All language subtitles for Shakespeare_ Rise of a Genius s01e01 (2023) 720p

This programme contains some
strong language from the start,

and some violent scenes.

Towards the end
of William Shakespeare's life

he was alone in London,
away from his family.

He was producing masterpiece
after masterpiece.

In a single year - Othello,

Macbeth and King Lear.

The thing about Shakespeare,

the plays are infected by his life.

There's a lot of stuff there
which is really about him.

King Lear is the older man's play.

Shakespeare's suffering
a great deal as he writes it.

Lear, he kind of makes
these mistakes

and he has to live with the mistakes

but they're also to do with the
mistakes that Shakespeare has made.

It's very, very personal.

The great line is - I've taken
too little care of this.

And I think, I've taken
too little care of this,

actually is about family.

I haven't attended to family,

I haven't attended
to my own children.

You know, he...he feels he's screwed
it up.

To a certain extent he did,

and that's the greatness of the play
is the fact that he admits

that he's fucked it,
good and proper.

CROWD SHOUTS

The plays Shakespeare left us
are not only works of genius

but they also provide a collection
of clues as to who he was,

the struggles he faced

and the forces that drove him.

He was living in a time
where everybody was just

swimming in muck, sex and you know

violence, and it was charged.

GUNSHOT

That narrative of Shakespeare
striding along,

becoming the man he was
always intended to be

could not be further
from the truth.

The truth is, it was a blessing
for Shakespeare simply surviving.

Now, with the help of historians,
experts and actors,

we're going to piece
together the puzzle

and tell the life story
of William Shakespeare.

You cannot shrug
your way through it.

It's too... It's too big.

It's a story of ambition,

showmanship and tragedy.

How a glover's son
from Stratford-upon-Avon

became the greatest writer
who ever lived.

He doesn't restrict himself
talking about human frailty.

He's saying, look at yourself
and look at the damage that is done.

It's his understanding
of everything.

Of love,

of anger, of jealousy,

of rage,

melancholy.

Who did it better?

Who's ever done it better?

I wish I'd met him.

Oh, I wish I'd met him.

It's 1587.

Elizabeth I is on the throne.

Her reign has ignited an era
of dramatic change.

The world is opening up.

Boats are arriving in London

bringing spices, money and
immigrants from across the world.

The British Empire
is about to begin,

and for the first time in centuries

a man can change his social status.

It's a world of new opportunity,

where fortunes can be made.

DUCKS CHATTER QUIETLY

William Shakespeare is 23 and
living in Stratford-upon-Avon,

a small rural town of 2,000 people,

100 miles and three days' travel
from London.

William and Anne and the children
lived at Henley Street.

One room downstairs,
one room upstairs.

He should have finished school

and then gone to university

but he didn't finish school.

John, his dad, couldn't pay any more
because he was in debt

and in trouble generally,

and just sort of like ducking
and diving to make ends meet.

Shakespeare had been
to Stratford Grammar,

one of the best schools
in the country,

where he developed a passion
for history and literature.

But his education
had been cut short.

He's young, he's got education
but not enough,

and no trade, so he's mainly
at home getting frustrated.

At the age of 18, he had fallen
in love with Anne Hathaway,

who became pregnant,
and they quickly got married.

They have three children -

Susanna, Judith and Hamnet.

But he decides to leave them

to make a name for himself,

to follow his dream
and become a writer

and reclaim his family's status.

I think, for him to write...

..it's everything.

Leaving his wife and his children
must have been painful

but, God, I think he would have gone
absolutely mad

if he'd stayed where he was.

I think if you have
that need in you,

you know, whatever it is,
kind of blind madness or passion

or drive or, erm, curiosity...

..all those things are...

..secondary.

You know, whatever was
going on in his life

it was probably
never enough for him.

I mean, he would have exploded.

CHURCH BELL CHIMES

CACOPHONY OF NOISE

When William arrives in London

it must have been like
walking into an explosion.

