The British are brilliant at writing poems. On National Poetry Day, Andrew Marr is using them to tell our story. By the middle of the evening Andrew has reached the Victorian Age accompanied by Sir Ian McKellen, Siobhan Redmond, Dinah Birch, Daljit Nagra, Michael Rosen & Matthew Sweet

The Victorians were a confident bunch but also terribly anxious. 'Play up, play up and play the game' pales against the tectonic anxiety of poems like Dover Beach. And we are still caught in Victorian dilemmas about capitalism, social justice, colonialism, marriage, science and faith.

We'll be guided through the 19th century by poems like Tennyson's In Memoriam, Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat, and Modern Love - George Meredith's portrait of a failing marriage; and we'll hear Victorians at their most unbuttoned in Elizabeth Barratt-Browning's seduction poem, Lord Walter's Wife. Show less