Blackmail and Shame

An artist murdered in his studio - the blackmailer thinks he knows who removed vital clues. This plot from Charles Bennett premiered in London's West End in 1928 and was subsequently turned into an early sound film by Alfred Hitchcock. Now playwright Mark Ravenhill has written a new version. He joins Matthew Sweet to discuss blackmail and our changing ideas about shame. New Generation Thinker and medieval historian Hetta Howes looks at ideas of shame in the middle ages, with critic and literary scholar Kaye Mitchell tracing those ideas today. Plus criminologist Paul Bleakley, who's researched the history of blackmail.

Blackmail, a new version written by Mark Ravenhill and directed by Anthony Banks, runs at Mercury Theatre, Colchester in Essex from March 4th - 19th

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Image: Gabriel Akuwudike as Harold Webber in Mark Ravenhill's Blackmail
Image credit: Pamela Raith