You're Dead to Me - Josephine Baker (Radio Edit)

Episode Date: December 16, 2020

Greg Jenner is joined by historical expert Dr Michell Chresfield and comedian Desiree Burch to travel to 1920s Paris and meet the phenomenal Josephine Baker. Josephine Baker was a renowned performer and entertainer, a civil rights activist and even a spy during the German occupation of France. But just how did the daughter of a laundress in St Louis find herself at the centre of some of the most pivotal moments in history?A Muddy Knees Media production for BBC Radio 4.

Hey, Greg here. Hope you're doing all right. We are making series three right now. In the meantime, we've been making these Radio 4 versions of the previous episodes. We are putting them in the feed here permanently. They will be alongside the long versions.

So make sure you scroll down and choose which version you want. So you can have the shorter, punchier, swear-free versions or the long, rambling, sweary versions. Up to you. Thanks very much for listening. Take care. Bye.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the history podcast for everyone. For people who don't like history, people who do like history, and people who forgot to learn any at school. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author, and broadcaster, and I'm the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. You might have heard my other podcast for Radio 4, Homeschool History, although that one's mostly for the kids. In this podcast, we do things a bit differently. Here, we'll help you bone up on your history while gently tickling your funny bone as well.

And today, we are shimmying into the dance halls of 1920s Paris to get down and flirty with the legendary Josephine Baker. And to help me do that, I'm joined by two truly excellent guests. In History Corner, she teaches the intellectual and cultural history of racial formation at the University of Birmingham. Please join me in welcoming her to the stage. It's Dr. Michelle Cressfield. Hi, Michelle, thank you for coming. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited. And in Comedy Corner, she's a playwright, actor, storyteller, one of the funniest stand-ups in the circuit. You've seen her at Live at the Apollo, Mash Report, QI.

It is the wonderful Desiree Birch. Hello. Hello, Greg. Thank you for having me. Absolute pleasure. Where are you with Josephine Baker? I think probably for obvious reasons, she doesn't get talked about very much at school.

She just mentions, like, oh, yes, and this really famous black person. And so she was an expat and lived in France because I think generally lots of Black people went there because they were like, oh, we can actually like breathe and move around and be, you know, like human beings and do what we do, especially if they are artists. I know the thing about like the banana dance that she had a very famous banana dance. And I think it was like her costume was made out of like banana peels and she would like peel them off in a very burlesque style and i imagine that she probably pushed a lot of boundaries because i imagine she probably didn't take stuff from pretty much anyone so what do you know

so what do you know actually is where we have a go at guessing what you at home might know about today's subject. And I think the name might resonate with you. Josephine Baker is a name that feels glamorous, floating in our pop culture brain, but we're not quite sure necessarily who she is. You know, movie star, maybe? Actor? Whatever? As Desiree said, you can visualise her as a dancer

in the sort of jazz age in Paris. Amazingly, there hasn't been a movie or a big TV series we can binge about her, so someone needs to commission it please She has popped up in a couple of movies She was in Midnight in Paris She was in the very fun time travel TV show Timeless She had a cameo there which I really like that show it's very silly

But she's sort of known for that high energy dance For the kind of iconic banana dance But also I think she's sort of frozen in time in the 1920s a little bit We don't get the kind of full range. So I think today we're going to hopefully learn a lot more about her. Let's start at the very beginning. Michelle, where and when is Josephine born and what's her family situation? So Josephine is born Frida Josephine MacDonald on June 3rd, 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri.

But what's interesting is she actually grows up in East St. Louis, which is actually Illinois. So her mother, Carrie, had really big dreams. She hoped to be a music hall dancer. She's really gifted, but she has to abandon that and she becomes a laundress. This creates a lot of tumultuousness between she and Josephine in her life. Josephine's father, publicly, a gentleman by the name of Eddie Carson, kind of claims responsibility as her father. But historians are pretty convinced that her biological father was in fact white. So you see a lot of things in Josephine's early life, particularly around colorism. Her mother, her siblings are quite dark. She's quite fair.

Yeah, and she's the high yellow sort. Exactly. That's the kind of foundation of her early life. Not a very happy childhood, is it? No. By the age of eight, Josephine is warmed out to do work in local households. But eventually, she's sent to be a live-in maid for an employer. And because there is a part where she's legally required to go to school, sometimes she has to wake at 5 a.m. She does her morning chores. She'll go and get a little education. She comes back and she finishes her chores around 8 p.m. Yeah. She has to live in

the basement with the family dog, is made to sleep in a box. What? Right. So this particular employer is quite abusive. So she's known for abusing, slapping Josephine, puts her hands in scalding hot water and burns her. So Josephine loves the family dog. She loves the chicken until the employer makes her kill the chicken. Of course. Of course. Yeah.

