Private Passions - Philippa Gregory
Philippa Gregory has been called the ‘Queen of Historical Fiction’. The English royal court has inspired many of her best-selling titles, and she’s written sixteen novels about the Plantagenets and Tudors. One of them – The Other Boleyn Girl – became a BBC TV drama and a Hollywood movie starring Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman.
This success probably surprised her A level teachers: she says she found history ‘insanely boring’ at school, but her passion was fired at university. She’s also written non-fiction, notably seeking the stories of what she calls ‘normal women’ over 900 years. More recently she’s returned to the Tudors, with a novel called Boleyn Traitor, focussing on the intrigue surrounding Anne’s sister-in-law, Jane.
Her music choices include Mozart, Philip Glass, Scott Joplin and the Mazurka from Coppelia by Leo Delibes.
Producer: Katy Hickman
Published on Sunday, 15th February 2026.
Available Podcasts from Private Passions
We are not the BBC, we only list available podcasts. To find out more about the programme including episodes available on BBC iPlayer, go to the Private Passions webpage.