It is salutary to engage with Henry, this most famous of monarchs, through the lens of the play in which Shakespeare is exploring what was for him fairly recent history. The striking final tableau presents the king cradling the new-born Elizabeth. Julius Caesar is recognised as a play offering timeless insight into the moral and political challenges facing an individual as he seeks to reconcile the conflict between private feelings and public good. Can there be such a definition as an honourable murderer?

This eight-week course is for all writers over 18, whether seasoned or just getting started, who want to bring new life to their writing. The weekly workshops are designed to help you identify what stops you writing and what connects you more deeply with your innate creativity.

This eight-week course is for all writers over 18, whether seasoned or just getting started, who want to bring new life to their writing. The weekly workshops are designed to help you identify what stops you writing and what connects you more deeply with your innate creativity.

Political events over the last decade or more, including the rise of authoritarian states and leaders, have made one question appear very urgent, namely – how do democracies die? The history of Ancient Greece, however, suggests a different way of posing this question.

This course of eight weekly workshops is designed to help you build momentum on a creative project, work on structure, hone your style, solve narrative problems and learn to edit your own work. It's ideal for adults who are already writing - occasionally or regularly - or want to return to writing after a break.

Just the Ruskin Club as we join Nuala to share her travel writing from Africa.

Free for BMI members, £5 for any non-member. No booking necessary.

Regular UK National Censuses have taken place every ten years since 1801 but what can they tell us about the Victorian Literati, their lives, and their households and families. Is it more than just names, ages, and addresses?

Everyone has a story worth telling. This course helps you to capture the essence of important moments, whether in your life or someone else's. You’ll develop key writing skills, such as how to structure your stories and create vivid details. A friendly and supportive class for new and established writers, with online drop-in sessions between classes to help you keep writing.

What connection does Sherlock Holmes have with Birmingham? What mysterious item relating to the Second World War wowed audiences of the Antiques Roadshow? And how is archival research misrepresented in shows like Who Do You Think You Are? Mark Eccleston, Archivist at the University of Birmingham, reveals the secrets of the archives held at the Cadbury Research Library.

This is a seminal work. its status has been achieved as a result of the searing insight the novel offers into the ways in which human beings react when thrust into an alien, isolated environment. William Golding is a remarkable novelist and his writing is stylish, astute and powerful. Peter Brook’s film (released in 1963) is universally acclaimed and i shall also share insights into the novel, the making of the film and its aftermath revealed in a television documentary featuring its cast and director thirty-five years after the film’s creation.

Where do rights come from? In the modern world the idea of rights – of citizens’ rights and human rights – is ubiquitous and their source is apparently obvious.

This is the first in what will be a series of Study Days looking at the roles and importance of the family in Jane Austen’s novels. This day will focus upon sisters. There will be a consideration of not only the five Bennet sisters but also the contribution made by others, such as the sisters of Bingley and Darcy.

What is reality? Is what we experience in our lives real or mere shadows? 

By means of allegory, illusion and a sprinkling of quantum physics we come to realise that Plato’s Cave is an adequate metaphor, helping us realise the incomprehensibility of The Real.

The reputation of these plays has been hampered over time by their unexciting titles and the unfair perception that as plays written by Shakespeare early in his career they are less worthy of consideration. i aim to dispel this prejudice! I shall deal with each play in its own right but also i will consider the three plays as a trilogy.

From his birth in 1863 Austen Chamberlain was groomed for the highest public office by his father Joseph Chamberlain, one of the great figures of Victorian and Edwardian England.

Although these two plays are very different dramatists, the plays have a striking similarity. In the construction both Priestley and Pinter have chosen to disrupt the chronology of the action which has a powerful impact on how the audience receives and responds to characters’ actions and behaviour.

Apprenticeship in Britain - that is, vocational education based on the learner as a junior employee - once served as the transition between compulsory schooling and adulthood. It provided new entrants to the workforce not just with specific techniques, but with broader occupational competence.

We will be joined by Matthew Vaughan of Donald Insall Associates, one of the world’s leading specialist architectural firms focused on the care, repair, adaptation and conservation of historic buildings. Established over 60 years ago the practice has pioneered a creative approach to conservation, centred on the belief that change is continuous and buildings are, in effect, ‘alive’.

This play is frequently celebrated as a stirringly patriotic call to arms. It is quoted at moments of national crisis and on the rugby field. However, Shakespeare’s play is more complex.

Do you want to write, but find it hard to get started or build momentum? Maybe your writing has fallen flat and your ideas feel tired, or you've got so many demands on your time and energy that writing feels like a luxury you can't afford. Wherever you're at, this course can help. Each week we'll explore a different way into writing through practical, playful experiments. You'll learn how to dismantle blocks to creativity, how to keep feeding your imagination, how to bring new life into your writing, and how to keep your writing going.

In this course, you’ll explore techniques that help you create compelling characters, believable settings and convincing dialogue. We’ll look at different ways of plotting, balancing detail and description, and playing with viewpoint to create different effects. We’ll consider how other writers create convincing narratives and apply what we learn to our own writing. Our classes are friendly and supportive, and we welcome new and more established writers.

BMI Scientist in Residence Dr James Dawson looks at the representation of comets in art, backed up with a sprinkling of science.

Everyone has a story worth telling. Whether you want to share yours with friends, family or a wider audience, this course helps you to capture the essence of important moments in your life. You’ll develop key writing skills, such as how to structure your stories and create vivid details. No previous writing experience necessary.

What is generally judged to be Alexandre Dumas’s greatest novel has generated a wide range of screen versions. Do the vicissitudes suffered by Edmond Dantes justify the theatricality of his actions? However much we may sympathise with his desire for revenge, there are challenging moral questions to be confronted.

In her day, Anna Mary Howitt was an artist, author and activist who was fully immersed in her cultural and social milieu. Identified by Marsh and Nunn as ‘the nearest thing to a female Pre-Raphaelite, tout court', Howitt established herself as among the great artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

In structuring his novel around one woman with three men wooing her, Hardy chooses symbolic names; his heroine Bathsheba is encircled by Gabriel Oak, Sergeant Troy and William Boldwood.

Join us as Margaret shows us how to create fabric strawberries to gift, use as packages for presents or to as Christmas tree decorations.

Despite their titles these two plays are individually complete. Both are tightly constructed and richly layered.