CACOPHONY CONTINUES

CHICKEN CLUCKS

London at the time is
a really burgeoning place.

It's about to become a world city.

It's growing exponentially,

the population is increasing

and increasing and increasing.

So it's crowded, it must have stank.

There are all sorts of accents
from all over the country

and from other countries.

But the main thing, you know,
it's really dangerous.

ANGRY SHOUTING

MAN HEAVES

London's population has doubled
in the past 50 years.

There's overcrowding,
disease and violence.

Life expectancy is just 25 years old

and the murder rate is ten times
what it is today.

It has very little infrastructure.

There's no police force,

it's an unregulated world.

Everyone's carrying a dagger,
they need to be carrying a dagger.

If you're posh, you've got a rapier,
if not you've got a knife.

And I think another thing is
it's a changing world.

The religion of England has been
flipflopping between Catholic

and Protestant and more
Protestant and Catholic again,

and then sort of Protestant.

So you don't know
what the truth is,

you don't know
who you're talking to,

you don't know who you can trust.

And among all this roguishness,
debauchery, all the rest of it,

was this very, very young
institution of theatre.

Shakespeare knows there's money
to be made entertaining

the city's booming population.

And he's arrived in London
just a decade

since the first permanent theatre
was built.

Housed between taverns,
brothels and bear-baiting pits,

the Rose Theatre attracts an
audience of 2,000 Londoners

six days a week.

LOUD CHATTERING

For Tamburlaine,
the scourge of God, must die!

Theatre was the most
punk expression possible.

It was just so full of muck
and sex and, you know, violence.

Onstage, theatre challenges
religion and authority.

There are plays about gay kings,

murderous tyrants and men who
sell their soul to the devil.

A world of creative opportunity

unlike anything
Shakespeare has ever seen.

I think he feels a
sort of illicit thrill.

You know, it's hard to imagine
how exciting it is

and how dangerous it is.

In a religious world, where
Creation is a given thing,

it's conferred by God,
suddenly you're seeing human beings

getting up and making their own
world, and he must have thought

there's something really amazing
about this.

There's a transfer of power
from God to the theatre,

to the playwright, to the players.

They're presenting us with a world
which transgresses boundaries,

where boys can
convincingly be girls.

Where vagabond players
can convincingly be kings.

He finds himself thinking,
actually I could do this.

Here is where I can
make my contribution.

DISTANT BELLS TOLL

And so Shakespeare
lands his first job in theatre...

..starting, it's believed,
at the very bottom,

as a stage hand.

I mean, Shakespeare when he
started out, it's a tough gig.

He had to graft.

He had to do.

It wasn't enough just
to kind of think, you know?

Cos you can think or...
You know, we all dream,

got to dream, dream big, but then
you have to make it a reality.

Occasionally, Shakespeare
is an extra onstage,

sometimes getting
to speak the odd line.

He had to work on a day-to-day basis

as a hired man for a company.

Actors had to rehearse
the part in the morning

and perform it in the afternoon.

So Shakespeare hoped he would be
hired by a particular company

on a particular day, and he
could make a little bit more

than a labourer doing that.

And those who would best
understand it today

are not literature professors
but gig workers.

As he watches from the wings,
Shakespeare begins to understand

the mechanics of this new type
of entertainment.

How it's cheaper to write murders
that happen offstage to save on

cleaning costs, that sheep's
blood is used for special effects,

that a rolled canon ball
can make the sound of thunder.

RUMBLING

That 21 actors can play up to
60 parts during a performance

and it takes 27 lines of dialogue
for an actor to exit stage,

change costume and get back on.

You have to observe.

He used to stand at the side
of the stage and watch actors

every single night.

It's not easy, not easy
at the best of times,

but that's par for
the course, really,

because only that way can you learn.

And Shakespeare
meets Richard Burbage,

the actor for whom one day
he'll write many leading roles.

