0:00:09 > 0:00:12At the dawn of 1614,
0:00:12 > 0:00:15a play appeared on the London stage.
0:00:18 > 0:00:23A work that was dark, bloody, satirical.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26A masterpiece of the English Renaissance.
0:00:26 > 0:00:31The new play rivalled the greatest tragedies of the age.
0:00:31 > 0:00:35It held its own alongside such masterpieces
0:00:35 > 0:00:37as King Lear and Macbeth.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40It was called The Duchess Of Malfi.
0:00:40 > 0:00:42- Dost know me?- Yes.- Who am I?
0:00:42 > 0:00:47Thou art a box of wormseed at best.
0:00:48 > 0:00:52A horror show of a play full of torment and murder,
0:00:52 > 0:00:56with a disturbingly high body count
0:00:56 > 0:00:59and a twisted, black humour.
0:00:59 > 0:01:01Now he begins to fear me.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04Arggh! Arggh!
0:01:04 > 0:01:07Doctor, he did not fear you thoroughly.
0:01:07 > 0:01:09LAUGHTER
0:01:09 > 0:01:10I kept thinking if this was a film,
0:01:10 > 0:01:12Tarantino would direct it,
0:01:12 > 0:01:15and it would be just blood everywhere.
0:01:15 > 0:01:18And a female lead who's the heroine.
0:01:18 > 0:01:20A powerful leading lady -
0:01:20 > 0:01:24an astonishingly modern take on a real-life Duchess
0:01:24 > 0:01:26who married beneath her
0:01:26 > 0:01:29and was horribly persecuted for it.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32It speaks directly to today's audiences -
0:01:32 > 0:01:36just as it spoke to those of the 17th century.
0:01:37 > 0:01:39Oooh.
0:01:39 > 0:01:40LAUGHTER
0:01:40 > 0:01:43A politician is the devil's quilted anvil.
0:01:43 > 0:01:46He fashions all sins on him,
0:01:46 > 0:01:48and the blows are never heard.
0:01:48 > 0:01:53Its author succeeded in capturing the dark excesses
0:01:53 > 0:01:55of the Jacobean moment -
0:01:55 > 0:01:58the intrigue, the scandal, the malaise,
0:01:58 > 0:02:00the fascination with death.
0:02:01 > 0:02:04His name was John Webster.
0:02:04 > 0:02:08His work is a blend of beauty and cynicism.
0:02:08 > 0:02:13We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry.
0:02:15 > 0:02:18Occasionally, you just think he's a little bit sinister
0:02:18 > 0:02:19and a little bit pervy,
0:02:19 > 0:02:24and he actually gets off on all of this dwelling on evil.
0:02:24 > 0:02:27Webster's life is mysterious.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30We glimpse it in mere fragments.
0:02:30 > 0:02:36And the play he wrote is the result of a brief, brilliant flowering.
0:02:36 > 0:02:38The question is - who was this man,
0:02:38 > 0:02:41and what in his upbringing and experience
0:02:41 > 0:02:45led him to create one of our greatest plays?
0:02:48 > 0:02:51As with all great mysteries, there are clues.
0:02:51 > 0:02:53Clues from Webster's life story,
0:02:53 > 0:02:55from the theatre of the time,
0:02:55 > 0:02:56from life in London,
0:02:56 > 0:02:59from scandals at court.
0:02:59 > 0:03:01As a literary detective,
0:03:01 > 0:03:04I'll do my best to gather the evidence
0:03:04 > 0:03:07that will help us understand a work of genius,
0:03:07 > 0:03:09The Duchess Of Malfi,
0:03:09 > 0:03:13and its creator, the mysterious Mr Webster.
0:03:28 > 0:03:31A play is not created to be studied in print.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36The playwright's words take shape on the stage.
0:03:37 > 0:03:39In my investigation,
0:03:39 > 0:03:41one stage in particular
0:03:41 > 0:03:45holds the secret to The Duchess Of Malfi -
0:03:45 > 0:03:49Blackfriars, London's greatest indoor playhouse.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52Now, a newly-built theatre
0:03:52 > 0:03:56takes us back to that moment of inception in 1614.
0:03:57 > 0:03:59This is it,
0:03:59 > 0:04:01the Globe's Sam Wanamaker Playhouse -
0:04:01 > 0:04:04Blackfriars Theatre re-imagined.
0:04:04 > 0:04:10Webster wrote The Duchess Of Malfi for a space just like this.
