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. This is a download from the BBC. For more information and our terms of use, go to BBC.co.uk slash radio three.

From Donizetti to Shakespeare, Anne Berlin has been one of those figures irresistible to the mind of the creative artist.

Rarely in history can being beheaded have been such a great career move.

But surely one of her most compelling manifestations comes from the pen of Philippa Gregory.

Philippa's novel, The Other Balin Girl, tells the story of Anne Bole Berlin's rise and fall through the eyes of her

sister Mary. It shot up the bestseller list on its publication a decade ago and then became a

movie starring Scarlett Johansson. But the Berlin drama is just one of the many tales woven

by a queen of historical fiction whose throne is rather more secure than that of some of her heroines.

Her Tudor Court series of six books has been joined in recent years by the historical prequel,

The Cousins War, the story of the Plantagenets. And the latest in the series is The Kingmaker's

daughter. Overall, her novels have sold over 10 million copies worldwide, and BBC television is making a new series based on the Cousins War to be broadcast next year.

Today, in conversation here at the Sage Gateshead, in association with New Writing North,

we'll tackle history, fiction, and the way that they come together.

Would you please welcome our guest, Philippa Gregory.

Philippa, last year on Radio 3's Nightwaves,

we debated V.S. Nypal's statement that women's writing was overly sentimental.

And I have to say, defending that position was a male novelist,

I won't name him here, who argued that he regarded Jane Austen as being less of a writer

than, say, Dickens, because of her small and narrow focus. What do you make of that sort of

comment? Well, it's part of a long tradition of patronising women writers,

which is part of a long tradition of patriarchy, which is patronising women.

So since I am a survivor of this long tradition,

...