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.

Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.

Hello, tonight let's frame our thoughts a little and find out whether what surrounds a work of art can be as

interesting or even more so than what's contained within it as an exhibition of some rather

fine frames opens at the National Gallery in London. We encounter some strong women from the

literary salons of the 19th century in a new book by Patricia Dunker featuring George Eliot

and the ancient world as the classical scholar Adrian Meyer explores the hidden lives of Amazon women.

And I've been talking to Dame Harriet Walter and her husband, Guy Paul,

due to appear together on stage in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman at the RSC

about the process of collaboration with a real-life partner.

If we did argue it was more to do with, you cut me off on that line,

or you're trying to hurry that bit.

And it's more the sort of normal things you might want to say to another act,

but not dare to say to another actor, whereas if it's your husband, you sort of can.

More from Harriet Walter and Guy Paul later. Fagner's Opera de Fleigende Hollander, a performance of which commands almost seven pages of Patricia Duncanke's new novel, Sophie and the Sybil, set in the last years of the life of George Eliot.

Elliot's standing as one of the great radical writers of 19th century England is well established. The impact of her visits to Germany in the 1850s and again in 1872

are less well explored. Dunker's story begins with Elliot's Second Stay and its influence on her

work thereafter. It spins a tale of intrigue and interpretation out of her relationship with her

German publishers, the Dunker brothers. One of them, Max, is sent to

Homborg, to meet a celebrity English author, Sybil, a cipher for Elliot. But Sybil has

competition in the form of Sophie, an Amazon of 19th century high society. Weaving these tales of

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