Episode 1

Professor Jerry Brotton, one of the UK's leading experts on cultural exchange, examines Queen Elizabeth I's fascination with the Orient. He shows that England's relations with the Muslim world were far more extensive, and often more amicable, than we have ever appreciated, and that their influence was felt across the political, commercial and domestic landscape of Elizabethan England.

Derek Jacobi reads the captivating account of how Britain sent ships, treaties and gifts to the royal families of Morocco and Turkey, including a gold carriage and a full-size pipe organ.

In this episode, we discover the origins of our taste for Oriental imports – including the sugar which rotted the teeth of our sovereign.

Producer: David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in March 2016.