The story of Troy speaks to all of us.

It is the kidnapping of Helen, a queen celebrated for her beauty, which sees the Greeks launch a thousand ships against that great city, to which they will lay siege for ten whole and very bloody years.

It is Zeus, the king of the gods, who triggers war when he asks the Trojan prince Paris to judge the fairest goddess of them all. Aphrodite bribes Paris with the heart of Helen, wife of King Menelaus of the Greeks, and nature takes its course.

It is a terrible, brutal war with casualties on all sides. The Greeks cannot defeat the Trojans - since Achilles, the Greek's boldest warrior, is consumed with jealousy over an ally's choice of lover and will not fight . . .

The stage is set for the oldest and greatest story ever told, where monstrous passions meet the highest ideals and the lowest cunning.

In Troy you will find heroism and hatred, revenge and regret, desire and despair. It is these human passions, written bloodily in the sands of a distant shore, that still speak to us today.

Troy is a myth in which we seek the truth about ourselves, which Stephen Fry brings breathtakingly to life for our modern age.

Stephen Fry is an award-winning comedian, actor, presenter and director. He rose to fame alongside Hugh Laurie in A Bit of Fry and Laurie (which he co-wrote with Laurie) and Jeeves and Wooster, and was unforgettable as General Melchett in Blackadder. He has hosted over 180 episodes of QI, and has narrated all seven of the Harry Potter novels for the audiobook recordings. He is the bestselling author of four novels - The Stars' Tennis Balls, Making History, The Hippopotamus and The Liar - as well as three volumes of autobiography - Moab is My Washpot, The Fry Chronicles and More Fool Me. Mythos and Heroes, his retelling of the Greek myths, are both Sunday Times bestsellers.