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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

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: Wisdom from fictional females

The Essay: Wisdom from fictional females: Episode 2: Bettany Hughes on Helen of Troy

Episode 2

Episode 2: Bettany Hughes on Helen of Troy

Wisdom from fictional females

Bettany Hughes on Helen of Troy

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Bettany Hughes on her favourite female from literature. Recorded at the Hay Festival 2018.

Historian Bettany Hughes chooses Helen of Tory as her favourite female literary character - extracting the lessons we all could learn from her. Recorded at the Hay Festival 2018.

Recorded at this week's Hay Festival 2018, Bettany Hughes introduces us to her favourite female character in literature - Helen of Troy; a character written about in fiction for millennia - and extracts the lessons we could all learn from her.

Bettany is an historian, author and broadcaster, with her speciality in classical history. She has written a number of books including, most recently, 'Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities' and has presented for BBC Radio 3 for the Sunday Feature strand - 'Tracking the Aryans' and 'Caucasian Roots', and for BBC Radio 4 in for a 3-part series 'Amongst the Medici' in 2006.

In this series of The Essay, five female writers offer a personal guide to favourite and well-known female fictional characters - extracting the lessons we could all learn from them.

The writers in this series include broadcaster Afua Hirsch, poets Fiona Sampson and Mab Jones and award-winning novelist Francesca Rhydderch.

With Lunchtime Concert, In Tune, Free Thinking, The Verb and The Listening Service all broadcasting from the festival, The Essay is part of Hay Week at BBC Radio 3.

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.

Series in which five women writers discuss a favourite female character from fiction.

Series in which five women writers each choose a favourite female character from fiction and discuss the lessons we can learn from them.

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Episode 2: Bettany Hughes on Helen of Troy

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