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Mr MacGregor's back!; but for 100 episodes!
Topic Started: Apr 16 2012, 07:02 PM (234 Views)
Mobson
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I'm referring to Mr Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, who returns to Radio 4 with a new object-based history...Not a hundred episodes this time (at least I hope not!) and only fifteen minute hits instead of the one hour programmes which knocked The Friday Play off its perch....

The series is called Shakespeare's Restless World....."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.

Programme 1 of 20: ENGLAND GOES GLOBAL - How Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the globe changed the way Shakespeare's audiences viewed the world and their country's place on it. For the first time, England was engaging with the whole world.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01g5yy7
Edited by Mobson, May 10 2012, 10:00 AM.
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Hugh Mosby-Joaquin
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I'm interested in this. I think Mr MacGregor is a rather good performer when he has a historical artefact in his hand to stimulate a talk. His 'One hundred objects' was something of a surprise, and certainly not dull as each object took the listener on a journey. However, is this, a similar approach with a Shakespearian bias, going to be a fresh and vibrant? Is it going to bea little formulaic?
I'm guessing it will work, largely because of Neil MacGregor's delivery. An enthusiast and his subject are not easily parted.
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Aware-Adult


I gave a wry smile when I heard Neil MacGregor mentioned - Oh God! what now “…in a hundred objects”? I stopped listening after seeming infinity last time <steam>

There was also a bizarre change in the announcer’s accent at the beginning last time. The warm seductive Scotch tones changed to a ridiculous estuarine-whine last year <yikes>




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Mobson
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but I think Hugh may be right - this one could be interesting - can't speak with any authority yet as didn't listen to this first episode - he is an extremely intelligent and forward thinking man for a historian and has done wonders for and with the British Museum....as it's only 20 eps by 15 minutes, it might be more digestible than the last series, which I dipped into intermittently when there was something greek, or something about Assyrian art, or ceramics, things I am interested in....
Edited by Mobson, Apr 17 2012, 10:31 AM.
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Mobson
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I listened to this evening's episode and it was all about Elizabeth 1 and a painting and an act of treason that was prevalent during her reign against anyone talking Accession - I did not know that!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01g637c
Edited by Mobson, Apr 19 2012, 10:36 PM.
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Mobson
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Am I the only listening to this! Yesterday's episode 18/20 "London becomes Rome" addressed the Coronation of James I and very enlightening it was too! How Shakespeare's London saw itself in the 1600's, physically and intellectually, as the living heir of ancient Rome...in particular the Tower of London which people believed was really the tower of Julius Ceasar! For James 1 coronation, seven triumphant roman-themed arches were placed strategically along the processional route that James travelled from the Tower to the Strand....They were demolished and recycled immediately after the procession but a set of designs were published as engravings, showing just how detailed they were .....Mr MacGregor takes us back to the scene....

the triumphal arch designs:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/shakespeares-restless-world/programmes/londonbecomesrome/
Edited by Mobson, May 10 2012, 12:47 PM.
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Hugh Mosby-Joaquin
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You are not the only! <tiphat>
I find Neil Macgregor has the power to bring an object to life, and thus tell us so much about the world Shakespeare lived in, even more so than his 'hundred objects' did.
My favourite instalment so far, (among many) was that regarding the the notion of James 1 trying to design a new Union flag, and looking at his place-mat sized sketches, and Mr Macgregor pointing out the difficulty of designing a harmonious banner that does not place one nation above another. Something we might take for granted when looking at the end result, which didn't occur for another century.
Every episode a winner, though!
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