Virgil

Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics

Natalie Haynes, critic, writer and reformed stand-up comedian, brings the ancient world entertainingly up to date.

In each episode, she profiles a figure from ancient Greece or Rome and creates a stand-up routine around them. She then goes in search of the links which make the ancient world still very relevant in the 21st century. For starters, Natalie considers the work of the Roman poet Virgil, ranging from his hints on bee-keeping to his great work The Aeneid.

Dido is the classic wronged woman and the Aeneid contains the best ding-dong between a man and a woman in all Latin literature, culminating in Dido’s memorable promise “If you go I’m going to kill myself and then I will pursue you from beyond death with black fires!”

With Pamela Helen Stephen who's sung Dido in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, bee-keeper Gordon Cutting and Dr Llewelyn Morgan who talks about the greatest poet in the Roman world. Producer: Christine Hall.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2014.