Radio Oldie

The Oldie's Editorial Assistant Ferdie Rous talks to journalist, author and travel writer WIlliam Cook about Oberammergau's world-renowned passion play. Every 10 years, 500,000 people descend on this small Bavarian town to watch this extraordinary insight onto the seventeenth century.

Actress and costar of the Kenny Everett Show, Cleo Rocos, tells Oldie Editor Harry Mount about her time working with Kenny Everett

Ferdie Rous talks to Philip Mansel, co-founder of The Society for Court Studies and the author of King of the World: The Life of Louis XIV, about the Sun King, Versailles and Louis's love of gardening.

Gyles Brandreth talks about his new book, Dancing by the Light of the Moon, at the Oldie's Christmas lunch. Learning poetry prevents dementia and helps improve language skills. Gyles Brandreth loves it

Victoria Hislop presented her book, Those who are loved, at the Oldie's Christmas lunch. The plot centres on Thenis, a woman born in Greece in the 1920s. It tells the story of Greece's twentieth century through the eyes of someone who lived it.

Philip Mansel talks about his new book, King of the World: The Life of Louis XIV, at the Oldie's Christmas lunch. Louis XIV was perhaps the most powerful person on earth in his day. But there is much more to him than the bon vivant and patron of the arts that we think we know.

Welcome to the Oldie podcast with Harry Mount, editor of The Oldie. John Lloyd explains the disastrous beginnings of the show and how the 1979 election saved it.

Ferdie Rous, The Oldie's editorial assistant, speaks to celebrated historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes about the extraordinary history of Venus-Aphrodite, the goddess of love. We reference a few paintings and sculptures throughout the podcast.  Follow the links to find them. Ishtar, Inanna, Astarte Botticelli – The Birth of Venus; Venus & Mars Knidian Aphrodite Venus de Milo

The Oldie's editorial assistant, Ferdie Rous, talks to acclaimed author and travel-writer Sara Wheeler about 200 years of Antarctic exploration. Sara Wheeler's new book, Mud and Stars: Travels in Russia with Pushkin and Other Geniuses of the Golden Age, published by Jonathan Cape, is out now.

Simon Heffer speaks at an Oldie literary lunch about the Staring at God: Britain during the Great War. He tells of the political class's inability to deal with the pressures of the war, how women were far more than the munitionettes of popular imagination and the extent of the cultural changes brought on by the war.