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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

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Start the Week: Epic quests and Greek myths

01/07/2019

Epic quests and Greek myths

BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, Epic quests and Greek myths

Stephen Fry, Alison Balsom, David Hare and Lucy Hughes-Hallett with Tom Sutcliffe

Stephen Fry, Alison Balsom, David Hare and Lucy Hughes-Hallett discuss egotism, Greek myth and baroque music with Tom Sutcliffe

The playwright David Hare is adapting Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, an epic story of vanity and egotism. He tells Tom Sutcliffe his radical new working keeps the mountain of trolls but becomes a contemporary reflection of toxic masculinity in the age of the selfie. 

The writer Lucy Hughes-Hallett reincarnates ancient myths and folklore in her collection of short stories, Fabulous. Old tales from Orpheus to Mary Magdalen and Psyche, find new homes in the lives of a people-trafficking gangmaster and a well-behaved librarian.

The great story-teller Stephen Fry breathes fresh life into the Greek myths as he prepares to embark on his first UK tour for forty years. From the creation of the Cosmos and the feuding of the Gods, to the extraordinary battles and epic journeys of the heroes, these tales still echo for audiences today.  

Alison Balsom is a world-renowned trumpeter who moves seamlessly through different periods of music in her curation of this year’s Cheltenham Music Festival. She explains her deep passion for the world of baroque music and the excitement of playing a new piece for the very first time, as she prepares for the premiere of Thea Musgrave’s Trumpet Concerto. 

Producer: Katy Hickman

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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