One of the original comedic rags to riches stories, Nell Gwyn. We're travelling back to 17th century England to delve into a celebrity of the Restoration era, one of the first actresses in comedy and a mistress to King Charles II all rolled into one! Nell Gwyn's life is as eventful and comedic as her turns on the stage, and Greg Jenner and his guests have a lot of fun unpicking this incredible life story where politics meets the stage, and there is only one (or maybe several?) winner/s Greg is joined by associate professor and writer of 'Prologues and Epilogues of Restoration Theatre: Gender and Comedy, Performance and Print', Diana Solomon, and flanked by Jess Knappett, comedian, actress, writer and producer, who you'll know from her hit sitcom Drifters as well as appearances on 8 out of 10 Cats, Inbetweeners and Taskmaster. Produced by Cornelius Mendez Script by Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner Research by William Clayton The Athletic production for BBC Radio 4
My name's Joe Wilkinson and I've managed to force Patrick Bamford to come on a podcast with me and he's gonna slowly fall in love with me.
Do you go to the tip?
Believe it or not, yeah, I do.
Do you go to the supermarket?
No.
You know when all the shirts started getting tight on the players and they started selling them like that to the general public?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And everyone looked like sausages.
My mate's a footballer with me.
Patrick Bamford and Joe Wilkinson.
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Hello and welcome to you're dead to me, a BBC Radio Four comedy podcast that takes history seriously.
My name is Greg Jenner.
I am a public historian, author and broadcaster.
I'm the chief nerd on the funny kids show, Horrible Histories.
And today we are packing our theatre programs and interval snacks to travel all the way back to the 17th century to England to learn all about the actress, queen of comedy and mistress to King Charles II.
It's Nell Gwynne.
And to do that, I'm joined by two very special guests in history corner.