Robert McCrum travels to the United States in search of Shakespeare and the American Dream and hears how he became part of the very fabric of early American life soon after the colonists arrived in New England and has remained an important cultural reference point for Americans.

Robert talks to composer Stephen Sondheim and actor Alec Baldwin along the way. As author James Shapiro puts it: “Americans use Shakespeare to talk about the things that divide us or that we don’t want to talk about”.

Photo: Leonardo Dicaprio is Romeo In the movie adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. (Credit: Getty Images)