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Factual: History

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

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The Essay Podcast

The Essay

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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 5

Couples

Episode 5

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Writer Frederic Raphael discusses public couples.

Writer Frederic Raphael discusses public couples - kings and queens, political couples, Hollywood and society pairings. Including Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

Oscar-winning writer Frederic Raphael reads a new essay about public couples.

Beginning with royal couples as the first public couples Frederic explores those very public pairings including Victoria and Albert and Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh. He looks at how Byron became one of the first celebrities to exploit his relationships with women for fame and at the great political "couple" William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli.

He also looks at couples in Hollywood such as Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and alternative society public couples such as Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre.

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

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