0:04:11 > 0:04:14Here, we can get closer to Webster's work
0:04:14 > 0:04:16than we have ever come before -
0:04:16 > 0:04:22one reason Malfi was chosen as this theatre's inaugural production.
0:04:22 > 0:04:24In that space, there's something about the architecture
0:04:24 > 0:04:26and relationship with the audience
0:04:26 > 0:04:29that just unpeels the play immediately.
0:04:29 > 0:04:33It seems as if Webster has a visual vocabulary
0:04:33 > 0:04:36that's strikingly different than Shakespeare, or Marlowe's,
0:04:36 > 0:04:39or anyone else I've encountered in the period.
0:04:39 > 0:04:40I think that's true.
0:04:40 > 0:04:43I think there's a lot of arrangement of imagery.
0:04:43 > 0:04:47He loves his reveals, he loves his Hammer horror effects,
0:04:47 > 0:04:51he loves the focus of the eye on the centre.
0:04:54 > 0:04:57Webster matches the visual shocks
0:04:57 > 0:05:00with the grimmest of depictions of human nature.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03He has a dark reputation.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06Do we glimpse John Webster's own obsessions
0:05:06 > 0:05:08in his bleakest lines?
0:05:09 > 0:05:11Other sins only speak.
0:05:13 > 0:05:16Murder shrieks out.
0:05:17 > 0:05:21He's often painted as a troubled soul.
0:05:21 > 0:05:23In the film Shakespeare In Love,
0:05:23 > 0:05:26screenwriter Tom Stoppard plays with this image,
0:05:26 > 0:05:30showing Webster as a boy fixated on the gory bits
0:05:30 > 0:05:32in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.
0:05:32 > 0:05:35When I write plays, they'll be like Titus.
0:05:35 > 0:05:37You admire it?
0:05:37 > 0:05:39I liked it when they cut heads off -
0:05:39 > 0:05:41and the daughter mutilated with knives.
0:05:41 > 0:05:43What's your name?
0:05:43 > 0:05:45- John Webster. - CAT MEOWS
0:05:45 > 0:05:46Here, kitty, kitty.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52Was Webster a juvenile mouse-torturer?
0:05:52 > 0:05:54Unlikely.
0:05:55 > 0:05:58'For those who've spent time with his work,
0:05:58 > 0:06:01'he is a more complex character.'
0:06:01 > 0:06:04Did you think about or imagine what Webster was like
0:06:04 > 0:06:05in the course of playing the play?
0:06:05 > 0:06:08What kind of man would write this kind of play?
0:06:08 > 0:06:10Webster's got this kind of...
0:06:10 > 0:06:13Everyone thinks that he... assumes that he was obsessed
0:06:13 > 0:06:16with, you know, incest and darkness and violence -
0:06:16 > 0:06:18which he obviously was,
0:06:18 > 0:06:19but so was Shakespeare.
0:06:19 > 0:06:22In my mind, Webster's kind of introvert,
0:06:22 > 0:06:24and quite an odd man.
0:06:24 > 0:06:31But quite...quite sort of super-sensitive and intelligent.
0:06:31 > 0:06:33And I just always imagined him to be
0:06:33 > 0:06:36quite outside of society a little bit.
0:06:40 > 0:06:43On the trail of the mysterious Mr Webster,
0:06:43 > 0:06:44what do we know for sure?
0:06:45 > 0:06:47Born about 1580,
0:06:47 > 0:06:52in the 22nd year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
0:06:52 > 0:06:57Eldest son of John Webster, gentleman, coachmaker.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00The family home was on Cow Lane,
0:07:00 > 0:07:03next to London's Smithfield cattle market.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07Today, not much remains there
0:07:07 > 0:07:09but the centuries-old tradition of slaughter.
0:07:11 > 0:07:15But it wasn't only livestock that were slaughtered here.
0:07:15 > 0:07:17Since medieval times, this had been a place
0:07:17 > 0:07:21where criminals and traitors had been executed and dismembered.
0:07:21 > 0:07:25And every August, abutting Smithfield Markets,
0:07:25 > 0:07:27Bartholomew Fair would be held
0:07:27 > 0:07:29not just for cloth and merchandise,
0:07:29 > 0:07:32but for every odd bit of humanity you could cram in.
0:07:33 > 0:07:37Perverse things, freaks of nature.
0:07:38 > 0:07:41The very things that would have appealed to,
0:07:41 > 0:07:43or perhaps appalled, the young John Webster.
