Jessica Fostekew on Boudica

Great Lives

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"The Queen Boadicea, standing loftily charioted, Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like, Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters in her fierce volubility": so wrote Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the 19th Century, celebrating the story of an ancient English warrior queen who sparked a brutal and bloody rebellion against Roman rule in the first century AD.

Today, Boudica - or as the Victorians renamed her, Boadicea - remains a symbol of bravery, independence, and that indomitable British underdog spirit; although how much of that is true and how much should be attributed to the romanticising of her story in later years, is open to debate...

Bringing that debate to the Great Lives studio is comedian and erstwhile Boudica impersonator Jessica Fostekew, along with expert insight from Professor Miranda Aldhouse-Green, known for her research on the Iron Age and the Celts as well as books including 'Boudica Britannia: Rebel, War-leader and Queen'.

So was Boudica a brutal giant of a women hell-bent on personal revenge, or a forward-thinking feminist leader determined to overthrow her country's conquerors? And could her death possibly have been down to a war elephant? Jess, Miranda and Matthew thrash it out.

Presented by Matthew Parris, produced for BBC Studios Audio by Lucy Taylor.

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