Shakespeare watched and learned
from everything and everyone.

Practicalities -
who can play that part?

What's possible?
What's not possible?

So much is stored away,

is absorbed at this time.

He's taking in works
to get the skill sets he wants.

And that made all the difference.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

RAUCOUS LAUGHTER

Shakespeare is learning his trade

but he's still broke.

To become a writer, Shakespeare
must compete with the Elizabethan

playwriting elite,
known as the University Wits.

The Wits dominate the theatre scene.

Playwrights Thomas Kyd,
Robert Greene and Thomas Nashe

are top of the pile.

William received
a limited education,

he didn't go to university.

In a hierarchical society,
it matters.

There's no necessary way
forward for William,

and it's hard to imagine
how crushing

that might have been.

At the centre of this group
is England's most famous

and controversial playwright -
Christopher Marlowe.

Christopher Marlowe was
born in Canterbury

the same year as
William Shakespeare,

and he won a scholarship, actually,

to go to Cambridge as, you know,

all the best and brightest did.

His celebrity started
when he was in his very early 20s.

That was bolstered by the fact there
were all these running rumours

that he was one of
the Queen's spies.

At this time, William's sort
of like a background actor.

So I wonder if Marlowe
even noticed him at all.

I kind of doubt it.

Marlowe, the writer
of Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine,

is an atheist, homosexual

and unsubtly controversial
in every possible way.

Marlowe has always had
a sense of ever-present danger.

All of his plays are lined
with blood and guts,

and I think that's what
Marlowe gave an audience.

Shakespeare knows he'll never
be taken seriously as a writer

on his own, so he makes it his
business to meet George Peele,

a member of Marlowe's circle.

I think William Shakespeare is
an opportunist, he always was.

You know, Shakespeare's a really
social animal, and he's in there.

He was at the beginning
absolutely willing to do

whatever he needed to do
to get his play on the stage.

Shakespeare has an idea.

He just needs the status of someone
like Peele to get it off the ground.

He's a young man in London
trying to make his way.

How's he going to do it?

He's going to cut through the noise,

cut through people
who had university educations.

It's rough and ready, it's crude,
it's exploiting the market.

Let's put in loads of sex and
violence and everybody will come.

Peele decides to give
Shakespeare a chance.

Together they write a play
called Titus Andronicus.

Set in ancient Rome,
it's a bloodthirsty revenge story.

A Roman general's daughter is raped
and mutilated by two brothers.

The general takes his revenge.

Performances of the play emphasise
the brutality of Titus' words

and action.

Titus, you know,
it's kind of ludicrous in a way.

This is a young writer
getting his rocks off.

You've got to keep it absolutely
intense throughout.

I shall grind your bones to dust.

And with your blood and it
I'll make a paste.

And of the paste
a coffin I will rear

and make two pasties
of your shameful heads

and bid that strumpet,
your unhallowed dam,

like to the earth swallow
her own increase.

HE WHIMPERS

Titus Andronicus is
a kind of Tarantino moment, really.

It's full of brazen spectacle,

it's an experiment
in brazenness,

in the accumulation of horrors,

and it's also been compared
to Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

And now prepare your throats.

MAN GASPS IN PANIC

Shakespeare challenges the actor
playing Titus Andronicus

to demonstrate his calm
determination to take revenge

as the plot becomes increasingly
disturbing and absurd.

Lavinia, come.

MAN WHIMPERS

GASPING

Receive the blood.

Come, come, be every one officious
to make this banquet.

He understands audiences.

You've got to keep them
on their toes,

you've got to keep surprising them,

and Titus is a wonderful example
of the outrageousness that he just

says, "Oh, I'm going
to go the whole hog.

"I'm going to go so ridiculous,
people are not going to believe it,

"what I'm going to do."

But it's kind of deliberate,
cos he's challenging.

He's said, "OK, you want..."

And that's the great thing about
a young writer that he's...

