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.

Tonight I'm talking to Timothy West and Desmond Barrett about Falstaff, one of the most enduring of Shakespeare's fictional characters.

Thanks to Shakespeare, Falstaff looms large in the imagination of composers such as Elgar and Verdi.

Elgar focused on the pathos, Verdi on the bawdy humour.

Henry VIII, Parts 1 and 2, has both, of course, with Falstaff's vital complexity at the heart of both the epic history

and the exploration of English manhood, particularly fatherhood. Between them, my guests

have racked up five acclaimed Falstaffes. Timothy West has played him twice in Henry

4th at Bristol's Oldevik and the London Oldovic, and Desmond Barrett has played him twice in Henry the 4th, including for Peter Hall in 2011, and most recently in the Merry Wives of Windsor for what the Royal Shakespeare Company. Desmond, Falstaff, is unusual as a Shakespeare character, and that he's physically identifiable by his silhouette alone, that beard, that belly.

I mean, it could almost be a panto role.

What's the appeal?

How do you play him?

Well, I thought you were going to say, obviously, you were ideal casting.

But fortunately, both times I've played Falstaff,

I've had to have padding, strangely enough,

because even Falstaff is larger than what I am. But it's, I mean, the great thing about doing Henry the Fourth particularly,

Henry the Fourth Parts 1 and Part 2, is that they play around about eight hours. Now, with most

...