Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Shakespeare 400

The Essay: Shakespeare 400: Episode 5: Shakespeare 400: Shakespeare Beyond London

Shakespeare Beyond London

Episode 5

Episode 5: Shakespeare 400: Shakespeare Beyond London

Shakespeare 400

Shakespeare 400: Shakespeare Beyond London

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Shakespeare 400, Shakespeare 400: Shakespeare Beyond LondonClose menu

Siobhan Keenan on the importance of touring to Shakespeare and the actors in his plays.

Siobhan Keenan explains the importance of touring to Shakespeare and the actors in his plays. She also explores his emergence as a cultural icon in England and beyond.

Four centuries after Shakespeare's death, young scholars share new evaluations of his work - in a series of essays recorded in front of an audience in Shakespeare's old classroom at the Guildhall in Stratford-upon-Avon.

5.Siobhan Keenan on Shakespeare Beyond London

The Globe Theatre on the South Bank gives us such a clear image of productions of Shakespeare's plays in his own day, that it's easy to forget they were also performed far beyond London. Siobhan sets out to explain how Shakespeare and his fellow actors regularly toured the country, performing in spaces ranging from town halls and churches to large country houses.

Siobhan sheds light on why most of Shakespeare's plays were designed so that they could be performed anywhere - with call for few props and little scenery - in order to reveal the importance of touring to his career, and the emergence of Shakespeare as a cultural icon in Elizabethan and Jacobean England - and beyond. 

Siobhan Keenan is Reader in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at De Montfort University. 

BBC Radio 3 is marking the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare with a season celebrating the four centuries of music and performance that his plays and sonnets have inspired. 

Producer: Beaty Rubens.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Five young scholars share new evaluations of Shakespeare's work

Five young scholars share new evaluations of Shakespeare's work in a series recorded in front of an audience at the Bard's old classroom at the Guildhall in Stratford-upon-Avon

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Essay

Shakespeare 400

Episode 5: Shakespeare 400: Shakespeare Beyond London

Genres

Formats

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3