0:07:47 > 0:07:52So, did the character of the place feed an unsettled mind?
0:07:52 > 0:07:58Did John Webster grow up delighting in the dark and horrible?
0:07:58 > 0:08:00Certainly Webster produces butchery of his own
0:08:00 > 0:08:05as the Duchess is tormented by her mad brother Ferdinand -
0:08:05 > 0:08:08first with a severed hand.
0:08:08 > 0:08:10What witchcraft doth he practise
0:08:10 > 0:08:12that he hath left a dead man's hand here?
0:08:12 > 0:08:17And then the waxwork cadavers of her husband and child.
0:08:17 > 0:08:20He doth present you this sad spectacle,
0:08:20 > 0:08:23that now you know directly they are dead.
0:08:23 > 0:08:25Hereafter you may wisely cease to grieve
0:08:25 > 0:08:27for that which cannot be recovered.
0:08:27 > 0:08:29There is not between heaven and earth
0:08:29 > 0:08:32one wish I stay for after this.
0:08:33 > 0:08:37It's all rendered in language which can be vividly original,
0:08:37 > 0:08:43as Harriet Walter found when she played the Duchess in 1989.
0:08:43 > 0:08:45Three-quarters of the work preparing myself
0:08:45 > 0:08:49was to just let that language seep into my skin,
0:08:49 > 0:08:51and see what effect it had on me.
0:08:51 > 0:08:53The imagery is nightmarish.
0:08:53 > 0:08:56It's like a sort of Bosch painting,
0:08:56 > 0:09:01and it's sort of pox, and plague, and necromancy, and nastiness.
0:09:01 > 0:09:05He paints the world with these really dark, poetic images.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09This poetry of horror
0:09:09 > 0:09:12could only have come from the mind of John Webster.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15But there was no need to invent the tragedy.
0:09:18 > 0:09:20The Duchess of Malfi was a real woman,
0:09:20 > 0:09:25and Webster remained remarkably faithful to her tale.
0:09:25 > 0:09:29This is a copy of an image that hangs at the Louvre,
0:09:29 > 0:09:34which for 400 years was thought to be Giovanna d'Aragona,
0:09:34 > 0:09:36the actual Duchess of Malfi.
0:09:37 > 0:09:41Turns out it's probably not her, but that doesn't matter much.
0:09:41 > 0:09:45In Webster's day, this WAS the Duchess.
0:09:45 > 0:09:50This is a tale of intrigue and murder in Renaissance Italy.
0:09:50 > 0:09:54Giovanna was of royal blood, daughter of the House of Aragon.
0:09:54 > 0:09:59Her first marriage made her Duchess of Amalfi in 1493,
0:09:59 > 0:10:02and on the death of her husband she became Regent.
0:10:03 > 0:10:05She had two powerful brothers -
0:10:05 > 0:10:08a cardinal, and a twin brother, Carlo -
0:10:08 > 0:10:10who becomes Ferdinand in the play.
0:10:10 > 0:10:13In 1510, she became the talk of Europe
0:10:13 > 0:10:17when she revealed that she had made a scandalous secret marriage
0:10:17 > 0:10:20to Antonio, her social inferior.
0:10:20 > 0:10:23She had concealed the birth of two children.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27Now they fled, pursued by her brothers' agents
0:10:27 > 0:10:31before she was captured and imprisoned in 1511,
0:10:31 > 0:10:33never to be seen again.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36There's something absolutely captivating
0:10:36 > 0:10:38about the story of the Duchess -
0:10:38 > 0:10:43a heady mix of romance, beauty and scandal.
0:10:43 > 0:10:45Beyond the Mona Lisa-like gaze,
0:10:45 > 0:10:50the portrait contains a number of tantalising clues.
0:10:50 > 0:10:53The maid, who may have served as a go-between.
0:10:53 > 0:10:57The pair of lions, symbolising the Aragonian brothers.
0:10:57 > 0:10:59The two knots in the curtain,
0:10:59 > 0:11:04perhaps representing the young Duchess's two marriages.
0:11:04 > 0:11:08There's much here to fuel a young writer's imagination.
0:11:08 > 0:11:13This was the tabloid sensation of the day.
0:11:13 > 0:11:15Just three years after her disappearance,
0:11:15 > 0:11:18the Duchess's story had already been published -
0:11:18 > 0:11:22a tale to be picked over by the chattering classes
0:11:22 > 0:11:25and put under the moral microscope.
