THOMAS MIDDLETON, JACOBEAN PLAYWRIGHT
Listen on BBC RADIO 4
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most energetic, varied and innovative playwrights of his time. Thomas Middleton (1580-1627) worked across the London stages both alone and with others from Dekker and Rowley to Shakespeare and more. Middleton’s range included raucous city comedies such as A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and chilling revenge tragedies like The Changeling and The Revenger’s Tragedy, some with the main adult companies and some with child actors playing the scheming adults. Middleton seemed to be everywhere on the Jacobean stage, mixing warmth and cruelty amid laughter and horror, and even Macbeth’s witches may be substantially his work.
With
Emma Smith
Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of Oxford
Lucy Munro
Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature at Kings College London
And
Michelle O’Callaghan
Professor of Early Modern Literature at the University of Reading
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Photo: Britannica
