Chatting to classicist Dame Mary Beard makes you incredibly jealous of all the students who had her as their professor at Cambridge University. Thoroughly engaging, her hands flying thoughtfully as she teases out ideas, the Shropshire-born 70-year-old and Fellow of Newnham College is beguiling and quite, quite brilliant.
So it’s good news for us all that she’s launching a new podcast, Instant Classics, alongside The Guardian’s culture writer Charlotte Higgins. “‘Why haven’t we done it before?’ Is the question I’m asking myself,” she says, full of mirth, when quizzed on why now is the moment to join the (some would argue) swollen ranks of podcasters.
