Alan Yentob and award-winning novelist Howard Jacobson traveled to the slums of Venice to begin retelling Shakespeare's most popular play "The Merchant of Venice". Through a series of vivid - usually intense - interviews, they examined the anti Semitic accusations against Shakespeare and found that Shakespeare's character Shylock remained one of the most detestable and divisive fictional Jews in history. How did the Venetian moneylenders become such a useful propaganda tool in Nazi Germany? How much freedom will Jacobson gain when he shifts this action to the edge of modern Oldley and boldly reinterprets the infamous "pound of flesh"? Respondents include Antony Sher, Anthony Julius, and Stephen Greenblatt.