Marco Polo (Radio Edit)

You're Dead to Me

BBC

Comedy, History

4.7 • 10.9K Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Greg Jenner is joined in 13th-Century Venice by Professor Sharon Kinoshita and comedian Ria Lina to learn all about medieval traveller Marco Polo and his adventures in China.

Born into a family of merchants, in 1271 a teenage Marco set out for the court of the Mongol emperor Qubilai Khan with his father and uncle. They would not return to Italy for nearly a quarter of a century. In the service of the emperor, the Polos saw all manner of extraordinary things – including the Mongols' amazing imperial postal service and diamond-hunting eagles in India.

Imprisoned by the Genoese on his eventual return, Polo spent his time in prison writing his Description of the World with the Arthurian romance author Rustichello, a travelogue describing his exploits in the East and the wonders he had seen. This episode explores Polo’s extraordinary life, the decades he spent travelling in China and beyond, and the fascinating account he wrote on his return.

This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.

Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Hannah Cusworth Written by: Hannah Cusworth, Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Ben Hollands Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: Philip Sellars

Transcript

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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?
0:24.9	The new series of Mariana in Conspiracy Land.
0:27.9	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:31.1	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.
0:36.5	Hello, and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously.
0:41.7	My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are
0:45.9	packing our trunk and boarding a ship to 13th century China to learn all about medieval
0:50.5	traveller Marco Polo. And to help us on our way, we have two very special travelling companions. In History Corner, she's Distinguished Professor of Literature at the University of California Santa Cruz. Her research focuses on the intercultural relations of 12th and 13th century Asia and Europe, and in literature particularly, and luckily for us, she's the most recent translator of Marco Polo's book, as well as the author of Marco Polo and his world. It's Professor Sharon Kineshita. Welcome, Sharon. Thanks, Greg. I'm delighted to be here. We're delighted to have you here. And in Comedy Corner, she's a comedian, actor and writer. You might have seen her on loads of things on TV, including live at the Apollo, QI, Point, having the news for you. Maybe you've seen her stand-up tour, Re- Awakening, or heard her on Radio 4's news quiz or The Now Show, and you will definitely remember her from our episode on Pirate Queen, Chung-I-Sao. It's Ria. Welcome back to the show Ria. Thank you so much. It's great to be here. It's delighted to have you back.
1:43.6	Now, Ria, you are, I think, officially the most educated, therefore most hyper-intelligent comedian we've ever had on. You have a PhD. I do have a PhD, but I don't know that that makes me the most. You're most educated, perhaps, but... Okay. All right. The only one that didn't have an ADHD enough to be able to finish three degrees.
1:47.0	So is Marco Polo a familiar name?
2:00.8	Very familiar. All right. The only one that didn't have an ADHD enough to be able to finish three degrees.
2:04.1	So is Marco Polo a familiar name?
2:09.0	Very familiar name to me because I used to play it all the time at school.
2:09.5	Okay.
2:10.8	Or in swimming.
2:11.7	Talk us through the rules.
2:18.0	The rule is that you put on a blindfold and then everyone else that you're playing with has to avoid being tagged by you.
2:19.3	But you get clues.
2:25.4	And what you do is you say Marco and everyone has to say Polo when you say Marco so that you can get an idea of where they are.
	...

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