0:11:25 > 0:11:29In 1567, the story of the Duchess first appeared in English
0:11:29 > 0:11:33in this volume, The Palace Of Pleasure.
0:11:33 > 0:11:36But it wasn't very kind to her -
0:11:36 > 0:11:38moralising about her lustfulness.
0:11:38 > 0:11:42Now, we know that this was Webster's primary source,
0:11:42 > 0:11:46but we also know that he utterly transformed it,
0:11:46 > 0:11:49giving it greater psychological depth,
0:11:49 > 0:11:55and resituating it within a murkier, more complicated moral universe.
0:11:58 > 0:12:01The Duchess becomes a beacon of virtue,
0:12:01 > 0:12:04led by love to deceive her family.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07And Webster reinvents her twin brother, Ferdinand,
0:12:07 > 0:12:11as a man obsessed with purity of blood,
0:12:11 > 0:12:14incestuously infatuated with his sister.
0:12:14 > 0:12:19He taunts her and, in the end, destroys her.
0:12:19 > 0:12:23Ferdinand employs the cynical malcontent Bosola
0:12:23 > 0:12:27to spy on the Duchess and do his dirty work.
0:12:27 > 0:12:29I give you that...
0:12:29 > 0:12:34to...live in the court here, and observe the Duchess.
0:12:34 > 0:12:37To note all the particulars of her 'haviour.
0:12:37 > 0:12:39What suitors do solicit her for marriage,
0:12:39 > 0:12:41and whom she best affects.
0:12:41 > 0:12:43She's a young widow. I would not have her marry again.
0:12:43 > 0:12:46- No, sir? - Do not you ask the reason.
0:12:46 > 0:12:50It's one of Webster's great talents -
0:12:50 > 0:12:52taking an idea, giving it new form,
0:12:52 > 0:12:54looking for the real motivations -
0:12:54 > 0:12:57the self-deception, the hypocrisy.
0:12:58 > 0:13:03Webster shows us Italian corruption writ large.
0:13:03 > 0:13:07A prince's court is like a common fountain,
0:13:07 > 0:13:11whence should flow pure silver drops in general.
0:13:11 > 0:13:16But if it chance, some cursed example poison it near the head,
0:13:16 > 0:13:19death and diseases through the whole land spread.
0:13:21 > 0:13:24But ultimately, the outrageous sexual mores
0:13:24 > 0:13:26and Machiavellian politics
0:13:26 > 0:13:29hint at the political scene in England
0:13:29 > 0:13:31at the start of the 17th century.
0:13:33 > 0:13:39In 1603, Elizabeth I had died without naming an heir.
0:13:39 > 0:13:43The new king was James VI of Scotland,
0:13:43 > 0:13:46now James I of England.
0:13:46 > 0:13:50Regime change never comes easily,
0:13:50 > 0:13:54especially when the Tudors had been in power for over a century.
0:13:54 > 0:13:58The new king hadn't been on England's throne for long
0:13:58 > 0:14:01before accusations of corruption, extravagance,
0:14:01 > 0:14:05and loose sexual morals began to circulate.
0:14:05 > 0:14:07The king had favourites -
0:14:07 > 0:14:11young men who were promoted to positions of power,
0:14:11 > 0:14:13apparently at his whim.
0:14:13 > 0:14:15James spent extravagantly,
0:14:15 > 0:14:20but failed to feed the people's appetite for royal splendour,
0:14:20 > 0:14:24appearing scornful of the crowds who flocked to see him.
0:14:24 > 0:14:27And his desire for union with Scotland
0:14:27 > 0:14:30seemed to threaten an invasion of ambitious Scots -
0:14:30 > 0:14:35dividing, perhaps overwhelming the English Court.
0:14:35 > 0:14:38It wasn't long before this cynicism and criticism
0:14:38 > 0:14:42found its way onto the English stage.
0:14:42 > 0:14:46The King did surprisingly little to protect his image.
0:14:46 > 0:14:49A year after his accession,
0:14:49 > 0:14:51the French Ambassador recorded with horror
0:14:51 > 0:14:54that James's wife, Anne of Denmark,
0:14:54 > 0:14:56was seen openly laughing
0:14:56 > 0:15:00as a comic actor on stage impersonated her husband.
0:15:00 > 0:15:02It was the Queen's own company
0:15:02 > 0:15:06that staged the most scurrilous attacks on the King.
