William Shakespeare

Evil Genius with Russell Kane

BBC

Comedy, History

4.4 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2026

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

He’s the most famous writer of all time; but before his reign of terror over the GCSE syllabus, William ‘Shag-speare’ was an upcoming playwright with humble beginnings in Stratford-upon-Avon. But was he more evil, or genius? Did he put the ‘knob’ into Two Noble Kinsmen, or just the ‘mid’ into Midsummer Night’s Dream? It’s up to Stephen Bailey, Kate Cheka and Steve Bugeja to decide whether the Bard of Avon was a bisexual icon, or a bit of a bastard.

Additional material: Christina Riggs and Katie Sayer Researcher: Christina Riggs Recording Engineer: Dom Boucher Sound Editor: Kate Mac Production Coordinator: Liz Tuohy Executive Producer: Paul Smith

The producer was Katie Sayer. Evil Genius with Russell Kane is a BBC Studios production for BBC Sounds.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:07.3	Experience football like never before on BBC Sounds.
0:11.0	Live commentary from the biggest names and the biggest matches in the Premier League,
0:14.8	Champions League and internationals.
0:19.7	Expert Insights on the Wayne Rooney show.
0:22.7	I know what it's like, obviously scored two goals in that final and that was an amazing feeling.
0:27.6	And stay on top of everything football every day with the Football Daily podcast.
0:32.6	Football from Five Live, listen only on BBC Sound.
0:36.3	Episodes of Evil Genius are released weekly, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
0:40.7	But if you can't wait, you can listen to the latest episode now, 28 days early, first on BBC Sounds.
0:47.9	Warning, this episode contains strong language.
0:54.4	Genius! Genius! Genius! language. Genius.
0:54.9	Genius.
0:55.6	Genius.
0:55.9	Genius.
1:00.0	Welcome to evil genius.
1:02.3	I'm Russell Kane.
1:03.3	Imagine the cast of Towie if they'd read T.S. Eliot's the Wasteland.
1:08.0	These fragments I have shored against my ruins,
1:13.1	at the end of the day I could turn around and say to you,
1:14.9	April is the cruelest month.
1:16.4	I'm a diva.
	...

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