So she has a pet chicken named Kitty. And she spends many months fattening up the chicken and loving on it. You know she did this just because Josephine loved the chicken, not because they couldn't find another chicken to eat. It was just like, oh, you like it? Then I'll destroy it. Oh, you need these hands? Why don't I burn them? It's horrible. There is also a very important moment in her childhood that happens in St. Louis in 1917. East St. Louis gets a large influx of African-Americans looking for jobs.

The riot starts in May as a labor dispute when Black workers are brought in to replace white workers who had gone on strike. That was creating tension enough. But then rumors began to circulate that a white man had been robbed by an African-American man. And whites began to beat and assault any African-American that they happened upon. This is the Liam Neeson response. Just, I'm looking for anybody black because you might have a wallet. So in July, a white guy comes into the East St. Louis area and fires shots at African-Americans randomly.

A group of African-Americans arm themselves, go to the city center in which another car of whites come and the African-Americans, believing that they're defending themselves, shoot into the car. The car happens to be police officers. Of course, this is a powder keg. It sets off three days of violence where basically whites go into the East St. Louis neighborhoods. They burn everything to the ground almost and then fire gunshots at African-Americans as they're leaving their homes. And it's believed that Josephine's house actually is burned down in this. For a creative person, how do you go from that to being a musician, a dancer, a performer? So she'd always really been interested in dance.

So she and her brothers and sisters would do kind of little cabaret shows for the family. She would panhandle out in the streets trying to get money for that. By 13, however, she has a big fight with her mother. She eventually, though, hooks up with these touring acts. First it's the Jones family band and later it's the Dixie Steppers she goes to New York alone with them at 15 and she lies about her age and she joins a chorus the chorus is very hard for her to get in so despite her being seen as too fair for her family she's actually too dark for a chorus yeah and she's too skinny uh yeah totally part of that early trauma had really affected her

physique in that she just gets really thin, which is interesting because she was a very plump baby. So her mom called her Tumpy, an accidental variation on Humpty Dumpty. Oh, that's cold. Yeah. But she gets a job in these two black stage shows. The first is Shuffle Along and the second is The Black Dandies. And these shows are really important because they're some of the first black shows on broadway yeah i feel like shuffle along i've heard of like my whole life right yeah so it's very iconic and she's funny this sort of act that she does where she pretends to be bad yes and then she's really good that takes real talent yeah to be so good that you can pretend exactly how to be bad yes that's absolutely right so chorus lines are known

for their precision sharpness and everyone in unison So she would have these solos or be out of sync with the rest of the chorus. She'd make these funny faces. She'd contour her body in weird ways that were out of time, but then eventually would kind of launch into these dance moves that were syncopated and wild and amazing and brought the audience's attention, which is really interesting because it earned her the opprobrium of the other chorus girls. Of course. But she is the cunt. Of course, they were like, you were showing us up. We're a unit.

And she's like, you're a unit. Absolutely right. But the audience loves her. And there's one quote that says she stood out like an exclamation mark. That's beautiful. But some who say that she is both horrible or ravishing, they can't quite work out if they think she's this amazing, brilliant, That's beautiful. 1925, there's a young American socialite who puts together a review called Les Revues Negres, which is supposed to introduce the Parisian public to jazz, but also to black culture. Who are these alluring blacks we've heard about? We're so curious.

Right. That's so apt that you say that, right? Because at this moment, it's really interesting to think about what serves as black culture in france at this time um so there is this obsession with african art but african art and culture that's really born of a colonial imagination yeah so it's like it's organic they're organic people they're free-range humans like before untouched by civilization yes absolutely yes very very much that for some this kind of primitivism really legitimates that black people would be inferior. And for others, it's something to be really admired. One of the ways to think about this move from the U.S. to Paris is that she kind of moves from a racism to a kind of exoticism, right? Which is, by and large, no less reductionist. She's still being defined by her race.

Yes. But in Paris, there are opportunities for her to be creative right absolutely when she gets on the stage in paris she talks about the idea that a frenzy took over her body that she wasn't in control anymore the dance that she does is called the dance sauvage the savage dance this is a dance that is primal urgent exotic foreign dangerous sexy yeah all those things all All those things? All of those things. Okay, in which case, I guess we maybe need to have a watcher clip. So, Desiree, there's a laptop right there. Can you talk us through what you're seeing?

