Episode Details
Back to Episodes
The World's Mine Oyster
Description
In this opening episode we look at a familiar everyday phrase. We think we know what it means today - but it's not what Shakespeare meant when he wrote it! The quote is from The Merry Wives of Windsor, a play about the infamous rogue Falstaff getting his come-uppance. Joining Andy to chat about about the play, and how this quote reversed its meaning, is the well known Shakespeare scholar Dr Emma Smith, from the University of Oxford. The performers today are Michael Flett, Rachel Bhandari, and Andy himself.
Emma Smith's most popular book is "This is Shakespeare: How to Read the World's Most Famous Playwright", published by Pelican.
The artwork shows Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor, from the cover of a Victorian magazine called The Sketch, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 489, June 11, 1902. Sourced from wikimedia, provided by the London Stereoscopic Company.
You can read the scene our quote comes from - Act II Scene 2 of the Merry Wives of Windsor - at