When historians present television programmes, should they stick to what they know? This week, for instance, Freud: Genius of the Modern World (30 June) was presented by Bettany Hughes, an expert on Ancient Greece.

Nonetheless, it was excellent; at several points her classical background was even relevant. Freud (pictured right) was fascinated by the classics from his childhood; he named one of his most influential theories after Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. When he died, his ashes were placed in an urn depicting Dionysus, reminding us that a man who saw himself as a scientist was also obsessed with the irrational passions of life.

Throughout, Hughes provided a fluent narrative, which, while necessarily compressed, touched on most of the important events and issues in Freud’s life. She also walked and talked her way around the important landmarks of his life: Vienna, Paris, and his study, transplanted to London in 1938 when he was an 82-year-old refugee from the Nazis.