She's got her, like, banana, like, skirt on, tutu-looking thing. She's now shaking her behind in a circle. She was doing some arms are up in the air. It's kind of sexy, but it's also a little hilarious. She's someone that you look at her and you kind of want to start laughing and you don't know why. She's really playing in this space of caricature and spectacle, but also like really

sexy and really alluring. And I think if you are a Parisian who is encountering her for the first time, she creates a lot of tension in terms of how you're supposed to feel about Black bodies, about Black culture. It's that weird thing of like you are manipulating this thing, but at the same time, a manipulation of a certain gaze implies

being disempowered within that thing. Sometimes you suspect it's for the wrong reasons, and you're kind of like, well, you know, they're paying me to do this thing, and within this thing, I can come alive a little bit more. We're here in the UK, and as a Black performer, I feel similar things today. You know, it's not quite as intense as that, but it is still the kind of like, why do you like this thing?

Are you laughing too hard at this for the right or wrong reason? Yeah, and I think you see a lot of that around the kind of construction of the bandana skirt. It debuts in 1926 at the Folies Bourgères. I'm not doing my French. You did fine, don't worry. But, right, there's a lot of conversation.

There's myths around, did she create this? Was this created for her? From what I understand, she's an active participant in the construction of this banana skirt and it really sets off this kind of craze of women are buying almond oil to darken their skin to look like her.

All these orange people walking around Paris like, did I do it? Absolutely. Absolutely. She used egg whites to slick her hair down. So you see a lot of women trying to get that kind of closely coiffed look that she was so known for. She's cute until the flies come around. I'm a historian of celebrity and I look at her as a really interesting case study from the 20s because she's one of the best paid performers in the world. She's earning big money. She becomes a fashion icon in France.

She's known as the Black Venus, which is an eroticized but also racialized epithet. You know, Venus is the goddess of love, brackets, sex. And the fact that black is in the title is, you know, it's there for a reason. She's not just the Venus. She's the Black Venus. I mean, it's there for a reason. She's not just the Venus. She's the black Venus. I mean, let's be honest. Venus was obviously blonde. There's this publicity stunt in 1927.

She claims to have married a count, a guy called Giuseppe Pepito Abattini. Story goes that he's a count, he's aristocracy, he's proper money. Are there Italian counts? In my mind, they're all just Romanian. They're all vampire. I think it's Sesame Street, and that's? In my mind, they're all just Romanian. They're all vampire. I think it's Sesame Street, and that's why in my mind. He was a sort of stonemason bricklayer. He kind of came to her and went, let me be your manager.

Let me be your lover. Yes. And she was like, okay. Do you want to guess how many marriages she's already had? Oh, whoa. We fast forwarded. Sorry. What the heck?

Okay. So she's already in Paris. She's now with this bricklayer. Let's say two. Two iser. Let's say two. Two is correct. You did say marriages. But if you count Albertino, three. Oh, yes.

The fake marriage, right? So it's two real marriages in this fake marriage. Wait, so wait. I'm sorry. Rewind. Who was she married to? So I call it the tale of the two Willys. Uh-huh.

Careful. Careful now. Come on. It's a family show. It's Willie Wells and Willie Baker. So she has her first marriage at 13, although it doesn't last more than a year. Soon after, she meets Willie Baker in Philadelphia.

So while she's on tour, she's 15. Like, she's been married twice. Whoa, both of these were before? Both of these were before 15. So she leaves Willie Baker when she goes to New York. Okay. So in Paris, she is Josephine Baker. Right.

Because she's still married technically, or at least carrying on having that surname from her second husband. And in 1927, she does have this fake stage marriage with Pepito or Giuseppe Albertino.

And everyone's like, oh, wow, cool, amazing, great, celebrity wedding. It's a celebrity marrying aristocracy. And the newspapers cover it and everyone's excited.

And then a few months later, they're like, hang on, this guy doesn't seem legit. Even then, the newspapers didn't do their fact checking today no one's like she's marrying a count it's official no one looked but there was love there and and he is her manager as well yeah so her manager for quite some time yeah a good decade probably yes and is fiercely devoted to her loves her very much and she she's selling big, big ticket sales, making a lot of money. What is she spending it on?

