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Shakespeare's Restless World

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Shakespeare's Restless World: 19. The Theatres of Cruelty

The Theatres of Cruelty

19. The Theatres of Cruelty

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Shakespeare's Restless World, 19. The Theatres of Cruelty

A human eyeball in a silver setting gives a striking insight into the theatre of cruelty.

A human eyeball in a silver setting gives a striking insight into the theatre of cruelty in Shakespearean time. From May 2012.

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.

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Factual: History

Neil MacGregor uncovers the stories 20 objects tell us about Shakespeare's world.

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.

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19. The Theatres of Cruelty

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