As Man Booker Prize-winning writer Howard Jacobson retells The Merchant of Venice, 400 years after Shakespeare’s death, he travels with Alan Yentob to the ghetto in Venice to explore Shakespeare's most performed play - and in particular the character of the most divisive fictional Jew in history, Shylock. On their journey, Howard and Alan examine the evidence behind the charge of antisemitism against Shakespeare. How did his old Jew from Venice become such a useful propaganda tool during the Third Reich, and what was behind the absurd and infamous proposal to cut off a 'pound of flesh'?

Dmitry is a Russian emigrant living in London with his wife and son. He is one of the most successful venture capitalists in the world. He has everything, but at 46 years and 7 months he realizes that one day he will die. Dmitry creates a fund investing in life-extension technologies.