That's part of his youth,
that part, that daring part.

The baking of the kids in a pie
and feeding the pie to the mother

at the end is the most
outrageous thing ever.

We are beholding to you,
good Andronicus.

If your highness knew my heart,
you were.

The brothers who mutilated his
daughter are the sons of a queen.

The general now grinds up their
bodies, puts them into a pie

and then takes pleasure
in tricking her into eating them.

Will't please you eat?
Will't please your highness feed?

MUSIC: Vivere
by Elliot Goldenthal

Titus is a success,

but Shakespeare is making his debut
at a dangerous time for theatre.

Many of England's political elite
are religious fanatics,

puritanical, hardline Protestants
who hate theatre

and want it strictly controlled.

The authorities are in two minds.

On the one hand, you've got
the Queen and the nobility,

who are very fond of having dramatic
performances in their own homes,

to their own friends and relations.

But on the other hand, you have
a growing development of plays

being performed publicly.

Large numbers of people gathering,
enjoying themselves,

drinking, smoking,

doing all sorts of other
possibly naughty things.

And so, in 1589, the Mayor of London
announces a new decree.

To keep theatre away from
London's rich upmarket areas,

all performances are banned
within the city walls

and restricted to
the poorer areas outside.

But William's company
want to be where the money is,

so it's believed they ignore the ban
and hold an illegal performance

in a city tavern called
The Cross Keys Inn.

Bring them in.

For I'll go play the cook

and see them ready
against their mother comes.

CHEERING

There was a well-known occasion

when things got out of hand.

People were performing when
they shouldn't have been performing

and so they were closed down
and hauled off.

Of course, they would have been
very aware of the rules.

But not at the expense of actually
getting a fucking show on.

He had bills to pay, like all these
people did, you know.

It appears that they were
treated as vagabonds

under a vagrancy act of 1572,

and that meant that they could be
punished in such ways

as being whipped or
burnt through the ear

if they went around acting
without a noble patron.

Two of Shakespeare's fellow actors
end up in prison.

It's a wake-up call.

In Elizabethan England, crossing
the line can mean your severed head

displayed on London Bridge.

Shakespeare realises that he needs
to write plays

that appeal both to a mass audience

but also to those in power.

And he knows where to
look for inspiration.

SERIES OF EXPLOSIONS

This is a time when we're less
just a little island on the fringes,

England is coming
to be a great power.

People are much more curious
about what Englishness is.

With Queen Elizabeth's Royal Navy
having recently defeated

the Spanish Armada,

a wave of patriotism
is sweeping England.

And so Shakespeare decides
to tell the triumphant story

of how Elizabeth's family,
the Tudors, came to power,

saving England from a weak king
and a civil war

known as the Wars of the Roses.

He calls it Henry VI.

Farewell faint-hearted
and degenerate king.

In whose cold blood no
spark of honour bides.

No-one else has written about
such recent English history,

but what Shakespeare needs now
is to get Henry VI staged.

The Rose Theatre's new season
starts with a restaging

of Marlowe's revenge play -
The Jew Of Malta.

CROWD HECKLES

It's a flop,
taking just ten shillings.

Shakespeare, sensing audiences
want something new,

persuades the theatre
to stage Henry VI instead.

But will audiences really prefer
his new play about English history

to Marlowe's full-bloodied
revenge tragedies?

ACTOR: From Ireland thus comes York
to claim his right.

It's obviously ambitious.

It's comparatively recent history
when he's writing it

so those characters
and those people,

quite fresh in people's memories.

Their grandparents would
have been very close to that.

So it's a very, very
different play.

But all that matters
is that the play makes money.

Admission to The Rose Theatre
is a penny to stand,

two to sit and an extra
penny for a cushion.

The money is collected in
specially made clay boxes

sealed to prevent theft.

Open thy gates of mercy...

Once full, the boxes go
to the counting room,

still known today as the box office.

My soul flies through these wounds.

