Documentaries

Factual: History

Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Couples

The Essay: Couples: Episode 3

Couples

Episode 3

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Couples, Episode 3Close menu

Frederic Raphael focuses on some of literature's most famous couples.

Writer Frederic Raphael focuses on some of literature's most famous couples, from Ovid to W Somerset Maugham and Ernest Hemingway.

Oscar-winning writer Frederic Raphael reads a new essay looking at some of literature's most famous couples. 

He looks at Ovid as the first writer to make adultery his overt theme, and Somerset Maugham's satire of the marriages of Thomas Hardy in his novel Cakes and Ale. 

Frederic explores how writers including Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway have interpreted couples, real and imagined, as well as looking at their own marriages and affairs - both failed and successful.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Frederic Raphael explores the theme of couples throughout culture and society

Oscar-winning writer Frederic Raphael explores the theme of couples throughout history, literature, classical civilisation, culture and politics

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Essay

Couples

Episode 3

Genres

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3