Shakespeare's Restless World

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Shakespeare's Restless World: 12. Sex and the City

Sex and the City

12. Sex and the City

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Shakespeare's Restless World, 12. Sex and the City

Neil MacGregor on how a delicate glass goblet reveals the twin seductions of Venice.

Neil MacGregor on how a goblet reveals Venice’s twin seductions - its luxuries and sought-after lecherous women. From 2012.

A delicate glass goblet reveals the twin seductions of Venice: its sought after luxuries and its equally sought after lecherous women. 

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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