Radio Haynes has appeared on
BBC Radio 4 as a panellist on
Wordaholics, ''We've Been Here Before
, Banter, Quote... Unquote, Personality Test
and Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive, and she has been an announcer on BBC Radio 4 Extra. She has contributed to the BBC 7 comedy review show Serious About Comedy
and she reviews films for Front Row''. Her stand-up has featured in
Front Row and
Loose Ends on BBC Radio 4 and
Spanking New on BBC 7. She appeared in BBC Radio 4's
Pick of the Fringe in 2004 and 2005. She has also appeared on
BBC Radio 5 Live's
Anita Anand Show, and
MacAulay and Co. on
BBC Scotland. In 2005 and 2006, Haynes wrote and presented documentaries on comic writers, for BBC Radio 4. Her subjects included the modern female writers
Jessica Mitford,
Dorothy Parker and
Julie Burchill, and the classical male writers
Aristophanes,
Juvenal and
Martial. She appeared as a critic on
Saturday Review on BBC Radio 4. On 4 February 2013, she was the star of the BBC Radio 4 programme
With Great Pleasure. Her guests included the novelist
Julian Barnes, who read from one of his own books. Since March 2014, BBC Radio 4 has broadcast
Natalie Haynes Stands up for the Classics, in which, aided by experts, Haynes discusses, with both serious and humorous remarks, historical and mythological figures from
ancient Greece and Rome. Series one to nine each contained four episodes of around half an hour, but series ten comprised six episodes, followed by a Christmas special. Series eleven comprised seven episodes.
List of episodes of Natalie Haynes Stands up for the Classics Television Haynes was a regular panellist on BBC's
The Review Show and was the most-booked guest on
More4's
The Last Word. She appeared as a panellist on BBC 4's
The Book Quiz, and on its
Poetry Special alongside
Andrew Motion and
George Szirtes. She also appeared on
Backlash, a BBC Two documentary on voluntary childlessness, wrote and performed in the STV/Assembly Television
Best of the Fest in August 2005. Haynes has been a panellist on BBC Four's quiz show
Mindgames, appeared on
Must Try Harder on
BBC Two in 2006 and was the art and literature expert on the BBC Two quiz show
Knowitalls. In August 2007, when she appeared on an episode of
The Book Quiz hosted by
David Baddiel, she admitted researching a book on
Wikipedia in order to bluff having read it. In April 2008, Haynes was a member of the stand-up comedians' team on
University Challenge: The Professionals. Her team lost to the
Ministry of Justice, 100 points to 215. In November 2009, she appeared on
BBC One's
Question Time. In February 2022, Haynes was announced as the new presenter of the online revival of
Time Team, alongside
Gus Casely-Hayford.
Journalism Haynes has been a guest contributor for
The Times since October 2006, and a regular contributor to
New Humanist. She has also written for
The Sunday Times Magazine,
The Sunday Telegraph,
The Big Issue,
Loaded and
The Independent.
Live shows Haynes has toured (including Dublin, Berlin to Manhattan) and has performed five
Edinburgh Fringe sell-out runs and national tours. She was nominated for the Best Newcomer Award at the 2002
Perrier Comedy Awards, the first woman to receive this nomination. • 2002:
Six Degrees of Desolation (nominated for Perrier Award Best Newcomer) • 2003:
Troubled Enough • 2004:
Still Not Sorry • 2005:
Run Or Die • 2006:
Watching the Detectives Haynes is the only comedian to have appeared at every
Newbury Comedy Festival.
Writing Haynes contributed an essay to
Serenity Found, a book about
Joss Whedon's television show
Firefly, edited by
Jane Espenson, which was published in 2007 by BenBella Books. Her entries on subjects from
Agatha Christie to
E. F. Benson can be found in Cassell's
Little Black Book of Books, published in 2007. Her first children's novel,
The Great Escape, was published by Simon & Schuster in September 2007. It won a
PETA Proggy award, for best animal-friendly children's book, in 2008. Haynes has written three non-fiction books.
The Ancient Guide to Modern Life, on the subject of how living well in the present requires some recourse to the ancient world, was published by Profile Books in November 2010. Her second non-fiction book, ''Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths,
was published by Picador in October 2020, and was a New York Times'' bestseller.
Margaret Atwood called it "funny" and "sharp". Haynes's first novel,
Amber Fury (titled
The Furies in the U.S.), was published in 2014. It was shortlisted for the Scottish Crime Book of the Year award. Her second novel,
Children of Jocasta, a retelling of
Antigone and
Oedipus Rex, was published in 2017. Haynes's third novel,
A Thousand Ships (relating to the
Trojan War), was published by
Pan Macmillan on 4 May 2019. She discussed it on BBC Radio 4's ''
Woman's Hour that month. A Thousand Ships'' was shortlisted for the
Women's Prize for Fiction in 2020. Haynes's fourth novel,
Stone Blind, a retelling of the myth of
Medusa, was published by Pan Macmillan on 15 September 2022, and an abridged version was read on
BBC Radio 4 by
Susannah Fielding. In March 2024, the German edition of the title was shortlisted for the Young Adult Jury Award of the
German Youth Literature Awards, which would be awarded at the
Frankfurt Book Fair in October. Haynes was awarded the
Classical Association Prize in 2015. == Works ==