The Essay: The Beeb and the Bard

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

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The Essay

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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: The Beeb and the Bard: Radiophonia

Radiophonia

The Beeb and the Bard

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, The Beeb and the Bard, Radiophonia

Samuel West and Andrea Smith discuss sound in BBC radio's productions of Shakespeare.

Actor Samuel West is joined by Dr Andrea Smith to take a dive into almost 100 years of Shakespeare on the radio. Today, it's all about sound and how production evolved creatively.

By the time the BBC had come of age in the 70s and 80s, radio production had become a creative art. The Radiophonic Workshop could famously transport listeners to imagined worlds and this was certainly the case with productions of Shakespeare.  Actor Samuel West and Dr Andrea Smith celebrate the creativity that gave us everything from the magic of Puck and Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream to battle scenes and the horrors of the gouging of eyes in King Lear.

Presented by Samuel West and Dr Andrea Smith
Produced by Susan Marling
A Just Radio Production

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.

A centenary celebration of BBC radio productions of Shakespeare plays.

Actor Samuel West is joined by Dr Andrea Smith to chronicle 100 years (nearly) of Shakespeare on the radio.

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