You're Dead to Me - Renaissance Beauty (Radio Edit)

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

Greg Jenner is joined in 16th-century Italy by historian Professor Jill Burke and comedian Tatty Macleod to learn all about Renaissance beauty standards and treatments.Early modern Italy is renowned for the gorgeous artworks created by painters like Titian, Rubens and Botticelli, many of them featuring beautiful women looking at themselves in mirrors or getting made up for a night out. In this episode, we take you through a Renaissance Get Ready With Me as we explore how these women would have been taking care of their hair and skin. We look at what hairstyles and makeup men and women wore, how often they bathed, whether or not they removed their body hair, and how they shaped their bodies through dieting and underwear. Along the way, we dive into the recipes for popular cosmetics and skincare treatments, ask where Renaissance beauty standards came from, and uncover the sexist, racist and classist ideas that often underpinned them. But we also explore how their beauty routines could be an avenue for women’s self-expression, and show the importance of the history of beauty, even amidst the turbulent politics and warfare of the early modern period.This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Emma Bentley Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Gill Huggett Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: Philip Sellars

Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are plucking our brows and caking our faces with lead, as we learn all about the history of beauty in Renaissance Italy. And to help us with our makeover, we have two very special visitors to the Yordedemes Salon. In History Corner, she's Professor of Renaissance Visual and Material Cultures at the University of Edinburgh, where her research focuses on how human bodies were thought about and modified during the Renaissance. You might have read her wonderful book, How to Be a Renaissance Woman, the Untold History of Beauty and Female Creativity.

It's Professor Jill Burke. Welcome, Jill. Hello. It's lovely to be here. And in Comedy Corner, she's a bilingual comedian and social media star based in Paris. Maybe you saw her debut sell-out stand-up tour, Fug, or have seen one of her many hilarious TikToks and Instagram reels about the differences between French and British culture. It's Tati McLeod. Welcome to the show, Tattie. Thank you very much for having me.

Excited to be here. Delighted to have you here. First time on the show. Is it indeed. And I suppose the obvious question. Do you like history? Do I like history? Yeah, right.

I mean, we've all got one. Great. Depend to you asking. In what context. Relationship history. I was going to say. I was going to say. I'm interested.

I'm curious. I'm open. I'm present. Great. You're known for your Get Ready With Me videos. Do you know anything about the Renaissance era and beauty trends? No, I mean, I don't know today's beauty trends. I feel like if there's something, you know, especially when you're on social media and I'm in my mid-30s,

so I'm really not the target audience for TikTok. And I spend a lot of my time just scrolling through trying to keep up with the never-ending new brands, new products, new fandango thing that you should be buying. So if anything, I'm probably closer to Renaissance history. than I am to current makeup trends. So, what do you know? That brings us to the first segment of the podcast. So what do you know? This is where I guess what you, our lovely listener,

might know about today's subject. Maybe you've seen famous Titian paintings of lovely Renaissance ladies gazing ardently at themselves in the mirror or putting on their makeup. You might have heard of Queen Elizabeth but the first painting her face with white lead. I mean, who can forget Margot Robbie's look in the Merry Queen of Scots movie?

Barbie would never. But how did women and men really get ready in the Renaissance? What makeup looks were trending and why was arsenic a vital part of the beauty regime? Let's find out, Professor Jill. Let's start with the beauty basics, a primer on primer, if you will. When was the Renaissance period, like technically? Because it overlaps in the medieval period in a very confusing way. How would you define it?

It is a little bit confusing in that it's related to. the rebirth of classical antiquity, the interest in classical antiquity, which in Italy started a little bit before other places in Europe. So normally we'd say from about 1400, so 15th century in Italy, to about maybe 1650, something like that. So late middle ages and part of the early modern period. So basically the rest of Europe had to catch up. Yeah. Sort of like a fashion trend that starts somewhere. Absolutely. That's exactly. Yeah. Okay. I'm with you. I mean, you know, I'm comparing it to Carlo. And it is exactly people like Leonardo da Vinci, Boccelli, Michelangelo, all those beetles.

All the turtles who made like a massive difference in a massive change to the way that people painted and the way that people saw things and had an effect actually on the way that people understood beauty. So if you look at, say, maybe you'll be able to think of Botticelli's birth of Venus, you know, when she's... I know that one. Yes. I know that one. And she's naked, you know, rising from the waves. That has an idea of female beauty that's different from the middle ages, a different shaped body.

