Book of the Week: Shakespeare's Restless World

England Goes Global
Episode 1 of 20

Monday, 13:45 on BBC Radio 4
Synopsis

Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, returns to Radio 4 with a new object-based history. Taking artefacts from William Shakespeare's time, he explores how Elizabethan and Jacobean playgoers made sense of the unstable and rapidly changing world in which they lived.

With old certainties shifting around them, in a time of political and religious unrest and economic expansion, Neil asks what the plays would have meant to the public when they were first performed. He uses carefully selected objects to explore the great issues of the day that preoccupied the public and helped shape the works, and he considers what they can reveal about the concerns and beliefs of Shakespearean England.

Programme 1. ENGLAND GOES GLOBAL - How Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the globe changed the way Shakespeare's audiences viewed the world and their country's place on it. For the first time, England was engaging with the whole world.

Producer: Paul Kobrak.

Duration
15 minutes



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 1147 Apr 14 2012 by Janaru.

I have belatedly discovered this programme, and I'm so glad I have. It's fascinating. Well-presented, intelligently made ... quite enthralling. Neil MacGregor has a real gift for sharing his expert's knowledge in a way that's captivating but not - thank goodness! - patronising or dumbed down. If you're interested in history - and Shakespeare, of course! - don't miss it!

The little programs during this Shakespeare season have been good. This series is surprisingly good I agree. The other one I enjoyed was The Essay on R3, especially the episode from Wednesday with Sam West (this week's theme is Shakespeare and Love). You can tell Sam has put a lot of thought in this subject judging from his essay. The episodes will be available for a long while yet, so you don' t have to rush to get it.