In Search of Shakespeare

Latest Episodes

• For All Time

  Michael Wood traces events in the playwright's life during the reign of King James I, examining his role in the coronation and revealing how, after the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, Shakespeare penned a play about conspiracies and paranoia - Macbeth. He also visits the neighbourhood in London where the Bard stayed with a French family, and reveals a fragment of a lost play discovered during filming

• The Duty of Poets

  Historian Michael Wood traces the playwright's rise to fame in Elizabethan London. He charts how his rejection of religious poetry led to the writing of Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and how the death of his son Hamnet brought about a mid-life crisis and drove him to a passionate affair with a married woman. Examining his tax records, the presenter also discovers Shakespeare lived in Southwark where, after being summonsed for GBH, he created one of his greatest characters - Falstaff

• The Lost Years

  Michael Wood explores conflicting theories of how the playwright spent the 10 years between his doomed marriage to Ann Hathaway and emergence as a writer in London. Apart from the birth of three children there is nothing documented about Shakespeare's life at this time, but it is thought he may have honed his craft as part of Elizabeth I's government propaganda company the Queen's Men. The historian also traces the downfall of artistic rival Christopher Marlowe and unveils some early works