AUDIENCE APPLAUDS

Henry VI takes £3, 16 shillings
and 8 pence

for the opening performance alone...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..eight times the amount
of Marlowe's plays

and the highest
takings of the season.

WHISTLING

Three cheers!

The box office is a
material validation.

This is an endorsement
which recognises

that William has arrived.

Henry VI is staged another
12 times in the coming months,

more than any other play in London.

10,000 people
from all levels of society

flock to the theatre each week.

At this point at least,
William feels it's all to play for,

it's game on.

DISTANT LAUGHTER

But some of Shakespeare's rival
playwrights in Marlowe's circle

are not impressed.

Robert Greene, who is
one of the University Wits,

he's one of the literary men,
takes it upon himself

to write a put-down,

lampooning and mocking William.

LAUGHTER

William is reading this

and finds himself described as

"an upstart crow, beautified
with our feathers,"

as a "Johannes fac totum."

That's the phrase Greene uses
meaning a jack of all trades,

a man without vocation or talent.

You can hear the sneer.

This is a class attack.

The word "upstart"
has just been invented

to belittle those who dare to try
and change their social status.

Greene goes on to taunt
Shakespeare's Midland accent

and mock him
for being tight with money.

I imagine that
William Shakespeare was,

like anybody else
who creates anything,

sensitive and upset

when people were saying
dreadful things.

We shouldn't imagine
that he was immune to that.

William must feel horror,
exposure, shame.

Robert Greene even purloins
a line from Henry VI

and twists it round.

He says that he has a "tygers hart
wrapt in a players hyde."

So he's an equivocator,
he's a shapeshifter, an upstart.

He is transgressing social limits.

He threatens the order
that Greene clings to.

William's on the cusp here.

He's started to make an
impact, thrillingly,

and he's suddenly being shut down.

BELL TOLLS

MAN COUGHS

COUGHING

In 1592, plague hit London

and hit it hard.

No-one really understood
what caused it.

At first they thought that dogs
might be transmitting it,

so there were orders sent out,
kill all the dogs.

And between 1592 and 1594

the theatres were closed
for almost that entire time.

He must have been torn.

Do I just go home?

London is dangerous, one out
of every seven people is dead.

Walking the streets of London,
seeing the bodies, must have been

one of the most depressing
experiences in anyone's life.

And had a flea taken a left turn
rather than a right turn

down an alley in Southwark
at this time, we might have been

celebrating another playwright
rather than William Shakespeare.

Back in Stratford, his wife Anne
and his three young children

are also at risk
from the deadly plague.

It must have been devastating.

Everybody was losing people.

I think the powerlessness of it
must have been overwhelming.

She was 26 when she meets
18-year-old Shakespeare.

They met and she got pregnant
and they married quite quickly.

I think it was a
loving relationship.

They must have had a special bond.

I mean, she would have known
that artistry takes you over

and if you're someone like him,
my God, who's driven,

it becomes obsessive.

That kind of thing can put you
at odds, definitely, with family,

but Anne understands this.

Even though to deal with it
would be really hard, yeah.

Shakespeare knows the dangers of
plague only too well.

His younger sister died of it

when he was just 14.

But despite everything, Shakespeare
decides to stay in London.

I'm sure he hated himself sometimes
for wanting to really, like,

not let go of something
he was really passionate about.

But that experience, you know,

it's like you've found
something in you which...

..you know, ultimately changes you.

Once you taste that,
there's kind of no going back.

William clearly feels that
he's got so much more to give.

But at this point theatre is young,

it's still under suspicion
in all kinds of ways.

You know, who knows whether
they'll open again?

William could be
just William forever.

The plague years
decimate London theatre.

Its leading lights,
the University Wits, are gone.

Robert Greene, the man
who denounced Shakespeare

as an upstart crow, is dead.

Another playwright, Thomas Kyd,
is in prison, tortured for heresy.