It's relating to classical sculpture And when people saw these paintings and prints from these paintings They decided to change their bodies to look more like the paintings So there's a change not just in art But also in the way that people understood their own bodies And other people's beauty It's a nostalgia vibe And they're going way back to the Roman era

Way back to the Roman era And they're reading and ancient Greece as well But they know more about ancient Rome And they're also reading more classical texts So people like Galen, who's one of the most important medical writers in classical times, they're rereading him. And Galen writes about cosmetics as well. Yeah. So doctors start to be really interested in cosmetics and wealthy women start to commission doctors to cure any of their beauty ailments as well.

So there's a real abundance of recipes from this period. Oh my God, it's so fascinating. The parallels of like Botox and surgery, you know, like, you can imagine it back then just being like, have you heard of doctor? Absolutely, yeah. Dr. Philopio. Phalopio, yeah. I've heard that Anne Boileyn's been speaking. Famous for his tubes.

Yes, exactly. It's incredible. It's amazing work for the rural family. Yeah. So, Philopio, who wrote about the first time about the Philopian tubes, also gave beauty tips advice. And he lectured on beauty at the University of Padua. And from then, this is a big university

where doctors from all over Europe came. And so they'd listen to Fallopeo, and then they'd go and write their own beauty books. So, yeah, there's loads of similarities. The best-selling one is Marinello's Ornament of Leisure Ladies. Ornament of ladies, yes. This was, came out in 1562, but beauty recipe book started in the 1520s. So the ornamenti de la donne, the ornament of women by a doctor, Giovanni Marinella, has about 4,000 recipes. Wow. Marinella's book tells you the ideal look at the beginning

of every chapter and then says things like, if you're hairy, you're like a wild beast, you can't blame your husband for leaving you, this kind of thing. So it's really terrible. It's funny, but at the same time, you really recognise. these tropes about beauty, about women. So there'll be recipes for things like recipes if you want to look forever 20 or 25. Sure. Are you serious?

I am serious, yeah. Because it just, I don't know if it's like funny or fascinating or worrying that nearly hundreds of years later they're thinking, yeah, well, I mean, not a huge amount has changed. Like that sounds like if you pitch that as a marketing approach to something that you were writing now,

you'd be like, yeah. But that's a real facet of Renaissance culture because there's a lot in Renaissance culture about pretending to be better than you are. Right. Well, we're structuring this episode a bit differently, Tati. We're going to do it like a Get Ready With Me video, but we're going to, you know, which means we need an Italian Renaissance couple. We need a fella and a lady. Do you want to name them for us? Who are our hot Italian couple? Oh, okay. Her name is Botticella, and then let's call him

Angelo. Angelo. Oh, very good. Boticello and Angelo. Oh, my God. Let's start their routine there. We start with hygiene. Tate. Oh, really? Yeah. What type of washing do you think they're doing? Do you think they're doing in everything shower? No, no. I'm not going to ask you that. No, because be fun of this, yeah, French, but anyway, no, you're half French. So anyway, I'm half French, but I wouldn't go that far. No, how are you imagining them getting clean? Everything showers or much more modest? I'm thinking more like a cloth and a big copper basin. Yeah, that's what I imagine. I'm probably staff washing their back next to a big fire. Let's place it in spring. That's nice for the story.

It's spring. We've got some nice dapple natural light coming through. So big copper basing, buy a fireplace, which probably isn't lit because it's warm enough. People didn't have baths generally. Some really, really, really wealthy people had running water and had running baths in their house. But they were like maybe a bit above the echelon of Botticella.

You don't know Angelo. Angelou's in me. It's a great year. But copper basin is good because you would have a copper basin to wash your hair in. Oh, well done, Tati. Thank you very much. often on a stand, you'd have obviously some servants to bring in hot water for you. Of course. You'd do it yourself, obviously. You wouldn't do it yourself.