0:15:08 > 0:15:10They performed at Blackfriars Playhouse
0:15:10 > 0:15:13in front of members of the power elite.
0:15:13 > 0:15:16It must have been an extraordinary space,
0:15:16 > 0:15:20the crucible of a new, more biting satire.
0:15:23 > 0:15:25So the next step in my investigation
0:15:25 > 0:15:28takes me to Worcester College, Oxford,
0:15:28 > 0:15:31in search of some rare surviving drawings,
0:15:31 > 0:15:35which have allowed the Globe to re-fashion Blackfriars.
0:15:36 > 0:15:38This is thrilling.
0:15:38 > 0:15:40This is the closest I've ever been
0:15:40 > 0:15:43to these 17th-century drawings,
0:15:43 > 0:15:46which offer us the best examples we have
0:15:46 > 0:15:48of what an indoor Jacobean playhouse looked like.
0:15:50 > 0:15:52They were executed by John Webb,
0:15:52 > 0:15:55student of the great designer Inigo Jones,
0:15:55 > 0:15:58and they show us how radically different
0:15:58 > 0:16:01the indoor stages were from the outdoor playhouses
0:16:01 > 0:16:04that could hold upward of 3,000 spectators.
0:16:04 > 0:16:08Here, only 400, at most 500 spectators
0:16:08 > 0:16:11would be crammed into this tiny space.
0:16:13 > 0:16:15Like the outdoor theatres,
0:16:15 > 0:16:18the seating curves around the sides of the stage.
0:16:23 > 0:16:25There are three entrances.
0:16:26 > 0:16:30With a balcony above for the musicians.
0:16:32 > 0:16:34Unlike the older playhouses,
0:16:34 > 0:16:38the audience are within touching distance of the players.
0:16:38 > 0:16:42It would have been intimate, and dark.
0:16:43 > 0:16:49And this added something new to the playwright's armoury - lighting.
0:16:49 > 0:16:51In The Duchess Of Malfi,
0:16:51 > 0:16:56Webster shows an acute awareness of the power of illumination.
0:16:58 > 0:17:00The Duchess Of Malfi - it's obsessed with light and dark,
0:17:00 > 0:17:02it's obsessed with shadows.
0:17:02 > 0:17:05There is a whole host of very specific stage directions
0:17:05 > 0:17:07which play completely into that space.
0:17:08 > 0:17:10Take hence the lights.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15Details of lighting find their way into the dialogue,
0:17:15 > 0:17:20and allow Webster to conjure up the most dramatic of scenes.
0:17:20 > 0:17:22He comes in the night,
0:17:22 > 0:17:26and prays you gently neither torch nor taper shine in your chamber.
0:17:26 > 0:17:29He will kiss your hand, and reconcile himself,
0:17:29 > 0:17:31but for his vow, he dare not see you.
0:17:31 > 0:17:34At his pleasure, put out the lights.
0:17:43 > 0:17:47And it says, "Turn all the lights out, and any tapers.
0:17:47 > 0:17:49"I don't want to see a single one."
0:17:49 > 0:17:53So you just follow the direction of the text, and there you have it.
0:17:53 > 0:17:56But we read the play, and we read those stage directions,
0:17:56 > 0:17:58but we don't experience the darkness.
0:17:58 > 0:18:02What happened the first time you just killed the candles there?
0:18:02 > 0:18:04Well, it's... You get very purist about dark.
0:18:04 > 0:18:07Actually, the first time we took everything out, it wasn't quite dark enough.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10So much light bleeds into our lives without us realising it.
0:18:10 > 0:18:12You try and take the light out,
0:18:12 > 0:18:14and there's a little thin bit of light there.
0:18:14 > 0:18:16There's a thin bit of light there, a thin bit of light there.
0:18:16 > 0:18:18We ended up like light-hunters,
0:18:18 > 0:18:20just killing light all round the auditorium
0:18:20 > 0:18:22to get it as dark as it possibly could be.
0:18:22 > 0:18:24But when you got to the place, it was extraordinary.
0:18:24 > 0:18:28And then a huge number of other games open up
0:18:28 > 0:18:31the moment you go to complete black,
0:18:31 > 0:18:33because then any form of light -
0:18:33 > 0:18:34be it a single candle lighting a face,
0:18:34 > 0:18:37be it a blaze of votive candles,
0:18:37 > 0:18:41as there are underneath the corpses of Antonio and son -
0:18:41 > 0:18:43they all have this profound
0:18:43 > 0:18:47and very deliberate, very exciting effect.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52THEY BOTH SING
0:18:52 > 0:18:56In this glowing jewel box of a space,
0:18:56 > 0:18:59Webster could write with a new emphasis.