And Christopher Marlowe
is under investigation

for being a traitor and blasphemer.

They reported that he said things
like, erm,

Jesus was a bastard.
He also made a claim

that John the Baptist
and Jesus were lovers.

From there, there was
no coming back.

According to the coroner's report

Christopher Marlowe was
at a lodging house,

and after a dispute over the bill
there is a escalation

that leads to one of the patrons

stabbing Christopher Marlowe
through the eye in self-defence.

The knife goes through his right eye
and through his brain.

I just don't understand
how one defends

by stabbing someone
through the eye and the brain.

So it feels very intentional.

It feels like a real
kill shot to me.

Someone wanted to get rid of him.

The theatre world
consists of just 200 people.

The murder of its most
adored playwright is seismic.

William must feel,

you know, an extraordinary mixture
of feelings.

Marlowe, of course, is another
version of himself in the same game,

on the same track, an exact
contemporary, exactly the same age.

So it's a warning,

but of course, pragmatically,
it's an opportunity.

His great rival is gone,
the coast is clear.

Potentially, it's a good
thing for his future.

THUNDER RUMBLES

The following year,

with plague subsiding and
most of his rivals dead,

Shakespeare hears of a plan
to resurrect London theatre...

..put together by an aristocrat
called Lord Hunsdon,

also known as the Lord Chamberlain.

Lord Hunsdon lives
in Somerset House,

which is a big palace on the Strand.

He's Elizabeth's cousin,
or if you believe the gossip,

her half brother. So Henry VIII
could have been his father,

and he's very important at court,
and at this point he is probably

THE most important person for
Shakespeare because he's the man

who chooses what entertainment
is put on for the Queen.

Hunsdon is dividing all London
theatre into two new companies -

one in the south called
the Lord Admiral's Men

and one in the north,
the Lord Chamberlain's Men.

Shakespeare wants in.

But he needs to impress.

For William,
it's absolutely nerve-racking.

He's very imposing, he wears
feathers that cost £20 a piece

which is more than Shakespeare
earned in his writing in a year.

But Shakespeare was I think
very good at seeing the real human

beneath the sort of
carapace of glory.

So I never get the feeling
he's completely overawed.

William takes the opportunity
to present the Lord Chamberlain

with his own deal.

He wants a full-time position
as a partner

and sole in-house playwright.

In exchange, the Lord Chamberlain
will have exclusive rights

to all of his plays.

He's in a strong position
by this point.

His rivals, most of them are dead -
Marlowe and Greene.

So if Hunsdon wants a good
playwright, Shakespeare's his man.

MUSIC: L'estro armonico concerto
No.2 by Vivaldi

This was one of those moments

where his career could have gone
either way.

Now Shakespeare was
brought in as a shareholder.

He got a share of every day's
take at the theatre,

and those pennies added up.

At this point, William's future,

economic and creative,

took its next great leap forward.

So he was now a member
of a leading company,

and it also meant that
they could, and did,

play before Queen Elizabeth
every year.

Shakespeare must have felt
the pressure

when they went out drinking
and carousing.

Shakespeare probably had to go back
to his quarters and by candlelight

read and write late into the night,

trying to finish yet another play

which could take him two months
or six weeks or longer,

because he had to show his mettle
with the Chamberlain's Men.

Shakespeare now has to
write plays to be performed

for Queen Elizabeth herself,

so he chooses a subject deliberately
targeted to winning her favour.

The story of Richard III.

Now is the winter of our discontent.

Made glorious summer

by this sun of York.

It's the story of the Tudors'
archenemy, the hunchback king

who murders everyone in his way
on his path to power.

Richard III is Shakespeare's
most complex character yet,

and he tells the story
from Richard's point of view,

the audience on board
with the villain.

Since I cannot prove a lover

to entertain these
fair well-spoken days,

I am determined to prove a villain.

And hate the idle pleasures
of these days.

Plots have I laid.

