17. Plague and the Playhouse

May 1603 saw not only a new king but the worst plague outbreak since the Black Death. Its impact and reach is told through a series of early seventeenth century proclamations. 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.

You can listen to 17. Plague and the Playhouse online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

17. Plague and the Playhouse is an episode from Shakespeare's Restless World by BBC.

This episode is 13:50 long.

This episode was published on May 8, 2012.

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