She's spending it on opulence, being dressed by all the finest people. She might have bought Marie Antoinette's bed. Like you do? She definitely bought lots. On eBay, just Googling, like, oh, yeah, I'm going to buy that. Going to buy that bed. She buys a hotel. Okay, cool.

So she's investing in property. Investing, yeah. Yeah. She spends most bed. She buys a hotel. Okay. Yeah. Cool. So she's investing in property. Investing, yeah. Yeah. She spends most of her money on a menagerie of animals, and they all wear diamonds. Yes! Desiree, do you want to guess? Oh my God, yes. Do you want to guess what animals are in her menagerie?

I feel like there's probably some kind of big cat, like a leopard, a jaguar, something with like a diamond on it. Ding, ding, ding. Right. Yeah, big cat is spot on. It's jaguar, something with like diamond on it. Ding, ding, ding. Right. Big cat is spot on. It's Chiquita, isn't it? Yes. A cheetah named Chiquita.

Uh-huh. Of course. Who wears a diamond collar. Yep. Was known to jump into the orchestra while Josephine Baker is performing. Is there going to be some kind of small primate, like an organ grinder monkey or some other kind of chimpanzee or something? There are monkeys.

Okay. There is also a chimpanzee called Ethel. Nice. Again, diamonds. Of course. There's Toot Toot the goat. There's a horse called Tomato. Yes.

There's a friendly snake called Kiki. There's a tortoise. I want all of these things. And there's a parakeet. Yep. I'm on board. One more pet, Desiree, for you to guess. There was a pig.

His name was? Fred. Fred's nice. Yeah. Fred the pig. Or like probably alliterative like Peter you know or something she went with Albert

or rather probably Albert oh there you go of course she's in Paris why not give him a French name I would be Thierry oh that's nice

that's nice how about the pig who wore perfume oh well of course he's a French pig you're not gonna not perfume him he's gonna wear cologne

isn't he I mean absolutely Albert wearing I'm just wearing a bit of dior what is that scent albert oh it's uh it's un peu de aftershave so she's a superstar dancer and performer she's also a brilliant singer by the 1930s she really transitions into singing and she works with voice coaches and she records a song, like, translates to I Have Two Lovers about her love for Paris and the United States, which becomes, I think, this really big theme in her life.

She also does a lot of movies. She pens her first memoir at 20. Wow. She writes three herself. Wow. I mean, I guess that makes sense. At 20, she's accurately, like, you know, lived a life. A lot of people write an autobiography at 20.

Already on the third husband. Already, you know, lived in two different countries. Why not? Husband number three, I mean, technically probably number four, comes in 1937 because Count Pepito, he dies. Oh. I mean, true love ends in a sad way, you know. So her third husband, because she's getting through them relatively fast, is called Jean Lyon. He's French, with a very French name, Jean Lyon. John Lyon. It's less good in French.

She marries him. And then something really important and tragic happens, which is France is invaded by the Nazis. Yes. And Michelle, this is a point where her career really changes because she goes all in. She joins the French resistance. Yes.

So some accounts say that she was actually trained to be a French resistant fighter under the sewers of Paris. She uses her diva status to travel Europe and to infiltrate all of these places. She's really targeting diplomats and military officials. And her job is to flirt with them and to get them to divulge important information. There are some accounts that say that she was actually trained to shoot guns under the parasoos. So she kind of became a spy. She totally becomes a spy. Literally becomes a spy.

And so she has a member of the French resistance who tours with her posing as her band manager. And she writes messages in invisible ink on her sheet music, sometimes attached to her underwear or under her arms or as part of her dress. And she goes through checkpoints. And one of the things she would say is, who would dare strip search Josephine Baker? Yeah. She also does things like she uses her private plane to deliver supplies. She works at the air ambulance.

She's really committed to the cause. She's in the French Air Force. And it's amazing because she's one of the most famous people in the world. Yeah. And yet she's a spy. It's sort of a James Bond problem. It's like the name's Baker, Josephine Baker. So she has served in the French resistance. She has charmed France. She is one of the biggest stars in the world. She's made money. She's got amazing pets. Already iconic heroine of

the 20th century. But that's not the end of the story. Once the Nazis are defeated, once France is liberated, she goes back to America. She goes back to America because she really wants the Americans to see her in the same way and love her in the same way

that the Parisians did. It doesn't quite go that way. She really is committed to leveraging her celebrity to fight racism. So she makes it part of her contract that she will not play venues

that segregate. Yes. And she sticks to this. So there's one instance where she finds out that black patrons had been denied. And so she just sits down. She's like, I'm not going to take the stage. She is reported to have been denied over 39 establishments.