0:18:59 > 0:19:03He could draw the eye, change the focus.
0:19:03 > 0:19:06He was fascinated by realism in acting,
0:19:06 > 0:19:09and some of his scenes would have felt shockingly intimate -
0:19:09 > 0:19:13like this one in the Duchess's bedchamber.
0:19:13 > 0:19:15Bring me the casket hither, and the glass.
0:19:15 > 0:19:18You get no lodging here tonight, my Lord.
0:19:18 > 0:19:21Indeed, I must persuade one.
0:19:21 > 0:19:22Very good.
0:19:22 > 0:19:25I hope in time 'twill grow into a custom
0:19:25 > 0:19:27that noblemen shall come with cap and knee
0:19:27 > 0:19:29to purchase a night's lodging of their wives.
0:19:29 > 0:19:31LAUGHTER
0:19:31 > 0:19:35The boudoir setting turns the focus to the Duchess
0:19:35 > 0:19:37as a modern woman of fashion.
0:19:37 > 0:19:38In Jacobean England,
0:19:38 > 0:19:42elite ladies brushed their faces with pearl dust
0:19:42 > 0:19:45to give an extraordinary luminosity.
0:19:45 > 0:19:46With added candlelight,
0:19:46 > 0:19:50make-up becomes a vital ingredient in the play.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53You kind of twinkle in the playhouse,
0:19:53 > 0:19:56and so far, some of the experiments we've done,
0:19:56 > 0:19:59and certainly in the plays that we've staged,
0:19:59 > 0:20:01we've seen actors twinkling.
0:20:01 > 0:20:04You don't need a huge amount of white make-up
0:20:04 > 0:20:07when you've got pearl dusting on your face.
0:20:07 > 0:20:11I'm curious whether anything having to do with cosmetics
0:20:11 > 0:20:13changed your understanding of the play at all.
0:20:13 > 0:20:16Yes. Being in such an intimate space,
0:20:16 > 0:20:18you feel like you're in the Duchess's room,
0:20:18 > 0:20:21particularly when she's sitting at her dressing table,
0:20:21 > 0:20:22at her vanity table,
0:20:22 > 0:20:25and looking in the mirror and talking about her appearance.
0:20:25 > 0:20:27Doth not the colour of my hair 'gin to change?
0:20:27 > 0:20:28- Softly. - SHE GASPS
0:20:28 > 0:20:30When I wax grey,
0:20:30 > 0:20:34I shall have all the court powder their hair with arras to be like me.
0:20:34 > 0:20:36She's kind of a vain character,
0:20:36 > 0:20:38in a really positive way, though.
0:20:38 > 0:20:41I think Webster's saying something about vanity
0:20:41 > 0:20:44maybe not being as bad as you think it is.
0:20:44 > 0:20:47- GEMMA ARTERTON:- For me, she is the ultimate chick.
0:20:47 > 0:20:49She's not perfect, and at the beginning
0:20:49 > 0:20:53she's young, and impetuous, and sexual,
0:20:53 > 0:20:57and sensual, and a young woman that's kind of...
0:20:57 > 0:21:00And as the play progresses, she becomes a woman.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03She's alive, she's vibrant, she's young and fresh.
0:21:03 > 0:21:07And that's her - she's somebody that loves life and beauty.
0:21:08 > 0:21:11For Webster, the Duchess's inner virtue
0:21:11 > 0:21:14is mirrored in her outer radiance.
0:21:15 > 0:21:18I think we all recognise that she's this virtuous character,
0:21:18 > 0:21:21and what's interesting is that she doesn't adhere to the ideals
0:21:21 > 0:21:23of Renaissance womanhood.
0:21:23 > 0:21:24She's not chaste, really.
0:21:24 > 0:21:27She's not silent, and she certainly isn't obedient.
0:21:27 > 0:21:29- Right.- But she's virtuous.
0:21:29 > 0:21:32I think Webster's very concerned with the issue
0:21:32 > 0:21:34of what you can see, and what's beneath.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43Appearances were vital at Blackfriars.
0:21:43 > 0:21:45Webster was a regular here.
0:21:45 > 0:21:47He understood a space
0:21:47 > 0:21:50where the audience was every bit as visible as the players.
