This is the story of one man who will kill his way to win the Scottish throne. Macbeth is a play that you’re not even supposed to say the name of ... This tale of mass murder is among the darkest and strangest of all Shakespeare’s plays. Shakespeare Uncovered II: Ethan Hawke on Macbeth, BBC 2012 *****
When Shakespeare wrote Macbeth he explored the darkest side of the human psyche. Macbeth will become a traitor, a butcher, a serial killer, and yet, what’s so powerful is that Shakespeare hasn’t written a play about a monster, he’s written a play about a man. Macbeth explores our capacity for violence and evil. ibid.
He murders the king himself and then all other possible rivals. ibid.
This play all takes place in a kind of shadowland. ibid.
But had he always desired the crown? Or had the witches planted that idea? ibid.
Witches were taken seriously by almost everyone. ibid.
Macbeth is known to have lived in Scotland in Perthshire nearly a thousand years ago. ibid.
She is his partner in crime. ibid.
Is he prepared to act on it alone, or will his wife have to force him to do what has to be done to succeed? ibid.
But whether you play her bullying or seductive, this idea of a manipulative woman pushing her man to excess has become iconic. ibid.
Does she make him a killer? Who wields the power in this relationship? ibid.
He’s not such a hard sell. ibid.
The act of killing changes everything. ibid.
Now alone Lady Macbeth will completely break down. ibid.
Was it the witches who corrupted Macbeth or his own ambition? ibid.
One of the most shocking and scandalising moments in English history. Shakespeare Uncovered III: Derek Jacobi on Richard II
Written entirely in verse. ibid.
In the 1930s Gielgud’s own Richard had been a critical triumph. ibid.
The brilliance of the Play’s stunning poetry. ibid.
He is always his own audience. ibid.
Just imagine: you’ve been ruined on a deserted island for twelve years when amazingly the men who conspired to put you here are shipwrecked in a storm, are washed up, defenceless, on to the same shore. They are at your mercy. So what are you going to do? Shakespeare Uncovered IV: Trevor Nunn on The Tempest, BBC 2012
The last complete play by William Shakespeare. ibid.
More ambitious than anything he’d written before, more radical. ibid.
Did he play Prospero? ibid.
How do we become the people we are? What does it mean to be human? And what happens for the first time when we fall in love? ibid.
There was no existing fictional story. ibid.
Whose island is it anyway? ibid.
Are we bestial or benign? ibid.
How should the power of knowledge or science be used? ibid.
Prospero addresses the young couple and talks about the fragility and transience of life itself. ibid.
The Tempest is a farewell work. ibid.
He was only fifty-two. ibid.
It leads us to the essence of the man who wrote them. ibid.
A story of fathers and sons, friendship and betrayal, rebellion, insurgency and war. It’s the story about a king who stole the crown and is tormented by guilt. Shakespeare Uncovered V: Jeremy Irons on the Henrys
Why write all these history plays anyway? Well the most obvious answer is that they were good box office. ibid.
Occasionally the plays have been produced especially for television. ibid.
The ‘I do I will’ scene raises the whole question of Hal’s real character throughout the plays. And that can be interpreted in many different ways. ibid.
If the first two plays were about fathers and sons, then in Henry V Shakespeare shifts his attention to the subject of how to be a good king. ibid.
Henry V: out of this source material Shakespeare wove pure magic. ibid.
Against all the odds Henry was triumphant. ibid.
Henry is dead by the time he is thirty-five. ibid.
Have we learned anything? ibid.
It connects with something very primal. It exists in a kind of public consciousness. This icon of theatre and culture. It is woven into the fabric of our lives. Shakespeare Uncovered s1e6, David Tennant on Hamlet
Every line seems to be a quotation. ibid.
Hamlet is angry and isolated. ibid.
Everyone around him seems to have moved on. ibid.
This play is about a murdered father and his lonely grieving son. ibid.
His eleven-year-old son died – he was called Hamlet. ibid.
The ghost of his dead father has been seen walking the battlements of the castle. ibid.
The appearance of the ghost becomes the engine of the play. ibid.
This call to arms has come from a ghost. ibid.
He asks, What is the point? ibid.
Hamlet 1990: Give me some light! The King reacts. Hamlet is vindicated ... He is straitjacketed to his own morality. ibid.
Hamlet 1948: Lawrence Olivier. ibid.
As he sees it – her promiscuity. ibid.
Sigmund Freud: Hamlet might actually be in love with his mother. ibid.
How long may a man lie in earth ere he rot? ibid.
Eight year ... Nine year. ibid.
If you lose Shakespeare as far as I’m concerned there’s no England any more. Simon Schama’s Shakespeare I, BBC 2012
The text Shakespeare would plunder for stories: Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles. ibid.
Down with the cult of the Virgin Mary and up with the cult of the Virgin Queen. ibid.
Shakespeare was dramatising revolution. ibid.
Over 10,000 people flocked to see Henry VI. ibid.
In Henry IV Shakespeare creates an entirety of an English world. ibid.
London was gripped by riots sparked off by the skyrocketing cost of food. Perhaps Falstaff’s belly was a reminder of the good old days. ibid.
The awkward fit between humanity and royalty obsessed Shakespeare. ibid.
What happens when a human animal breaks through the mask of royalty? Simon Schama’s Shakespeare II: Hollow Crowns BBC 2012
He probed deeper into the royal mind than anyone before or since. ibid.
The ultimate drama queen – Elizabeth I. ibid.
Shakespeare could see the ageing queen up close. ibid.
The stirring patriotic anthem which Shakespeare gives us in Henry V is lodged so deep in our memory ... A true portrait of a king. ibid.
In February 1601 Shakespeare’s Richard II was playing at the Globe. If Shakespeare had given us a portrait of a strong king in Henry V, then in Richard II we get something quite different. Richard is arrogant, self-obsessed. ibid.
Is it ever justifiable to overthrow the king? ibid.
Shakespeare lived in an age when writing was a dangerous game. Christopher Marlowe was murdered. Thomas Kyd was tortured. Ed Johnson was thrown into jail. ibid.
At James’s coronation he was dressed resplendently. ibid.
The King’s Men performed at court. Shakespeare was now much closer to the throne. ibid.
Where else had they spent their honeymoon but Elsinore Castle. ibid.
Claudius acts like the rightful king. He acts like a devoted husband. ibid.