Ros Ballaster
speaker
171 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Aug 2026
last heard 6 Aug
Ros Ballaster’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Well, I think when you think about the character of Helena in The Rover, there's a wonderful point when Helena says to Wilmore, I'm Helena the constant and Helena the inconstant and you're Robert the constant.
And there she's sort of saying, I'm inconstant in the sense I can keep making myself into a new character to attract you and keep your attention forever.
Whereas you, supposedly the manifestation of the rake, Wilmore is actually a bit of a bore who's completely driven by his sort of sexual appetite.
He's constantly looking for another woman.
So she's the one who has the kind of flexibility, mobility to reinvent herself, make herself into a new kind of character, the sort of freedom that the libertine as an ideal might have.
Yes.
I think Ben wants to differentiate herself from actresses.
I mean, I think she really wants to be part of this court wit group rather than identified with the actress.
Well, we've just been talking about James and it's important to remember that Orinoco is published in 1688 and it's published just as James is in real crisis.
The bishops are refusing to cooperate with him.
And it's a story at its heart.
It's a story about a romance hero who has a pregnant wife and he...
murders her and their unborn child because he refuses to remain in slavery.
He's an African prince who's enslaved in South America, in Suriname.
He's a Gold Coast prince.
So although he's a black African hero, it's very evident when you look at this moment in which James and his wife, Mary of Medina, have just given birth to
to a baby boy, and that's the reason that James is being removed from the throne, that Ben's publishing this novel.
So it's still, it seems to me, part of her political commitment to James.
Well, I think critics have doubted it.
Historically, they've doubted it.
Showing 81–100 of 171 · page 5 of 9
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