you have any advice for those? Yeah, and I think this picks up on what Sarah was just talking about now. You know, the safest place is, You know, the guidelines say that the safest place is that the babies should be in their own clear, flat sleep space. But everybody knows that that's not real life. Now, I actually really follow the work of Professor Helen Ball on this.

And she reminds us that babies are biologically designed to wake, to feed at night, and to seek closeness. So it's understandable that women are co-sleeping with their babies. You know, across cultures around the world, parents will deliberately do this or fall asleep while your baby's feeding. And so I take the view on this that you can't. actually say never do this. Because just as Sarah said, you've got exhausted parents who might be driven into secrecy about the fact that they're co-sleeping. And actually, what we don't want is for people falling asleep on things like sofas instead, which is considerably more dangerous. So here's what I would say is that I think what we need to think about here is clear harm reduction

advice. Like, you've just got to be, we've got to be real, right? And here are some red lines. Never sleep with a baby on a sofa or an armchair. And do not share a bed with anyone who has smoked, drunk alcohol, taking any recreational. drugs or any medication that could cause drowsiness. Now this is actually particularly, and say for babies who are premature or have had low birth weight. And if you are bed sharing, please make sure you're using a firm, flat mattress. And keep pillows, loose bedding, duvets, all of that stuff away from the baby. Because what we want to do is make sure that babies can't fall or become trapped and always,

always place them on their back. But I'm also just thinking about the heat aspect. Any of us know if we sleep with another person, the heat that is generated. Yeah, yeah, and that is 100% correct and true, but it doesn't stop the issue that many parents are facing here, which is that babies just sleep better often with them beside them. So again, it's the same principles that I was talking about before, which is that what we need to do is make sure we've got light layers. So it might mean that people are not sleeping with very much on adults and babies alike. Clear the cot space or the bed space in this case.

And always just check with your hand on the chest or on the back of the neck, what's the baby doing? are they too hot or are they behaving in a way that you feel is not right? And parents are often spot on about this. If that's the case, you might need to seek help. Thanks to both of my guest, Dr. Goody Singh, consulted pediatrician and GP Dr. Sarah Jarvis this morning. And of course, if you do have an individual medical query, please do go and consult your GP.

Now, with the advent of the social media ban for under 16s, there's been so much debate around screen time for children and young people, We're interested in how digital habits across different generations affect family life. Are you a parent trying to do a digital detox and encourage less screen time while finding older relatives are constantly on their phones or tablets? Are you a grandparent who loves being connected online

but finds it difficult to switch off around family? Has screen use become a source of conflict, concern or connection in your family? We want to hear from the parents and the grandparents alike about your experiences for our upcoming listener week. You can text us 84844. On social media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour,

or you can email us through our website. To listen to us on your smart speaker, just say play radio four. And if you want to catch up with anything, you might have missed, say Alexa, ask BBC sounds to rewind to the time that you want. Please do keep sending your ideas for listener week. We read them all,

and we're keen to hear yours for this year. Now, there is a new romance novel out by Jennifer Saint. It is epic. It is called This Immortal Heart, and it retells the ancient myth of African. Greek goddess of love and how she and Ares, the god of war, two seemingly opposite forces, fall irresistibly for each other. Sparks fly.

And Jennifer illustrates how a very old story found in Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey, oral poems, probably composed around the 8th century BC, although I've heard different dates quoted, can tackle contemporary questions about female agency and identity. Jennifer puts the storytelling firmly in the hands of a woman, the goddess Aphrodite. herself. I'm joined with Jennifer in studio. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks so much for having me. Great to have you with us. Now many people will know that you've retold the lives of Ariadne, Atalanta, Lectra and Hera in your novels. Aphrodite, beyond the headline, as the Greek goddess of love. What was it about her that made you want to reclaim her? She's such an interesting character and I have found that people come to you my characters with preconceptions. You know, Greek myth holds

there's great cultural weight in society. People are familiar with these figures. And when it comes to Aphrodite, people seem to be coming to her with very negative ideas about who she is, thinking she is like she's probably going to be very vain, self-obsessed, narcissistic and trivial. And to me, she really feels the opposite of all of those things. Yes, she's goddess of love and beauty. But love is one of the least trivial things in the world. Love is this fundamental force in humanity that enriches all of our lives and really makes them worth living.

Let's give people a taste. You're going to read a little for us. Thank you. This is from the prologue, the birth of Aphrodite. There is a humming in the earth, a thrill of anticipation as the goddess strides forward, the waves foaming around her thighs. The spray against the jutting rock behind her is still tinged with the gold of her father's blood. The water gasps at the shore, hissing over the stones of the bay. The sigh of the wind rises into.

a soft moan, tortured with longing, as the woman looks around her, taking in the island that is to be her first home. Where her feet touch the ground, tiny star-shaped flowers bloom, their purple petals quivering in the air. The breeze carries the languorous sweetness of their scent, her trailing perfume as she walks on. The world has never seen anything so dazzling, and even though her existence is brand new, She knows it. She can feel her power awakening in every glorious inch of her body. Aphrodite smiles. She does indeed. Why was it important to emphasize her as a woman of enormous power? So that story of Aphrodite's origin, she is born from the castration of the God of the Sky, you're not her father. She's born from this ultimate act of himasculation, this really brutal, violent act.

And then she emerges, if you know, you're familiar with that as everybody will be with Botticelli's birth of Venus. This scene of her birth looks so serene, so lovely. Gentle. Exactly. But it's actually entirely the opposite. She's a goddess of contradictions. Hesiod tells us in the Theogany when she's born, she is an awful and lovely goddess. She holds this great power, this great danger.