Inductions dangerous

by drunken prophecies,
libels and dreams

to set my brother Clarence
and the king in deadly hate,

the one against the other.

And if King Edward
be as true and just

as I am subtle, false
and treacherous,

this day should Clarence
closely be mewed up.

Richard III, the things
that he says and does are,

like, actually disgusting, you know.

I mean, to write down what happens
in the play is horrific,

it's terrible.

But there is something very
enjoyable about being complicit

as an audience
in something that is dastardly.

Having murdered
a rival for the crown,

Richard then seduces his widow.

I'll have her.

But I will not keep her long.

You know he's a villain
but he's not one-dimensional.

There's a lot else...
There's a lot more to him,

there's a lot of other
stuff going on

other than twiddling a moustache.

Charisma is a huge thing.

Here, I lend thee the sharp,
pointed sword which,

if thou please, to hide in
this true bosom,

I lay it naked to the deadly stroke,

and humbly beg the death upon
my knee. Nay, do not pause!

It was I that killed your husband,

but t'was thy beauty
that provoked me.

Don't dispatch,
it was I that killed King Henry

but it was thy heavenly face
that sent me on.

THEY SOB

What is really a
remarkable advance -

young William understands something
about psychology at this point,

which is, if Richard can seduce
Anne, he can seduce us.

And after that,
we're off to the races.

Shakespeare is called to
Elizabeth's Court

to perform his play.

Royal favour is the element
in which ambitious lives flourish.

And the Queen's gaze is also
the dangerous element in which

those lives might wither and die,

so the stakes are very high indeed.

It's hard to imagine, er,
a more, you know,

intense experience of performance
anxiety than one might have had,

in performing before Elizabeth I.

DOOR SQUEAKS SHUT

Now is the winter of our discontent,

made glorious summer by
this son of York.

A ho-r-r-rse!

A ho-r-r-rse!

My kingdom for a ho-r-r-rse!

Elizabeth's favour
is enormously important.

It's a massive endorsement.

It's like living in the light.

It's a wonderful gift,
and it's the basis...

It offers a platform for
his own agency.

Just seven years
after arriving in London,

the son of a humble glover
is now England's

most successful playwright -

and the Queen's favourite.

But, although Shakespeare's
position is secure,

Elizabeth's other subjects are
more desperate than ever.

The poor suffered the most
during the plague.

That legacy is beginning to cause
unrest in Elizabeth's London.

In 1595, it's hard to ignore
what was happening.

There's a lot of distress.

Food prices have been going up.

Nobody can afford anything -
price of butter, price of fish.

People are hungry, people are poor.

Feuds. London's just rioting.

And at the same time,
there's a sense that there's

an inter-generational struggle.

Thousands of young people are
taking to the streets in protest.

They have the lowest wages
in England's history.

The establishment responds
by publicly torturing

and executing five rebel leaders -

all in their teens
and early twenties -

and imposes martial law.

Shakespeare didn't like it.

And he wants to show that.

As a response to
the injustice he's seeing,

Shakespeare writes a play
that will last forever.

In Romeo And Juliet,

his main characters are not
warriors or kings,

but two innocent teenagers who,
despite coming from rival families

in a violent world,
fall madly in love.

Through the eyes of
Romeo and Juliet,

Shakespeare shows
a mastery of his craft,

expressing first love at
its purest and most uncynical.

Does thou love me?

I know thou wilt say ay,
and I will take thy word.

Yet if it thou swear'st,
thou mayst prove false.

Oh, gentle Romeo, if thou dost love,
pronounce it faithfully.

Lady, by yonder blessed moon,

I vow the tips with silver,

all these fruit trees.

O, Swear not by the moon.

The inconstant moon that monthly
changes in her circled orb.

Lest that thy love prove
likewise variable.

Well, what shall I swear by?

Do not swear at all.

Or, if thou wilt,

swear by thy gracious self,
which is the god of my idolatry,

and I'll believe thee.

