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In Our Time - A Midsummer Night's Dream - A Midsummer Night's Dream - BBC Sounds

In Our Time - A Midsummer Night's Dream - A Midsummer Night's Dream - BBC Sounds

A Midsummer Night's DreamA Midsummer Night's Dream

Released On: 18 Apr 2019

Available for over a year

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's comedy, one of his most popular plays

Programme Website

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In Our Time
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's comedy, one of his most popular plays
54 mins
In Our Time
Nero
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most notorious rulers of ancient Rome.
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The Gordon Riots
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the causes of the violence of June 1780 and repercussions.
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Henri Bergson's ideas about our experience of time passing
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Frankenstein
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mary Shelley's Gothic story of a monster brought to life
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Kinetic Theory
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how we know gas molecules move rather than keep still.
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Grant's role in reconstructing the USA after the Civil War
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The Inca
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the advanced Andean empire, dominant until Pizarro arrived
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The Mytilenaean Debate
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Athenians' change of mind in the Peloponnesian War.
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Doggerland
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Stone Age human habitats now covered by the North Sea.
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Lorca
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Spanish poet and playwright's work, life and death.
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Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why Napoleon's apparent victory turned to defeat in 1812.
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The Rapture
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that believers will vanish from the world.
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Dorothy Hodgkin
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
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Rousseau on Education
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ideas on the education of children
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The Time Machine
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the science and ideas in HG Wells' story of time travel.
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Robert Burns
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry, ideas and life of Robert Burns (1759-1796).
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Hybrids
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how parents from different species can reproduce
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The Treaty of Limerick
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the treaty ending the Williamite War in Ireland in 1691
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Crime and Punishment
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Dostoevsky's novel. The hero thinks he's above the law....
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Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most powerful woman in the C12th Kingdom of Jerusalem
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the heights of medical knowledge under the Ming dynasty
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Lawrence of Arabia for this year's Listener Week
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of coffee and its impact
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss WH Auden's life and his poetry from the 1930s.
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb and what that revealed
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Catullus
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poems of Catullus from the late Roman Republic
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The Siege of Paris 1870-71
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Paris under Prussian siege and then under the Commune
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Solar Wind
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss solar wind, from auroras to the edge of the solar system.
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the scholar who revived learning for its own sake in C8th
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the celebrated French novelist, her life and work.
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Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Germanic tribes' destruction of three Roman legions.
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The Valladolid Debate
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the dispute in 1550 over enslavement of native Americans.
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The Evolution of Horses
Discussion of the origin, migration, extinction and domestication of horses.
50 mins
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Paul Dirac
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the greatest theoretical physicists who ever lived.
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The Covenanters
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Presbyterian solidarity in C17th Scotland and its impact.
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Pericles
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the celebrated Athenian statesman and orator.
48 mins
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Cave Art
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how and why Stone Age people decorated caves with images.
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Macbeth
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies.
51 mins
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Deism
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most disruptive ideas of the Enlightenment.
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Alan Turing
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the short, brilliant life of computer science's founder.
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Maria Theresa
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the woman who ruled Austria, shaking up the European order
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Piers Plowman
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Langland's celebrated poem, written around 1370.
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Mary Astell
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the philosopher Mary Astell (1666 – 1731).
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Albrecht Dürer
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and timeless works of the great German artist.
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The Zong Massacre
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the infamous drowning of enslaved Africans in 1781.
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Fernando Pessoa
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great Portuguese poet and his many literary personas.
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John Wesley and Methodism
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Wesley's role in the rise of Methodism in the 18th Century
51 mins
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The Cultural Revolution
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mao's uprising against his own party from 1966-76
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Eclipses
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the scientific advances gained from studying eclipses.
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The Great Gatsby
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Fitzgerald's celebrated novel of the Jazz Age.
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The Plague of Justinian
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the scale and impact of the plague that raged in 541AD.
48 mins
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Saint Cuthbert
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life of one of England's most revered saints.
56 mins
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Emilie du Châtelet
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss an astonishing mathematician of the French Enlightenment.
49 mins
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The Rosetta Stone
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the deciphering of hieroglyphs, secret for 1,500 years.
47 mins
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Medieval Pilgrimage
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Christian pilgrimage in Europe in the Middle Ages.
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Marcus Aurelius
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and meditations of 'the last good Roman emperor'.
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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Coleridge's famous poem of a sailor who shot an albatross.
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The Late Devonian Extinction
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the five major extinction events on Earth so far.
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The Bacchae
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the revenge of Dionysus on Thebes in Euripides' tragedy.
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David Ricardo
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Ricardo's argument on free trade after the Napoleonic wars
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The Russo-Japanese War
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1904-5 clash of Japanese and Russian empires.
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Pierre-Simon Laplace
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great French mathematician behind metrication.
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss an orthodox form of Christianity that became a heresy.
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great novel from the Ming Era, with its heroic Monkey.
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the upheavals of 1649-60 in the British Isles
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Kant's insight into how we relate to the world around us.
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Booth's landmark survey of London's poor and rich.
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Edward Gibbon
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
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Shakespeare's Sonnets
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss some of the greatest and most challenging poems in English
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the land animals of the Triassic that dominated dinosaurs.
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Herodotus
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek writer known as the father of history.
52 mins
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Anne Bronte's novel of a woman's fight for independence.
49 mins
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The Manhattan Project
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the race to build an atom bomb before anyone else in WW2
48 mins
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The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Europe's largest republic, before its partition in 1772.
48 mins
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the philosophy of the celebrated author of The Bell.
54 mins
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Corals
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the simple animals which form the now-threatened reefs.
51 mins
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The Song of Roland
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a masterpiece of French epic poetry from the 12th century.
51 mins
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William and Caroline Herschel
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the siblings at the forefront of 18th-century astronomy
50 mins
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The Decadent Movement
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Beardsley, Wilde and art for art's sake in the 1890s.
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Plato's Gorgias
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Plato's exploration of the nature of power and freedom.
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The Battle of Trafalgar
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Nelson's famous victory and death on 21 October 1805.
51 mins
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The May Fourth Movement
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas and protests in 1919 that shaped modern China.
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A Christmas Carol
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Dickens' celebrated story of Scrooge's redemption.
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great powers of the Late Bronze Age.
52 mins
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a giant of cinema in Weimar Germany and Hollywood.
55 mins
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Thomas Hardy's Poetry
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Hardy's goal of being a great poet and how he succeeded.
50 mins
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The Gold Standard
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what happened when world currencies were tied to gold
49 mins
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Colette
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a major force in French culture in the 20th century.
51 mins
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The Temperance Movement
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the enthusiasm in Britain for abstaining from alcohol.
52 mins
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Walter Benjamin
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most influential thinkers of the last century.
50 mins
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Romeo and Juliet
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's tragedy of young star-crossed love in Verona
50 mins
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Peter Kropotkin
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the prominent Russian anarchist and his idea of Mutual Aid
51 mins
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The Arthashastra
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ancient Indian Sanskrit text the Arthashastra.
56 mins
In Our Time
In Our Time is now first on BBC Sounds
New episodes will now be available first on Sounds for 28 days before other podcast apps.
1 min

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