Shakespeare's really good at making up those scenes that offset what would otherwise be a recession of aristocrats overthrowing each other. But he liked gardens as well, you know. I mean, the number of times in which he will create a scene in a garden,. You get a sense of a sort of attempt to make history as organic as botany is. And it's being overheard by the queen who's just losing everything. The strain in that moment is something that I think will come across as the audience.
In the first of two programmes marking In Our Time's 20th anniversary on 15th October, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's versions of history, starting with the English Plantagenets. His eight plays from Richard II to Richard III were written out of order, in the Elizabethan era, and have had a significant impact on the way we see those histories today. In the second programme, Melvyn discusses the Roman plays.
The image above is of Richard Burton (1925 - 1984) as Henry V in the Shakespeare play of the same name, from 1951
With
Emma Smith
Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of Oxford
Gordon McMullan
Professor of English at King’s College London and Director of the London Shakespeare Centre
And
Katherine Lewis
Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Huddersfield
Producer: Simon Tillotson