Natalie Haynes: Greek Myths, Medea and the Comedy of Classics

Full Disclosure with James O'Brien

Global

Society & Culture

4.6 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2025

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Natalie Haynes has never been easy to categorise. A stand-up comedian turned broadcaster and best-selling author, she has built a career out of making the ancient world vivid, funny and urgent. In this episode of Full Disclosure, James O’Brien talks with the presenter of Stand Up for the Classics about her unusual path from Birmingham bookshops to the Edinburgh Fringe, and from Radio 4 to re-imagining Medea.

They explore the strange alchemy of combining scholarship with humour, the myths that refuse to let her go, and why Jason may be one of antiquity’s least heroic heroes. Natalie reflects on the teachers and family who first filled her life with books, the risks of carving out a career that no one else was doing, and the joy of turning classical stories into something alive for modern audiences.

Clever, warm and very funny, Natalie shows how ancient tragedy and modern comedy can illuminate each other- and why she still feels most at home with the ghosts of Greece.

Find out more about Natalie Haynes book and tour No Friend to This House here

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, what's up? O'Gilligan here. In my podcast, beginning middle and end, I sit down with big names and find out how they got started where they are now and the legacy they want to create.
0:10.5	And this week's episode is sponsored by British Airways and Tobago.
0:14.7	Now, I've got family in the Caribbean and I hear Tobago is even more untouched with relaxed, soulful vibes.
0:21.8	And guess what? British Airways fly there.
0:24.2	Find me, Mo Gilligan, beginning, middle and end on Global Player.
0:28.7	Ready, set, race for childhood.
0:31.7	Join RBC Race for the Kids and help build the new Children's Cancer Center at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
0:38.0	The family festival and really fun fun run is back in Hyde Park on Saturday the 11th of
0:43.2	October. Walking, running or scooting. Take on 2K or 5K your way and enjoy a day of music, games and
0:51.2	more. And support Great Ormond Street Hospital charity.
0:54.7	Kids go free.
0:55.9	Join the fun at race.gosh.org.
1:00.8	This is a global player original podcast.
1:09.9	Hello and welcome to full disclosure, a podcast project conceived entirely to let me spend more time with interesting people than I would ever get on the radio.
1:19.0	This doesn't happen very often, Natalie Haynes, but you're one of my favourite radio presenters.
1:23.2	Shut up. Is that true?
1:24.3	Yeah, absolutely. I love your show.
1:25.9	Thanks.
1:26.2	Stand up for the classics. It's quite
1:27.5	hard for people who are not familiar with it. It's quite hard to categorise.
1:32.6	Yeah, it is a bit. Yeah, I'll give you that. It's not a genre.
1:35.7	No. No. Yeah. No, the stand-up, I was a stand-up comedian for 10, 12 years after I left uni.
	...

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