Because you didn't have baths at home, you'd also go to the bathhouse. That might be as much as once a month. So people would wash once a month. Well, they'd wash in the bathhouse month. Yeah, but they'd wash every day. And washing often involved rubbing your body with towels. Yes. This says quite a lot of rubbing your body with towels. So a lot of head health, because they were worried that noxious vapours would build up in your head. overnight. So in the morning... That's called a hangover. Yeah. So in the morning, well, they're all drunk

probably quite a lot of the time as well. You'd comb your hair very rigorously. You'd rub your head. You'd rub your face. You'd have to blow your nose. You'd brush your teeth, probably with a little cloth or some wood. And so you'd do something like that every day. They'd often be scented waters and you'd change your

shirt. They're very, very into changing linen and having fresh white linen. A couple of times a day, right? Sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. So people would have like hundreds of shirts. Even like poorest people would have 16 or 17 undershirts. So our couple Botticella and Angelo, lovely. Okay, are they shaving? Are they waxing or are they using the depolation cream? How do you get rid of body hair in the 16th century? And more specifically, Brazilian, Hollywood, just the sides. What are we working with here? What's Bosse got going on

down there? We are working with complete baldness. Oh really? Wow. Yes. A practice associated with Islamic bathing cultures. Certainly in the Middle Ages, crusaders would return with stories of having all their body hair shaven off in the baths. Right. This is very strange.

But certainly by maybe the 13th century, you start to get recipes in southern Italy for a kind of Viet type cream to remove body hair. Oh, you don't know what's in it yet. Just wait. Yeah, Tati. Tati, you're, yeah, Vita.

Other products are available, of course. hair removal cream. I'm physically in pain. I can, I'm, I'm, I'm empathising with these women that I've never met from hundreds of years ago. I mean, Vita's bad enough now, but back then, oh God, these poor girls. Do you know what it's made of, Tattie? Go on. Quick climb, arsenic.

Oh, God. What you do is you make it into paste. Yep. And you smear it onto your body, wherever you want hair removed, as it says in the recipe. And then you leave it for the time. it takes to say the Lord's Prayer twice and then you get a maid to throw water on you so you wash it off

and it just say you should wait until it gets hot and then remove it quickly before the flesh falls off. Yeah, I mean, Quiclime is caustic. Yeah. Arsonic is a toxin. Yeah. Alam is a metal and they're all going in your secret parts. That's not good. No. I thought the next part was going to be put this on

and then eventually just die. Because that's a natural next step, isn't it? But it is fascinating, I have to say, because obviously body hair is such a political thing now. What's your choice? And I felt like, this was the first time hearing that was even a subject matter before this contemporary age. I thought it was something that was quite a new thing.

But to hear that women have been suffering from this for hundreds of years, I'm going to leave here more feminist and more angry than when I came in. My job is done. Radicalised. This body hair removal routine involving arsenic and caustic, was there something that just the women were experiencing and were men also chipping off their body? Is Angelo also whipping it all off?

There's so little evidence about men. Ah, here we go. So there's so little evidence about men and grooming. It's really hard to understand whether they remove their hair or not. There's more evidence about women, right? And I can trace that in the recipes. If you look at the sculpture of the time, like Michelangelo's David, for example, it has very trim, neat-looking pubic hair.

So there might have been some trimming involved. But I'm not sure about actual complete removal. All right, okay. I think that's unlikely. Let's talk about hair washing. So how are they keeping that clean, Jill? Well, this is where the copper basin comes in. You'd lean over a copper basin and you'd have your maid bring in some kind of scented water

or maybe some kind of shampoo, which is made with ashes. So a lie into a soap. Or they used things like Mallow. They had conditioners, things to make hair fuller bodied. And all of these, we've made some of these and they do are quite effective. But one of the issues in the period was how to dry your hair. Yes. Because once you've wet your hair, you don't have a hair dryer.

