The Secret Life of Books Series 2

The Faerie Queen

Broadcast

2015 (29 mins)

Dr Janina Ramirez uncovers the surprising story behind one of the most influential poems in the English language: Edmund Spenser’s 16th century epic The Faerie Queene. Written at the end of the 16th...

The Secret Life of Books Series 2

Swallows and Amazons

Broadcast

2015 (29 mins)

First published in 1930 Swallows and Amazons recounts the adventures of the Walker and Blackett children and their idyllic summer holiday camping and sailing in an imaginary Lake District landscape;...

My Shakespeare

Taming The Shrew

Broadcast

2014 (45 mins)

In 1990, Morgan Freeman famously starred in a Wild West version of The Taming of The Shrew for Shakespeare in the Park in New York. One of the bard’s very first works, Freeman sets out to understand how...

My Shakespeare

Othello

Broadcast

2014 (45 mins)

In 1997, David Harewood was the first ever black actor to play Othello on stage at the National Theatre in London. In this episode, he unravels the complex issues of prejudice and jealousy which are threaded...

My Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Broadcast

2014 (45 mins)

Hugh Bonneville started his career as an understudy for Ralph Fiennes in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Open Air Theatre in London’s Regent’s Park. He revisits the theatre where his love for...

My Shakespeare

Antony and Cleopatra

Broadcast

2014 (44 mins)

Kim Cattrall has played the role of Cleopatra twice and meets others who have as well - like Janet Suzman who is renowned for her performance with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Together, they begin to...

My Shakespeare

King Lear

Broadcast

2014 (45 mins)

Actor Christopher Plummer originally played the role of King Lear under the direction of Sir Jonathan Miller, who has directed the play six times. Plummer explores how the work might have been staged during...

My Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet

Broadcast

2014 (44 mins)

The star of Shakespeare in Love examines Royal Ballet productions, musicals such as West Side Story, and Baz Luhrmann’s extraordinary cinematic re-imagination of Romeo & Juliet to understand why the love...

The Secret Life of Books

The First Folio

To be or not to be ... a man more sinned against than sinning ... I have loved not wisely but too well ... the fault is in our stars. Dear Brutus ... All words written by a man to whom Simon Russell Beale...

The Secret Life of Books

Mrs Dalloway

Alexandra Harris argues that in her 1925 novel, Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf developed a new, free-from way of writing that responded to the climate of uncertainty that followed the trauma of the First World...