50. Swindling Superpowers
Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley
BBC
4.7 • 908 Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the final episode of season two of Lady Swindlers, Lucy Worsley and her partner in crime, Professor Rosalind Crone, are joined by novelist and game designer Naomi Alderman, author of the award-winning book, The Power.
Together they explore one curious question - did our Lady Swindlers have superpowers?
From the strength and agility of Minnie Pheby, the Lady Burglar, to the psychic abilities of the Fox Sisters, these women used their talents to surprise, deceive and outwit the men around them. Whether they were slipping through windows, conducting séances, spiking drinks, or stealing museum masterpieces, each Lady Swindler flipped expectations on their head.
Lucy, Rosalind, and Naomi also take on big questions about women and power. Is crime a form of resistance? Do we romanticise female criminals? And what would a truly equal society actually look like?
Diving into the themes of The Power, they explore how stories and swindles expose the deeper gender dynamics of then and now. Featuring a lady burglar, spirit mediums, a hocusser, a drink-spiker, and a French art thief on the run, this finale asks what these women’s crimes reveal about the nature of power and women's lives.
Producer: Riham Moussa Readers: Clare Corbett, Lauren Leko, Jonathan Keeble, and Alex Phelps Historical Consultant: Rosalind Crone Executive Producer: Kirsty Hunter
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I'm Mariana Spring, the BBC's social media investigations correspondent. |
| 0:06.0 | In my podcast, I've been investigating what happened to the daughter of a conspiracy theorist who died having rejected chemotherapy. |
| 0:13.0 | It would mean the world to me if I could make it that she wasn't just another in the long line of people that die in this way. |
| 0:19.0 | How does this reflect the rise of health conspiracy theories on social media and beyond? |
| 0:24.8 | The new series of Mariana in Conspiracy Land, listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:31.1 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:37.7 | Welcome to Lady Swindlers with me, Lucy Worsley, where true crime meets history with a twist. |
| 0:51.4 | Join me and my all-female team of detectives as we travel back in time to revisit the audacious crimes of women trying to make it in a world made for men. |
| 1:04.3 | We ask, what do their crimes and the times they lived in tell us about women's lives today. |
| 1:12.1 | Before we begin, the cases we're going to discuss are covered in previous episodes of Ladies Swindlers. |
| 1:17.3 | So if you've not listened already, there are spoilers ahead. |
| 1:21.7 | Our Lady Swindlers seem to take the world by surprise every single time. |
| 1:28.0 | A woman charged with burglary all by herself. |
| 1:32.4 | They never see it coming. |
| 1:34.4 | If I'm a married man, it's the first I've heard of it. |
| 1:38.0 | They scramble for an explanation. |
| 1:42.1 | The judge says, and I quote, |
| 1:45.0 | I leave it to you the jury to say |
| 1:46.7 | whether she acted under the control |
| 1:48.9 | and coercion of her husband. |
| 1:51.4 | They can't believe there isn't a man behind it all. |
| 1:54.7 | No man with her to instruct her. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.