In the winter, it could take ages. It could take days to wash and dry your hair. And so, Le Quixio Borgia, who was, you know, the Pope's daughter. Yes, we did an episode in the Borgia. And the governor, Spoleto, actually, would. get really hated going to these social events that she had to go to and she'd say, I'm washing my hair. I've simply got to wash my hair. Absolutely. I love that. No, but also, look, I mean, nowadays, you know, wash day and which day do I wash? I've got to go to

the gym, if I go to the gym, don't wash before, to wash afterwards. It takes a couple of hours. Last night I slept with a hair mask on. I get it. And I actually think that is something we need to bring back. Okay, that is a completely socially acceptable reason to not turn up to an event. I can't come to work today. It's wash day. So some of those hair sort of conditioners sound quite nice. Some of them less so. My list includes bears fat, bats blood, burnt lizards, burnt mules,

crushed hedgehogs, crushed insects. So when I hear that list, I do start to understand the association between women and witches because that sounds like a potion. Let's talk about just quickly the perfect hair that you would want. Like, you know, Angelo, let's talk about later on maybe, but Botticella, what hair does she aspire to have? So in the Renaissance, it was believed that hair was a sign of your internal mixture of humours, the internal liquids that are made up your body, that determined health, determined personality. And so your hair could be a sign of what you were like inside.

And this is true for men and for women. So men's hair should be dark, ideally, and women's hair should be thick, wavy and golden. Oh. I was hoping you were going to say pink. Yes, for the record, this now. Tati has a lovely pink bob. Oh, you were calling out, but what's that style? What humour is pink bob in Renaissance Italy?

Well, they did talk about dyeing your hair red. And Marianella says, I don't know why women want to do this. They're so capricious. Capricious. Okay, I can get on that board. Okay, so Angelo and Botticella, they've got washed, they're clean, They've done their hair. Now it's on to the skincare routine.

Right. What are you imagining? Korean style 11-step beauty? I mean, to be honest, nowadays, I can't even keep up with skincare routines. I take makeup off and then I put a cream on. So I'm probably not the right reference. They might even have something more complicated than that.

Probably something like a vegetable oil. Avocado paste on the face, maybe a bit of arsenic. Because if there's no poison, there's no peril. If there's no peril, it's not really skincare routine, is it? It's not a skincare routine if you're not going to be. maybe die from it, is it? Take it away. Well, of course, you're completely right. No, they did. So they did have kind of complex routines. So you'd start at night, the night before, you'd cleanse your skin. And that could be something like bran or breadcrumbs mixed with scented water, so that

a little bit of exfoliation. And then you'd have a treatment and that would depend on what kind of skin you had. So you might include vinegar. It was quite popular if you've got greasy skin or nettle tonic, if you've got red skin, because nettle does actually stop in. inflammation or a whitener, and that would obviously include mercury and arsenic. And also snail slime was also used. Which is back in the past, right? I mean, we used to laugh at them. On horrible histories, we used to go, ha, ha, ha, snail slime.

And now it's like 300 quid for a pot. So they were ahead of their time. And you'd sleep with that on. And then in the morning, you'd wash that off. And then you'd maybe put some moisturiser on and then makeup. So pretty good, actually, in the skincare routine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, ahead of... Okay, I respect the skincare routine.

Apart from the arsenic bleaching of the skin. Yeah, sorry, but, you know, that's just, you know, part of course at this point. Was it like Victorian times where paler skin meant you were richer? You know, pale skin good, darker skin means you work in the sun, you must be a peasant. Yeah, because of course, beauty ideals have to be hard to achieve. You know, what's the point of beauty ideals that are easy to achieve? It's just take a moment to really think about that. And most women worked outside.

You know, most women were working as agricultural workers like they have done kind of throughout history. And so having palest skin was a sign of being elite and elite woman. But there was also a racialised element. You know, in the 16th century in Italy, we do have an awful lot of African enslaved people in Italy, right? Yeah. So there's a fashion amongst some of the elites like Isabella Desti, who is the marchioness of Mantua.

She says to her agent in Venice, can you get me a young black slave child as black as possible? so that she looks whiter in comparison. So this is a little girl of about four. Like an accessory. Yeah, yeah. And then around 1520, aristocratic women start to be painted in portraits

alongside black servants or slaves. It really is a contrast to make their skin look paler. My God. That's horrible. It is horrible. Okay. Let's move on to something equally horrible, a different kind of horrible,

white lead on the face. It's famous from the Elizabeth III. portraits, if you've seen the Margot Robbie movie, Merrick Queen Scott. I mean, that's bad, right? That's going to rot your face. You know, makeup historians have a problem with Margot Robbie. No, surely not. Margot is beloved. How dare you? Not Margot. I mean, we do adore Margot Robbie, but her portrayal is Elizabeth I because one of the problems with white lead is that you can't actually use it, right?

