About This Show
Shakespeare is both the greatest and most underrated poet in the English language. Underrated yet apparently overrated – a word for which Shakespeare has himself to blame. Coleridge scoffed at the thought of measuring Shakespeare against anyone but Shakespeare. Today, the more scholars try to compute his genius, the more laughable it seems. He is so ubiquitous that it is hard to see him for what he was: the devoted last-born child of the Middle Ages, the father of modernity, and yet unparalleled and unsurpassed. His poetry is unavoidable but inimitable, perpetually accessible – another Shakespearean coinage – yet also increasingly rich, almost to the point of obscurity. Still, it continues to beguile – (there’s another) – and bedazzle – (and another). He remains – (one cannot but quote him) – the ‘be-all and the end-all’ of English poetry: at once the enchanter and the ruin of generations of poets and critics. Drawing on the poems and plays, and in the company of great performers, we hope to persuade you that Shakespeare was much greater than you had even imagined.