0:21:52 > 0:21:55In a traditional theatre now, you wouldn't see the audience.
0:21:55 > 0:21:58They wouldn't be lit. We would be lit.
0:21:58 > 0:22:01But they were lit as much as we were,
0:22:01 > 0:22:05and, um...and the fact that they are observing one another,
0:22:05 > 0:22:07even from before we come on stage,
0:22:07 > 0:22:10means that this sort of tension is created.
0:22:10 > 0:22:14The Duchess Of Malfi is about oppression -
0:22:14 > 0:22:18about being boxed in, and caged -
0:22:18 > 0:22:22and everybody's sort of observing one another,
0:22:22 > 0:22:24and so therefore the fact that the audience
0:22:24 > 0:22:27were so very much there felt right.
0:22:29 > 0:22:33This was, for the most part, a more elite audience.
0:22:33 > 0:22:36Actors playing courtiers on stage
0:22:36 > 0:22:39might find themselves addressing real ones.
0:22:39 > 0:22:42Well-heeled gentlemen and their wives,
0:22:42 > 0:22:46law students, aristocrats, crammed together.
0:22:46 > 0:22:48Admission was steep.
0:22:48 > 0:22:50The cheapest seat, at sixpence,
0:22:50 > 0:22:54cost six times more than admission
0:22:54 > 0:22:56to a public playhouse like the Globe.
0:22:56 > 0:23:00You could pay even more and sit on a stool at the edge of the stage,
0:23:00 > 0:23:06a great way for a well-dressed gallant to see and be seen.
0:23:08 > 0:23:11Here, fashion played a starring role.
0:23:13 > 0:23:16Even the actors were luxuriously dressed -
0:23:16 > 0:23:20not in costumes, but in clothes that might,
0:23:20 > 0:23:22not so long ago,
0:23:22 > 0:23:25have graced the backs of the very nobles now watching.
0:23:27 > 0:23:30So I'm trying to imagine how a garment like this
0:23:30 > 0:23:34would have ended up on the Jacobean stage.
0:23:34 > 0:23:39Rich Englishmen would sometimes give clothes away to their servants,
0:23:39 > 0:23:41um, as a gift,
0:23:41 > 0:23:44and of course the servant might not be of the sort of status
0:23:44 > 0:23:47where he would feel he could wear the garment.
0:23:47 > 0:23:50So the servant might then go to a company of actors
0:23:50 > 0:23:52and sell it to them.
0:23:52 > 0:23:55As the indoor stage came to prominence,
0:23:55 > 0:23:57elite fashions were also changing,
0:23:57 > 0:24:00becoming better suited to evening revels.
0:24:01 > 0:24:05I remember Sir Francis Bacon saying something about
0:24:05 > 0:24:09"what shows best by candlelight".
0:24:09 > 0:24:11He writes this in a piece called "On Masques",
0:24:11 > 0:24:15and the colours that Bacon thought worked best by candlelight
0:24:15 > 0:24:19were things like... he mentions white, carnation,
0:24:19 > 0:24:21and a kind of sea-water green,
0:24:21 > 0:24:24which obviously, in dim lighting,
0:24:24 > 0:24:27are very effective and more visually arresting.
0:24:27 > 0:24:29So this garment would fit that category.
0:24:29 > 0:24:31Yep, absolutely.
0:24:31 > 0:24:33This is made of an off-white linen
0:24:33 > 0:24:36with floating silk threads,
0:24:36 > 0:24:39and then it's striped with silver.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41- So...- So, the silver's faded a bit.
0:24:41 > 0:24:45- Well, now, the silver threads are almost black.- Mm-hm.
0:24:45 > 0:24:50But I've brought here some modern silver thread,
0:24:50 > 0:24:52and if I just sort of hold this close
0:24:52 > 0:24:56you can see it was bright silver and off-white,
0:24:56 > 0:24:59and the silk threads would have shone.
0:24:59 > 0:25:03The Duchess could glisten in her gowns of pale satin.
0:25:03 > 0:25:05Spangles and lace could catch the light,
0:25:05 > 0:25:08and the white of ruffs frame the face.
0:25:08 > 0:25:10SHE LAUGHS MIRTHLESSLY
0:25:10 > 0:25:14Webster enlisted these details in his careful staging.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17What I love about this is it's precisely the kind of garment
0:25:17 > 0:25:21that the Duchess might have worn in a more informal scene,
0:25:21 > 0:25:24and I love the flare of it as well.
