Napoleon in Fact & Fiction
Napoleon impersonators, ballads and what if he didn't die in exile?
Arts & Ideas · BBC Radio 4
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Show Notes
From Napoleon impersonators, his image in caricature and ballads, to a play which asks what if he didn't die in exile - presenter Anne McElvoy is joined by actor and director Kathryn Hunter, biographer Michael Broers, historians Oskar Cox Jensen and Laura O'Brien and journalist Nabila Ramdani who looks at how Napoleon is viewed in 21st century France.
Napoleon Disrobed - a play performed by Told By an Idiot which is based on the novel The Death of Napoleon by Simon Leys - is on tour visiting Plymouth, London, Birmingham and Scarborough. Michael Broers has just published the second instalment of his biography which is called Napoleon The Spirit of The Age. Oskar Cox Jensen has published Napoleon and British Song. Laura O'Brien has published The Republican Line: Caricature and French Republican Identity (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015)
Producer: Torquil MacLeod