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

Sunday Feature

Documentaries

Factual

Exploring music, history, science, philosophy, film, visual arts and literature.

In-depth documentaries which explore music, history, science, philosophy, film, visual arts and literature.

SF_Still_Will_thumbnail_square.jpg

Sunday Feature: Still Will

01/05/2016

Still Will

BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Still Will

Laura Barton explores the silences and intimacies of Shakespeare's plays.

Laura Barton explores the silences and intimacies of Shakespeare's theatrical craft. With a contribution from actress Niamh Cusack.

For a poet and playwright whose virtuosic way with words continues to dominate all of English literature four centuries on, there's an extraordinary and often overlooked potency also in his silences, stillness and quietness.

Laura Barton listens closely to the spaces between the Bard's words and explores the acoustic qualities of the circumstances in which they were performed. She talks with the actor Niamh Cusack, who's played Desdemona and Juliet in large theatres and, most recently, Paulina in The Winter's Tale at the intimate Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Acoustician Byron Harrison imagines the soundworld inhabited by actors on the Elizabethan stage and unpicks the science of theatre design. Shakespeare scholar Lesel Dawson reads the plays for moments of silent wonder, resistance, horror and narrative tension and Steven Connor considers how the celebrated wordsmith communicates 'beyond words' - looking with ears, hearing with eyes.

Produced by Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 3.

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.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Sunday Feature

Still Will

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3