So people can't use, because we know it's poisonous. They knew it was not very good for you in the Renaissance as well. But recently there's been a project in Master University in Canada where they've got a nuclear physics lab so they can use white lead and they've put it on pigskin to see what it looks like. Right. And actually it's not that kind of thick white paste that you see

in the portraits of Elizabeth. It's actually translucent and it's light scattering. You know like light scattering foundations that you get today? Yeah. And it's a creamy color. Mineral foundation. Yes, it's not bright white or very opaque. So the idea of what Elizabeth the first looked like

is partly from the portrait. but largely from using titanium dioxide as a replacement for white lead. And it's just not a very good replacement. Oh, I see. But, you know, they had replacements for white lead even in the Renaissance. So marble dust, for example. Oh. And I brought along a marble dust foundation for you to try.

Egg white as well was used, wasn't it? Egg white, they used in a lot of different kinds of makeup and it adds a little bit of a sheen to your face. And egg white was used on the hair too, wasn't it? Yeah, I mean, they use eggs in everything. They're readily available and they're quite inexpensive. Okay. Let's talk about cosmetics and let's try some cosmetics. I think it's time now for us to turn ourselves into guinea pigs a little bit

and try some of this stuff. And by the magic of radio, I am now transformed into a Renaissance-era beauty. And just to be clear, none of the stuff we are putting on our faces today is poisonous. We've checked. Jill, what am I wearing on my face? It smells delicious. First of all, you have Renaissance rose balm, which is very delicious smelling. It's just quite normal.

It's like lip balm with beeswax. And that's actually something that I would use, actually genuinely use today. Then there's some things that you might not use. There's an anti-wrinkle cream with lamb fat. Needed, yeah. Yes, not at all. And frankincense, and which normally also contains mastic, which is another kind of tree gum. And those have been found to have vitamin E, antioxidants in, things like that.

They could actually affect wrinkles. Some of this Renaissance makeup is effective. And then you've got what is really great about your look is the foundation, which is made of marble dust because white lead is frowned upon nowadays. I wonder why. I wonder why. So it's made of violet oil and rose water, which smells nice, right? It smells good.

It's made you quite white. But you've also got beautiful rosy cheeks made with red sandalwoods, which we're hoping. we'll be able to wash off, but Mitch may stay. Yeah. No one told me the sandal would be staining the cheeks. I would run with it. It's really, it's the hero of what's happening on your face right now.

It's giving Met Gala. It's giving the Oscars. It's giving Greg in a whole different light. Thank you. If it doesn't wash off, I think you can make this work. Yeah. So what I'm getting here is that really actually women didn't have a lot of time outside of doing their hair and makeup and making the potions.

I mean, that's why you'd have all your servants, I guess. I forgot about that, yes. Of course, yes. Was there any kind of moral backlash to all this? We've heard about, you know, some of the kind of fear that women were deceiving men and what are you? But was there any kind of like haters in the comments section? You know, when we've got our Angelo and Botticello going out, are there people going like, oh, God, this is awful and disgusting and immoral and God would be ashamed.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, well, all the way through, but particularly the Kant of Reformation in Italy, comes into force in the later 16th century and in England all the way through. People are saying that cosmetics are lies, it's deceitful, that women are vain. They're spending all their money on cosmetics. Yeah, I know it's depressing. And that they're kind of changing the face that God gave them and that it's a moral.

So a lot of kind of misogyny, general misogyny is bound up in cosmetics use. really the grand area of cosmetics runs through the 16th century and then it kind of tails off as you get into the 17th century and we also have this fear that women are poisoning their husbands with their makeup right I mean this is a thing it happens it is actually true yeah it has happened yeah amazing so they trick their husbands into marrying them by using makeup and then they use the makeup to kill them I mean you sound like just like a renaissance priest I'm really on a roller over here I'm really on board with it

I'm like, how can both the, how can the tool of oppression both be the tool of empowerment? Wonderful. There we go. Feminism for the win. I'm going to lead the witches. So this is the Aquitifana murders. We're very, very notorious in the 17th century where they reckon like hundreds of men, of husbands generally were killed by women using face cream. So they put this face segment into their husband's food or drink and they'd kill them slowly over a matter of weeks.

and they set up a sting operation to find out this woman. They tricked, yeah, they sent someone along trying to buy some of the poison. And in fact, she was an agent of the Roman police in disguise. The poisoner sold her it and they kind of swooped out and arrested her. Wow. That's amazing, isn't it? The nuance window! Okay, so I think it's time for us to get to the nuance window.