And we're not just talking in the South. We're talking places like Las Vegas and New York who will not allow her to either enter through the entrance that she would like or accept her at all because of the color of her skin so that was a really big visceral moment for her having achieved all that she did in the war and all of this acclaim in France to kind of have this experience in the United States. Yeah because in France she's literally a war hero she's given a medal in 1946 she later joins the Legion d'Honneur the highest award you can be given in France. So not only is she a celebrity superstar, she's also just a hero. She gets back to America and she can't even see, I mean, there's a famous story at the Stork Club in 1951.

Yes, so the Stork Club is one of the premier supper clubs in New York. And so she dines there with a group of friends in 1951. And she begins to notice that while the other patrons are still being served, service to her table ceases. A very classy move she makes here. So she makes two phone calls, one to Walter White, who is her lawyer, but also the field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. So Walter White, a big name in African-American history. She also calls the chief of police and says, I am being discriminated against. So eventually this makes it back to

the waitstaff who bring her her steak. And she says, no, thank you. It's too little, too late. Right. And it... Give it to the cat. Chiquita can have it. So the NAACP pickets the supper club, which really takes a hit in its reputation. She gets in a war of words with this journalist, Walter Winchell, who accuses her of being a communist, right, which is one of the ways in which you tone police African-Americans. Yeah. As a result, the FBI put her on a watch list. They do. Oh, my goodness. Yes. And for at least a decade, she loses her U.S. citizenship.

So she can't come back to the U.S. after this all kind of blows up. And I think what's interesting here, we think about Paul Robeson. We think about W.E.b. du bois as men who face this particular type of surveillance martin luther king malcolm x yeah but josephine baker also yeah was a high enough priority for the fbi they called her a troublemaker so she goes back to europe she goes on a speaking tour yeah talking about anti-racism all over europe and it's where she first gets this idea that she wants to be part of an experiment to really change the way in which the world thought about race and thought about humanity and getting to see past color. I mean,

she's really beginning to articulate this kind of like post-racial kind of utopia. And also she's sort of being pulled into the Cold War as well. It's not just civil rights. She tours South America. She knows Eva Peron and Juan Peron. She knows Evita. She knows Madonna. Yeah. Guysica she knows ava perron and juan perron she knows evita okay she knows madonna yeah guys she knows madonna and also fidel castro knows who she is i mean she goes to cuba she goes to haiti yes she's political very political and very much part of that cold war global push for emancipation so i think all told 471 pages of files kept on Josephine Baker by the FBI.

Yeah, well once you're called a communist in that era you're on that watch list for life. And also if you're hanging out with Fidel Castro

that will happen. We're going to add that into the file. If it comes up. So she's allowed back into the USA in 63 because Bobby Kennedy

brother of the president is attorney general and by that point he's like no you can come back. It's okay now. Like, guys, she's hot. Instead of bring her home.

But she comes back for a very auspicious occasion. Yeah. So Josephine Baker is one of two women to speak at the march on Washington. But what makes Baker's speech really important is that she's the only one to give a speech. And she takes the stage right before MLK. And she's in her french military uniform that's incredible you never get to pan out from that clip to be like here was the whole day so she gets married a fourth time to another frenchman

called joe bouillon her third husband had been jean lion whatever happened to him they divorced you know it doesn't work out he has very very little personality, apparently. Okay, cool. Desiree, have you heard of Josephine Baker's Rainbow Tribe? No. This is her trying to be mum to the world. It's quite an interesting thing that we might feel a little uncomfortable with, maybe. I don't know. She first articulates this vision that she wants to be mother of the world, and she wants to have five sons of different nationalities.

And so she kind of sets off to kind of get these first five sons, which is how she... It's the first five. I got to get... She's forming the A-team. But I mean, is she adopting sons or she's like, we got to knock these babies out quick,

quick, quick, quick. So actually they're on tour and she thinks she's pregnant and she has a miscarriage. And it's the aftermath of that that she really sets out on adoption. When it's all said and done, she has 12 children.

They're just hanging out with the tiger and the monkey and the tortoise. Together, she raises them on this estate that has 39 rooms, this castle, 100 staff. In addition to the chateau, it has a motel, a bakery, cafes, a jazz club, a miniature golf course, and a wax museum. At what point is your house so big that you're like, I need to stop for a coffee? We've only gotten to the first of 12 bathrooms. I can't. Like, what? But she sort of opens it to the public,

doesn't she? She does. This is sort of a racial theme park. Right. So she opens it to the public, to tourists, to see her children just coexisting in this interracial paradise.

