A Midsummer Night's Dream

In Our Time: Culture · 2019-04-18

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Shakespeare's most popular works, written c1595 in the last years of Elizabeth I. It is a comedy of love and desire and their many complications as well as their simplicity, and a reflection on society's expectations and limits. It is also a quiet critique of Elizabeth and her vulnerability and on the politics of the time, and an exploration of the power of imagination.

With

Helen HackettProfessor of English Literature and Leverhulme Research Fellow at University College London

Tom HealyProfessor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Sussex

and

Alison FindlayProfessor of Renaissance Drama at Lancaster University and Chair of the British Shakespeare Association

Producer: Simon Tillotson

In Our Time: Culture

Popular culture, poetry, music and visual arts and the roles they play in our society.

No. of episodes: 197

Latest episode: 2025-05-22

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