The Essay - Couples - Episode 5

Oscar-winning writer Frederic Raphael reads a new essay about public couples. Beginning with royal couples as the first public couples Frederic explores those very public pairings including Victoria and Albert and Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh. He looks at how Byron became one of the first celebrities to exploit his relationships with women for fame and at the great political "couple" William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli. He also looks at couples in Hollywood such as Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and alternative society public couples such as Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre.