Shakespeare’s Restless World: Swordplay and Swagger

Synopsis: Fifth of a twenty-part radio series in which the director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, presents an object-based history of the time of Shakespeare to explore how Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences made sense of their rapidly changing environment.
In this episode MacGregor talks to Alison de Burgh, Britain’s first female theatre fight director, and Toby Capwell, curator of arms at the Wallace collection who explain how rapiers and daggers from Shakespeare’s time were used and how this illustrates the extent of the violence in Elizabethan London - both on and off the stage.
Series: Shakespeare’s Restless World
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Radio
Transmission details: 20 Apr 2012 at 13:45 (Channel: BBC Radio 4)
Duration: 15 mins

Production type: Documentary/Educational/News
Plays: Hamlet; Romeo and Juliet
Subjects: Drama; History
Keywords: customs; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); violence; Cultural history

Notes: The entire series is available on CD from http://www.bbcshop.com and as a podcast http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/r4shakespeare.
History: Part of the Shakespeare Unlocked season on BBC.
Reviews: Source: Radio Times, BBC programme information
For more detail about the programme and its objects (including transcript) see the BBC Restless world website http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/shakespeares-restless-world/ (accessed May 2012)

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