Portrait of Lord Melvyn Bragg, host of In Our Time

Emma Smith

Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of Oxford

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7 episodes

Covers topics in categories such as:

  1. Thomas Middleton

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the star writers for the London stage in the age of Shakespeare, much in demand for his own work and for rewriting the work of others.

    20 March 2025

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    Also featuring: Lucy Munro, Michelle O’Callaghan

     
  2. Twelfth Night, or What You Will

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great comedies of world literature in which love and desire in Illyria sit uneasily alongside thwarted dreams and compromise.

    28 December 2023

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    Also featuring: Pascale Aebischer, Michael Dobson

     
  3. Romeo and Juliet

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry and power of Shakespeare's tragedy of two young lovers in Verona, their families divided by a bitter feud

    17 February 2022

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    Also featuring: Helen Hackett, Paul Prescott

     
  4. Shakespeare's Sonnets

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 154 sonnets collected and printed in 1609 of which some are famous, many are glorious, most are inspiring and several are unsettling.

    24 June 2021

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    Also featuring: Hannah Crawforth, Don Paterson

     
  5. Macbeth

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's tragedy of ambition where Macbeth saves his King from one revolt only to murder and replace him, to fulfil a witches' prophecy.

    1 October 2020

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    Also featuring: Kiernan Ryan, David Schalkwyk

     
  6. Is Shakespeare History? The Plantagenets

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's treatment of English Plantagenet history from Richard II to Richard III and all the Henrys in between, written under Elizabeth I.

    11 October 2018

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    Also featuring: Gordon McMullan, Katherine Lewis

     
  7. Marlowe

    Melvyn Bragg discusses Christopher Marlowe; a forger, a brawler, a spy, but above all a playwright, a poet and the most celebrated writer of his generation.

    7 July 2005

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    Also featuring: Katherine Duncan-Jones, Jonathan Bate