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.

Hello, and on the programme tonight, we revisit the haunting work of the Northumbrian poet Basil Bunting.

A strong song tows us, long ear-sick.

Blind we follow rain-sl spray flick to fields we do not know basil bunting mourn him later we

discuss the command and control or lack of it of the West's nuclear arsenals in the Cold War,

with the author of a revelatory new book, and we'll be hearing from New Generation Thinker, Eleanor Rosamund Baraklough,

on the sounds of Anglo-Saxon.

But first, it's been the most hotly awaited event of the theatrical season,

David Tennant, revered by some for mesmeric performances in TV hits like

Doctor Who and Broadchurch, and others for an outstanding hamlet at the RSC, returns to take on

the troubled contradictory mantle of Richard II. It's a stretching role for any actor as Richard

veers between majesty and misery, a capricious self-mocking monarch, beset

by foes, ambivalent about the crown, yet loathed to yield it to his determined rival,

Bolingbrook.

"'Why, cousin, were thou region of the world, it were ashamed to let this land by lease,

"'landlord of England, are thou now, not king?

Thy state of law is bond-slave to the law, and thou...

And thou... A lunatic, lean-witted fool, presuming on an ague's privilege,

dares with thy frozen admonition make pale our cheek,

...