Taking Issue with Shakespeare

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Taking Issue with Shakespeare: Episode 3

Episode 3

BBC Radio 4 - Taking Issue with Shakespeare, Episode 3

Shakespeare on contemporary issues, contemporary issues on Shakespeare.

Might Shakespeare help resolve  challenging contemporary issues? Today, actor Fiona Shaw in conversation with Emma Smith on the choice between town and country and As You Like It.

Major public figures,in conversation with Professor Emma Smith, explore how Shakespeare can help us resolve some challenging contemporary issues. 

In this third episode, Emma Smith reflects on how Covid led people to move from the city to the country and on why some are now opting to return to the city. 

With her international career as a star of television, film and theatre, Fiona Shaw divides her time between New York, London, Sri Lanka and her native Cork. She and Emma share their thoughts on the transformative potential which Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden seems to provide in a play such as As You Like It. Although the grass often appears to be greener in this so-called “green world”, they wonder why characters almost always return to the city in the end, and what this means particularly for women such as Rosalind, whose time in Arden has appeared to be so transformative.  

With contributions from Professor Paul Prescott 

Producer: Beaty Rubens 
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Marking the 400th anniversary of the publication of the First Folio.

Professor Emma Smith, sharp, smart, witty and wise invites a guest or two to discuss Shakespeare, 400 years on from the publication of the First Folio

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Taking Issue with Shakespeare

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