And part of that is that she is so very, very alluring. And the way you have her narrating the book, she is so alluring. She never puts a foot wrong or a wing wrong, as it might be when she's a dove. But you went, I understand, to Cyprus twice while researching this novel, to where you can stand in the bay where Aphrodite has been formed, let's say. That moment stayed with you, however. Yes, it did. It's so powerful. I think that the power of Greek myths as well comes from the fact that they are so very rooted in the landscape.

They belong to you at this place, this time, this moment in history. And people have been coming there over centuries to feel a little piece of this magic. It really does seem that it is alive when you go there. You can feel that this is a place of kind of wild power, wild magic that really lets your imagination run free. And I love that the two gods, Aphrodite and Ares come together. Love and War and who might get the upper hand. We've been talking about couples quite a bit this morning and love affairs.

But there are a lot of parallels between the old and the new in this book, the sculptor. Pygmalion. I was like, as I was reading it, I was like, who is this guy? He was reminding me of the guys who love real dolls, like our basically kind of blow-up dolls or people that have romances with AI. Some might even call him the original incel. We were talking about insoles earlier on the programme. Right, yes.

So Pygmalion is absolutely the Bronze Age in-cell. And to read Greek myth, you feel so many, so much. resonance with today. And that story, it really stands out. He despises women. He rails against the myriad faults that nature gave women's minds. And this is from the metamorphoses, it goes on to tell us that Pygmalion does not have a wife and no one to share his bed. He's single, this man who thinks that women are terrible. And he's so resentful and so bitter. And there are so many, as we've heard today, bitter, resentful young men all over the internet telling us about the myriad faults that nature has given women's minds.

Pygmalion is an artist, so he decides that he's going to create his dream woman. At least he puts a little bit of work into it a little bit more than we have today when you can just create your AI chatbot. Well, that's what came to my mind when I was reading it. Absolutely. It's just this desire for a woman that you can completely control. But actually Aphrodite steps into this and she brings the statue to life. She brings her to life as a woman named Galatea.

I was really interested in picking. up the story where Ovid leaves it in the metamorphoses at this supposed happy ending and actually examine what happens when this statue, this silent submissive statue, starts talking back to pygmalion. Absolutely. Let's give a moment to Pandora as well.

I mean, we hear about Pandora's box and evils released in the world, but I looked at her in a different way from your book. How would you describe her? So she's so associated with Aphrodite. It's Aphrodite who gives her the gift of beauty and her allure.

and so you can almost read her as a human representation of Aphrodite on Earth. I think she's symbolic of the stories that we tell about beautiful women and about powerful women. And the stories that we tell about them are that if you do not control them, if you do not contain them, if you allow them to have the opportunity to disobey and open that jar, then you can blame absolutely everything that goes wrong on these women. She is a scapegoat. She's one of the first scapegoats, a beautiful woman who we can, and say, actually, it's not the fault of Zeus who put everything in the jar.

It's her fault for letting it out. I mean, chaos could rain. But then chaos, I'm thinking, is also a Greek myth. That whole concept of it. Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, we start seeing female friendships between goddesses, which was something I hadn't considered before. It's always so important to me. I think that we receive these myths as children so often.

We see the women as adjunct to men. we see the role that women play in men's stories. And so we only ever see them in terms of what they represent to that hero, to that God. In my novels, I really want to explore, well, who are they as fully faceted human beings, as friends to one another, as sisters, as mothers, as daughters? I am so interested always in the power of female relationships. What do you think Aphrodite might have to say to our women's-era listeners if she came in today? I think she would love to come on Women's Hour.

That would be an excellent interview. Absolutely it would be. I think of all the gods of Olympus, Aphrodite would be the most adaptable to modern life, the keenest to be here. And a world in which women have the freedom and the power to make choices would really suit Aphrodite. So I imagine that she would tell us as a woman who loves luxury, who loves pleasure, who loves to make her own choices. I think she would tell us to be bold to embrace life and to live every day as a goddess.

Live every day as a goddess. That will be our takeaway from women's. hour today. Are you going to see The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan's film? I can't wait. I think this week, so we can expect lots more about the myths also to be swirling around us. But since I read your book, I've began to see it everywhere, I have to

say, in, I don't know, various TV shows, fables, the way people are talking about life. Jennifer Saint is my guest. Her book is This Immortal Heart. Do join me tomorrow. I'll be joined by the actors, Sally Phillips and Charlotte Jordan to talk about their new BBC drama.

The hairdresser mysteries is loads of fun. Also, I'll be hearing about efforts to give more financial security to the more than 3.5 million unmarried couples when they separate aiming to protect women and meet the needs of modern relationships that will be all coming up on Women's Hour right here on Radio 4 at 10 o'clock tomorrow. I look forward to seeing you then. Thanks for all your messages to. That's all for today's Women's Hour. Join us again next time. Gods and monsters, wandering heroes and barefooted philosophers. That's how we often think about ancient Greece, but it's much more varied and more curious than that. I'm Mary Beard, and in Being Greek, my new podcast from BBC Radio 4,

I'll be telling the stories of the real people of ancient Greece, from a mobster with dangerous ambitions. If you're a would-be emperor, then emperors have. have power to do whatever the hell they like, really. To the unrepentant husband who has murdered his wife's lover. Those of us who go in first see him lying on the bed beside my wife. Those who came in in the second wave see him standing naked. Subscribe to Being Greek with Mary Beard on BBC Sounds.

He's widely recognised as one of the greatest footballers in history. He's won the prestigious Ballandour Award five times. He's the all-time leading goal scorer in professional football. And according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he's the first active footballer in history to achieve billionaire status. Guess who we're talking about yet? That's right. Good Bad Billionaire is exploring the life and fortune of football icon Cristiano Ronaldo. That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.