Macbeth

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies. When three witches prophesy that Macbeth will be king one day, he is not prepared to wait and almost the next day he murders King Duncan as he sleeps, a guest at Macbeth’s castle. From there we explore their brutal world where few boundaries are distinct - between safe and unsafe, friend and foe, real and unreal, man and beast - until Macbeth too is slaughtered.

The image above shows Nicol Williamson as Macbeth in a 1983 BBC TV adaptation.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Emma Smith 5 episodes
  Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of Oxford
• Kiernan Ryan No other episodes
  Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London
• David Schalkwyk No other episodes
  Professor of Shakespeare Studies and Director of Global Shakespeare at Queen Mary, University of London

Reading list

• Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
  Harold Bloom (Fourth Estate, 1999) Google Books →
• Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth
  A. C. Bradley (Penguin Books, 1991) Google Books →
• Autobiographical Sketches
  Thomas de Quincey (Dodo Press, 2008) Google Books →
• Macbeth: A Critical Reader
  John Drakakis and Dale Townshend (eds.) (Bloomsbury, 2013) Google Books →
• Shakespeare After Theory
  David Scott Kastan (Routledge, 1999) Google Books →
• Macbeth
  William Shakespeare (ed. Sandra Clark and Pamela Mason) (The Arden Shakespeare: Bloomsbury, 2015) Google Books →
• 1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear
  James Shapiro (Faber & Faber, 2015) Google Books →
• Macbeth: Contemporary Critical Essays
  Alan Sinfield (ed.) (Macmillan, 1992) Google Books →
• Macbeth: Language and Writing
  Emma Smith (The Arden Shakespeare: Bloomsbury, 2013) Google Books →
• Macbeth: A Selection of Critical Essays
  John Wain (ed.) (Macmillan, 1968) Google Books →
• Actors on Shakespeare: Macbeth
  Harriet Walter (Faber & Faber, 2002)

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Programme ID: m000mytn

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mytn

Auto-category: 822.33 (English drama)