Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas behind Shakespeare's comedy with its intertwining plots of royal marriage, crossed lovers, quarreling fairies and rude mechanicals

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Shakespeare's most popular works, written c1595 in the last years of Elizabeth I. It is a comedy of love and desire and their many complications as well as their simplicity, and a reflection on society's expectations and limits. It is also a quiet critique of Elizabeth and her vulnerability and on the politics of the time, and an exploration of the power of imagination.

With

Helen Hackett

Professor of English Literature and Leverhulme Research Fellow at University College London

Tom Healy

Professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Sussex

and

Alison Findlay

Professor of Renaissance Drama at Lancaster University and Chair of the British Shakespeare Association

Producer: Simon Tillotson