Great Lives

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BBC Radio 4 FM

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Factual: Life Stories

Biographical series in which guests choose someone who has inspired their lives.

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Great Lives: Jeanne Baret, first woman to sail round the globe

Jeanne Baret, first woman to sail round the globe

BBC Radio 4 - Great Lives, Jeanne Baret, first woman to sail round the globe

Nina Sosanya picks Jeanne Baret, first woman round the globe.

The first woman who sailed round the globe did so dressed as a man. Nina Sosanya chooses an extraordinary great life.

It all began with a small portrait in the Greenwich museum - of a sexless looking character in wide stripey trousers. Actor Nina Sosanya says she was immediately intrigued. Who was this? Why was she here? And did she really sail round the world dressed as a man?  
She discovered that Jeanne Baret was a poor but ingenious French woman who joined Louis Antoine de Bougainville's circumnavigation in 1763.  She was dressed as a man because women were not allowed on board. But this was only the beginning of a crazy, often terrifying ordeal.
Joining Nina Sosanya is Glynis Ridley, author of the Discovery of Jeanne Baret. Together they piece together this adventurer's life, from her birth in rural France to her passage round the globe, abandoned on Mauritius and getting back home seven years after everyone else. 

Nina Sosanya has starred in Staged, Killing Eve and W1A, often playing extremely likable characters who keep their head while everyone else goes down in flames.

The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde

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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Great Lives

Jeanne Baret, first woman to sail round the globe

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