20 episodes

Making a selection of objects from the British Museum and collections across the UK, Neil MacGregor uncovers the stories they tell about Shakespeare's world.

Shakespeare's Restless World BBC Radio 4 Extra

    • History
    • 4.5 • 2 Ratings

Making a selection of objects from the British Museum and collections across the UK, Neil MacGregor uncovers the stories they tell about Shakespeare's world.

    20. Shakespeare Goes Global

    20. Shakespeare Goes Global

    The publication of the First Folio of Shakespeare's collected plays in 1623 began the process of turning an early modern playwright into a global phenomenon.
    An annotated copy of the Collected Works of Shakespeare reveals the extent to which Shakespeare has inspired and influenced audiences across the globe and through the ages.
    Object-based history series presented by Neil MacGregor, former Director of the British Museum.
    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.
    Producer: Paul Kobrak
    First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2012.

    • 13 min
    19. The Theatres of Cruelty

    19. The Theatres of Cruelty

    A human eyeball in a silver setting provides a striking insight to the theatre of cruelty in Elizabethan and Jacobean Britain.
    Object-based history series presented by Neil MacGregor, former Director of the British Museum.
    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.
    Producer: Paul Kobrak
    First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2012.

    • 13 min
    18. London Becomes Rome

    18. London Becomes Rome

    A set of designs for the Coronation Procession of James I reveals the extent of classical knowledge amongst Shakespeare's audience.
    Object-based history series presented by Neil MacGregor, former Director of the British Museum.
    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.
    Producer: Paul Kobrak
    First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2012.

    • 13 min
    17. Plague and the Playhouse

    17. Plague and the Playhouse

    May 1603 saw not only a new king but the worst plague outbreak since the Black Death. Its impact and reach is told through a series of early seventeenth century proclamations.
    Object-based history series presented by Neil MacGregor, former Director of the British Museum.
    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.
    Producer: Paul Kobrak
    First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2012.

    • 13 min
    16. A Time of Change, a Change of Time

    16. A Time of Change, a Change of Time

    A rare domestic clock with an equally rare minute hand and quarter-hour chimes reveals the changing relationship Shakespeare's audiences had to time.
    Object-based history series presented by Neil MacGregor, former Director of the British Museum.
    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.
    Producer: Paul Kobrak
    First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2012.

    • 13 min
    15. The Flag That Failed

    15. The Flag That Failed

    The problems in uniting Scotland and England and in creating a Great Britain are encapsulated in a set of designs for a common flag.
    Object-based history series presented by Neil MacGregor, former Director of the British Museum.
    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.
    Producer: Paul Kobrak
    First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2012.

    • 13 min

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