The children have really spoken about how much they resented this. Of course. Just because you want to be looked at doesn't mean we do. Right. She didn't have any one of Jewish background, any of her kids. So, like, she adopts a French kid and, like, renames him Moze. Nope.

Because she can't get a child from Israel. Nope. So she dressed the children in strong national ethnic and religious garb. So it's like it's a small world ride. Yeah. It's happening right now. She opens this in 1949, I think. By 1969, she's pretty much bankrupt.

In her 60s, she's run out of money. Damn it. What about the hotel? Well, she's had to sell that, I guess. Damn it. She's turfed out of her theme park and she puts in a call to her old friend, Fidel Castro. Yeah. And he sends a gift.

Do you want to guess what the gift is? Could the gift be a house in Cuba that I can go live in right now? No, it's a box of Cuban fruit. It's not so... At least send the cigars, Fidel. Jeez. But she does have a celebrity friend who does sort her out. Princess of Monaco.

Oh, yeah. Grace Kelly. Yeah, Grace. Okay. They'd met in New York in the 50s. She, along with a couple other celebrities, raised the funds to allow Josephine to kind of have this big review. And it's called Josephine a Babino,

and it premieres in 1975 in Paris. How old is she now? She's had over 50 years in the business. And she was born in 1906? Yeah. Whoa. So she's 70 years old basically doing this. Almost, yeah, 68.

And she's still rocking it. Grace gives her a house, which is nice. And she has this big event that's so popular. You have people like Princess Grace, Sophia Loren, Mick Jagger, Diana Ross, Liza Minnelli, who are all in the audience kind of watching this triumphant return for her. And she dies almost immediately afterwards. No!

Spur. No. Did she dance her whole heart out on that stage? She dies surrounded by her reviews. Her rave reviews. Yeah, her reviews. They find her just unconscious, surrounded by the newspaper reviews of that night, four days after her performance. I mean, if you've got to go. Yeah. Big spectacular farewell. That's a showbiz life and death, though, right there.

Of course. It's an incredible legacy. The Nuance Window! And that leads us in, I suppose, to The Nuance Window, where we are going to evaluate what she contributed to the 20th century. Michelle, take it away. Yes, so I think that Josephine Baker, an amazing life, an amazing person, but she presents all these interesting questions around respectability, around sexuality. I think what's important to remember about her, at a time when she was really pushing for new boundaries on sexual expression, many of her contemporaries who are African-American were pushing for a type of respectability.

So the way in which she's challenging these boundaries of thinking about new opportunities for African-American women, for women in general, we should really hold on to that. We should really think about that. Because oftentimes I think we want our heroes to be perfect. We want them to be unproblematic. think about that. Because oftentimes, I think we want our heroes to be perfect. We want them to be unproblematic. I think that Josephine Baker really provides us an opportunity to think about, for better or worse, the emancipatory potential in being problematic. And I think that that's a wonderful thing for not just African-American women, but for women writ large. Thank you so much. That's amazing. The emancipatory power of being problematic is like the name of everything.

That's so great. God, she's amazing. Well, it's been a fantastic conversation and we have to leave it there, unfortunately. If you've enjoyed today's podcast, please do share it with your friends or leave a review online and make sure to subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sound so you never miss an episode. Plus, of course, the podcast episodes are longer so you get more fun. But for now, let me say a huge thank you to our fantastic guests. In History Corner, the marvellous Dr Michelle Crestfield from the University of Birmingham, and in Comedy Corner, the wonderful Desiree Birch. And to you, dear listeners, join me next time as I tempt two more fabulous guests onto the dance floor of history for another historical hot step. But for now,

I'm off to stitch some bananas into my underpants and do the Charleston around the studio. Thanks very much. Bye. Hello, Louis Theroux here. And I just wanted to hijack this podcast to tell you that I'm back with another series of my podcast, Grounded with Louis Theroux. In case you hadn't noticed, COVID hasn't gone away and because of travel restrictions, neither have I. So I've rounded up the likes of Michaela Cole, Frankie Boyle, Oliver Stone, Sia

and FKA Twigs for another set of eclectic and thought provoking conversations. Yes, I'm still grounded with me, Louis Theroux. Available on BBC Sounds.