The Greatest Showman (P.T. Barnum)

Evil Genius with Russell Kane

BBC

History, Comedy

4.2 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Roll up, roll up... plenty to see here. P.T. Barnum was, in so many ways, The Greatest Showman. But his success as a circus pioneer came at a great ghastly cost to many. Sara Pascoe, John Tothill and Gbemi Oladipo weigh up those costs to decide whether Barnum was evil or genius.

Additional material: Eve Delaney and Christina Riggs Researcher: Miriam O’Byrne Sound Editor: Kate Mac Production Coordinator: Liz Tuohy Executive Producer: Paul Smith

The producer was Sasha Bobak. Evil Genius with Russell Kane is a BBC Studios Audio Production for BBC Sounds.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:07.0	Hello, I'm Emma Barnett. For most of my career, I've been on live radio, and I love it.
0:13.3	But I've always wondered, what if we'd had more time? How much deeper does the story go?
0:19.2	I remember having this very sharp thought
0:21.7	that what you do right now, this is it.
0:24.3	This defines your life.
0:26.0	I'm ready to talk and ready to listen.
0:28.3	I'm insulted by how little the medical community is ever bothered with this.
0:33.9	Ready to talk with me, Emma Barnard, is my new podcast.
0:37.0	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:38.8	Warning. This episode contains strong language.
0:45.5	Genius. Genius. Genius.
0:48.9	Welcome to evil genius. I'm Russell Kane, the natural consequence of giving ADHD its own podcast.
0:55.8	This is the show where we unzip history's corset, tug at its crusty gusset, and ask,
1:01.2	genius visionary, or just a Victorian scammer with a top hat and a rod on for elephants.
1:06.9	At face value, it's a blunt split, evil or genius, but that's just my quip.
1:10.8	The panel, beautifully assembled here before split, evil or genius, but that's just my quip.
1:17.2	The panel, beautifully assembled here before me, votes on extremes so that the subtleties and contradictions come crashing through.
1:25.2	That's the point. The show is less a verdict than a parody of verdicts, using its own rigged simplicity to highlight how ridiculous all binary judgments are.
1:30.1	Today's subject inspired the 2017 musical, The Greatest Showman.
1:32.3	And no, despite what the posters suggest,
1:35.7	it's not me in leather trousers pirouetting like a caffeinated meerkat that never got hugged by its meir dad.
	...

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