She's like, "Whoa there, boy!
Chill out."

But also, "Feed me,
I'm hungry, I'm starving".

Do not swear,
although I joy in thee,

I have no joy of this contract
tonight, it is too rash,

too unadvised, too sudden.

The innocence and, erm, hope,
and desire and despair, and...

SHE LAUGHS

..and passion, and the violence of
all of that, as well, you know,

the kind of fight for you to meet
something in yourself that

you don't know yet is what I think
is the youth in that play.

Sweet goodnight, this bud of love,
by summer's ripening breath,

may prove a beauteous flower
when next we meet.

Doesn't she say,

"My bounty is as boundless as
the sea, my love is deep.

"The more I give to thee,
the more I have,

"for both are infinite."

Crikey, you'd like somebody
to say that to you, wouldn't you?

The language... Like, the poetry
and the abstractness,

and the expansiveness of
every single word,

for it also to have an almost,
like, heartbeat behind it,

it is like music.

And palm to palm is holy
palmer's kiss.

Have not saints lips,
and holy palmers, too?

Ay, pilgrim, lips that they
must use in prayer.

O, then, dear saint,
let lips do what hands do -

they pray, grant thou,
lest faith turn to despair.

Saints do not move,
though grant for prayers' sake.

Then move not
while my prayer's effect I take.

Yoo-hoo!

That big scene.

When you do it, it literally feels
like there is a whole orchestra

coming out of your mouth.

Thus for my lips, by thine,
my sin is purged.

Then have my lips the sin
that they have took?

Sin from thy lips?

O trespass sweetly urged.
Give me my sin again.

JUDI DENCH: From the moment
they meet, they sum up exactly

the most wonderful way to express
the feeling of completely

falling in love with somebody.

But you know that this going
to come to grief.

Is she a Capulet?

His name is Romeo,
and he's a Montague,

the only son of your great enemy.

What comes after

absolutely goes straight
to your heart.

Up until now, romantic plays
have been comedies,

but Shakespeare writes
this as a tragedy.

It should've been conventional.

You've got the Montagues
and the Capulets,

and they hate each other,
and of course,

their children meet by chance
and fall in love,

and live happily ever after.

But Shakespeare didn't do that.

We're going to get other ideas.

He starts instead to say, "No.

"Now, we're going to look
at what I want to write about,

"which is very different."

Having struggled against
the forces keeping them apart,

the young lovers meet a tragic end.

There is a powerful emotional
build-up to this final scene

as Romeo, overcome with grief and
wrongly believing Juliet to be dead,

enters her crypt before both
take their own lives.

By the time you get to that
end point, and it's very scary...

..Romeo and Juliet have made
that journey to...

..to live and give every bit
of themselves in the name of love,

and in the name of changing a story
in their society, where actually,

love wins over death and violence.

Dateless bargain...

..to engrossing death.

Romeo?

HE PANTS

What's here?

Poison.

Drunk all, and left no friendly
drop to help me after.

WHISPERING: I'll kiss thy lips...

..haply some poison yet doth
hang on them.

Of course,
that's why we remember it.

It's these young people
who didn't deserve to die,

and whose only crime was
to love each other.

In the end of the play,

there's a powerful message
coming across when he does that,

that waste, that loss.

It's like he's saying,
"The future's been destroyed".

You know, there's...

..there is a power and importance
in what he's saying.

Shakespeare recognises the spell
that is cast in this world,

and he does everything he can
to break it.

It isn't worth sacrificing yourself
to a feud or to a violence

that's in a society.

At the end of the day,

love is more powerful.

Shakespeare wanted to take risks,

and little pokes at people who
were seen as the higher-ups.

He had to be careful with
the authorities.

If he pushed that too far,

the punishment was very,
very extreme.

It's no coincidence that Hamlet
is one of his greatest plays.

And is he questioning ambition
over fatherhood?

I think he is, and wondering
whether he's done the right thing.