Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum In 2012, as the
world’s gaze turns on London in this Olympic year, the British
Museum will be exploring this capital city from a slightly
different viewpoint – by trying to get inside the heads of the
people who lived here over 400 years ago. In Shakespeare’s
Restless World, a series starting on BBC Radio 4 next week, we
will explore the stories of 20 objects – some grand, some
everyday things – that help us imagine what the world looked
like to the groundlings inside the Globe theatre around 1600.
I’ll be talking to Shakespeare scholars, historians and experts
on the fascinating issues these 20 objects raise – everything
from exploration and discovery abroad to entertainment, monarchy
and even the deadly threat of plague closer to home. As well as
objects from the British Museum, many are from collections
across the UK. I have been travelling across Britain to get a
closer look at what these objects, such as a fork found on the
site of the Rose Theatre, a book o