Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that at some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.

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Hello, tonight we're live from our pop-up studio here at London's South Bank Centre.

With its transparent walls, this is definitely a room with a view, which is just as well,

as tonight we're on the trail of none other than the novelist and critic, E.M. Forster.

I'm quite sure I am not a great novelist, because I've only got down onto paper, really, three types of people.

The person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I'd like to be.

When you get to the really great people, like Tolstoy,

you'll find they can get hold of all types.

E.M. Forster, talking rather modestly about his place in literary history back in 1958.

Well, tonight we're taking the P&O steamer on A Passage to India

as we revisit Forster's greatest novel.

And sharing cocktails at the captain's table with me

will be the writer Tarakali and the literary critic Alex Clark.

A passage to India is set in the early 1920s,

and it was inspired by Forster's own experiences in India,

where he served as private secretary to a Maharaja.

The plot centres on the friendship between English schoolteacher Fielding and Indian Dr. Aziz

and the way that relations between the British and Indian communities are torn apart

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