Book of the Week - A Strange Eventful History - Episode 1

Eleanor Bron reads from Michael Holroyd's biography of Ellen Terry and Henry Irving, two greats of the Victorian stage. Ellen Terry's early life was spent in the shadow of her talented elder sister. In order to escape the gossip and rivalry of life on the stage, she married the eminent artist George Frederick Watts. But the marriage between the vivacious young teenage bride and the ageing hypochondriac bridegroom was soon to break down, and Ellen ran off with an architect friend of Oscar Wilde. Only when her debts begin to mount was she tempted back to the stage.