You are about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about what goes into making one.

I'm Sadata Sese, an assistant commissioner of podcasts for BBC Sounds.

I pull a lot of levers to support a diverse range of podcasts on all sorts of subjects,

relationships, identity, comedy, even one that mixes poetry, music and inner city life.

So one day I'll be helping host develop their ideas, the next fact-checking, a feature,

and the next looking at how a podcast connects with its audience, and maybe that's you.

So if you like this podcast, check out some others on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.

Today, we're on an epic journey in ancient Greece

as we immerse ourselves in the world created by the English writer

Mary Renaud. Born in 1905, Renaud worked as a nurse before she began writing romance novels,

but she really made her name with historical fiction set in the ancient world.

Novels like The Chariateer and perhaps her most well-known series, The Alexander Trilogy.

It was these books that also secured her place in the gay literary canon,

with their nuanced depictions of queer love that were way ahead of their time.

Her classical world was a cultural golden age, and her books turned myths

written with drama, cruelty,

sex and death into compelling human stories.

Today, we're going to be zooming in on one of these myths made real, her 1958 novel,

The King Must Die, a reimagining of Theseus and the Minotaur.

Here's Mary Renaud explaining just what drew her in.

The thing that really gets one is what was it actually like, what were these people actually

...