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.

A classy debate on tonight's programme, do the middle classes deserve a museum of their own?

The actor Edward Petherbridge will be talking to me about playing King Lear after his own encounter with frailty when he suffered a stroke.

My great big theatrical turn, as we say, in showbiz was going to be leer.

Now I was having to set myself the task of can I walk the length of this corridor by holding the

wall. And when I got to the other end I thought, tomorrow I'm going to walk down the middle of this corridor

without holding the wall.

And we remember the Oscar-winning screenwriter and novelist Ruth Prava Jabvola, who died yesterday.

But first, silence.

In the beginning was the word, says John's gospel.

But the church's devotion to silence soon followed, according to the historian of Christianity, Dermott McCulloch.

His new book, Silence, A Christian History, examines the various roles that saying nothing has played in the development of religion,

from 4th century hermits in the Syrian desert to the silence of monasteries,

but also the darker side of quietness, demonstrated by reluctance in

recent years to face up to clerical child abuse. Dermott joins me now to fill in the gaps.

Dermott, Christianity is built on the word. What's the relationship then between proclaiming

the word and silence? Well, it's built on the word. It's also built on silence. And that word word in John's gospel in the beginning was the word.

It's a funny word because it is the ordinary Greek word for word.

But it's discourse, it's conversation.

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