This is the part of the show where Tati and I sit quietly. in front of the mirror and fix our makeup, or I try and remove mine anyway, for two minutes while Professor Jill enters the dressing room to tell us something we need to know about Renaissance beauty. My stopwatch is ready. Take it away, Jill. Okay, so stories about past cosmetic use can be delightful and they can be funny, but they mask some pretty serious history. How we look isn't governed just by our genes, but is mutable. A complex towing and throwing between external forces, such as food availability, types of work, our environment,

and the choices we make to look after and adorn our body. hair and faces. It's only recently that historians have realised that the history of cosmetic and hygiene practices is no mere amusing sidequest, but reveals much about the concerns, assumptions and prejudices of the past. Cosmetic recipes and ideas spread across cultures are shaped by trade, fashion and colonialism. Assumptions about ideal beauty are steeped in preconceptions of gender, race and class, prejudices against people typically based on their appearance alone. Cosmetics are often criticised as they thought attempts to read, in a character through external appearance.

So large-scale historical shifts play out in our bathroom mirrors and affect how we understand our own bodies in relationship to the world. The history of beauty allows us to empathise with people in distant times and places, recognise their vanities, their frailties, their hopes and their fears. In a patriarchal society like Renaissance Europe, and let's face it, most past societies, women's hope of social progress or financial well-being was typically dependent on the goodwill of men.

Looking your best was less vanity than necessity. Inventing and applying cosmetics was often associated with poorer women, people who are typically illiterate so don't turn up in historical sources, and if they do only in court records. Reconstructing cosmetic recipes has given us a rich insight into these women's ingenuity. Their cleverness in making ends meet, their understanding of what we now call science and their social networks. Compared to military history, say, are the biographies of great men.

The history of beauty gives us a window into a multiplicity of experiences and a chance to remember lives that have been frequently disparaged or dismissed. Thank you so much. Wonderful. Really interesting. Yeah. It is easy, I think, to sort of think, oh, makeup, you know, whatever.

It's really interesting. It also reminds us, and it's still a conversation we have now on social media, especially about how dismissive people can be about makeup, people doing makeup, and there's very much attitude about, oh, God, you've got nothing better to do with your time. And that actually how much of women's history is linked to that industry, sometimes not even by choice,

but how dismissing it like that doesn't allow us to hear those voices and that existence and what they were up to. So thank you for bringing it to the table. You're welcome. Thank you. And thank you for smearing it on my face. Anytime. Absolutely.

Thank you so much, Tati. Thank you so much, Professor Jill. Listener, if you want more on historical beauty standards, check out our episode on the history of high-heel shoes. It's an absolute classic back in the day. And also, we did one on hair care, entrepreneur, Madam C.J. Walker. And for more on Renaissance Italy, why not listen to our episode on The Borgias? They were absolutely wild. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please

share the show with your friends. Subscribe to Your Dead to Me on BBC Sounds to get episodes 28 days earlier than on any other app. I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guests in History Corner. We had the brilliant Professor Jill Burke from University of Edinburgh. Thank you, Jill. Thank you. And in Comedy Corner, we have the truly terrific Tattie McLeod. Thank you, Tattie. Thank you. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we rifle through the bathroom cabinet of another historical subject. But for now, I'm off to go and find enough bats to keep my curly locks looking luscious.

Please don't report me to any animal rights groups. Bye! Your Dead to Me is a BBC Studios audio production for BBC Radio 4. I used to love British history, be proud of it, Henry the 8th, Queen Victoria, massive fan of stand-up comedians, obviously Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor, that has become much more challenging, for I am the host of BBC Radio 4's Evil Genius. The show where we take heroes and villains from history

and try to work out, were they evil or genius? Do not catch up on BBC sounds by searching Evil Genius if you don't want to see your heroes destroyed. But if like me, you quite enjoy it, have a little search. Listen to Evil Genius with me, Russell Kane, go to BBC Sounds and have your world destroyed.