0:25:24 > 0:25:25It is a loose garment,
0:25:25 > 0:25:28so it's suitable for disguising a pregnancy.
0:25:28 > 0:25:31Webster uses clothing to explain
0:25:31 > 0:25:34how the Duchess could keep two pregnancies a secret
0:25:34 > 0:25:38in the enclosed world of the Malfi court.
0:25:38 > 0:25:43I observe our Duchess is sick a-days.
0:25:43 > 0:25:46And, contrary to our Italian fashion,
0:25:46 > 0:25:49wears a loose-bodied gown.
0:25:49 > 0:25:53Bosola is the keen-eyed observer who brings us this information.
0:25:53 > 0:25:57He's the melancholy spy seeking out the Duchess's secrets
0:25:57 > 0:26:00on behalf of her brothers.
0:26:00 > 0:26:02He's part Iago, part Hamlet -
0:26:02 > 0:26:06introspective, but also dangerous.
0:26:07 > 0:26:11It's tempting to see something of Webster in Bosola -
0:26:11 > 0:26:14the clever man, the outsider,
0:26:14 > 0:26:16existing on the margins of the court.
0:26:17 > 0:26:20Webster, more than most of his fellow playwrights,
0:26:20 > 0:26:23seems to have lived a divided life.
0:26:30 > 0:26:33Webster's family were coach-makers,
0:26:33 > 0:26:36and he appears to have kept up the day job,
0:26:36 > 0:26:40leading one satirist to mock him as the "Playwright Cartwright".
0:26:42 > 0:26:44In fact, it was an exciting field.
0:26:44 > 0:26:48Coaches had only appeared in England in the 1560s,
0:26:48 > 0:26:51at first as an expensive novelty.
0:26:51 > 0:26:55By the start of the 17th century, business was booming.
0:26:57 > 0:26:59Aristocrats and well-to-do merchants
0:26:59 > 0:27:01were favoured customers.
0:27:01 > 0:27:03So too were prostitutes,
0:27:03 > 0:27:07who saw the potential for providing services on the move.
0:27:07 > 0:27:12Webster's family business thrived on tragedy.
0:27:12 > 0:27:15They made much of their money providing coaches and carts
0:27:15 > 0:27:19for elaborate and expensive funeral processions.
0:27:19 > 0:27:22Young John Webster must have thought that life
0:27:22 > 0:27:26revolved around sex, status and death.
0:27:28 > 0:27:30And perhaps it did.
0:27:30 > 0:27:33These were the dark obsessions of the age.
0:27:39 > 0:27:42Death stalked the people of London.
0:27:42 > 0:27:46Plague had swept away one out of seven in 1593,
0:27:46 > 0:27:50and would again a decade later in 1603.
0:27:51 > 0:27:54Survivors had to walk past houses,
0:27:54 > 0:27:58their plague-stricken inmates entombed inside
0:27:58 > 0:28:01with red crosses painted on their doors
0:28:01 > 0:28:06under the chilling warning "Lord have mercy".
0:28:06 > 0:28:12May 1608 - a Jacobean domestic tragedy,
0:28:12 > 0:28:16one that tells the story of a man who buried one wife,
0:28:16 > 0:28:18then a second.
0:28:18 > 0:28:20The third widow outlives him,
0:28:20 > 0:28:23the three women together having been preceded
0:28:23 > 0:28:25by three children to the grave.
0:28:25 > 0:28:27Looking at this,
0:28:27 > 0:28:31you get a sense of how palpable death was for the Jacobeans,
0:28:31 > 0:28:33how close.
0:28:33 > 0:28:35You could hold it in your hands.
0:28:38 > 0:28:42The swaddled babies' heads rest on skulls.
0:28:43 > 0:28:47It calls to mind Ferdinand's line in The Duchess -
0:28:47 > 0:28:51"Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle.
0:28:51 > 0:28:52"She died young."
0:28:56 > 0:28:59For all the apparent beauty of that line,
0:28:59 > 0:29:02it comes at a horrific moment in the play.
0:29:02 > 0:29:07The Duchess's brother Ferdinand has finally had her killed.
0:29:07 > 0:29:08Cover her face.
0:29:11 > 0:29:12Mine eyes dazzle.
0:29:14 > 0:29:16She died young.
0:29:16 > 0:29:20Simon Russell Beale played Ferdinand in 1995,
0:29:20 > 0:29:23and found the part especially disturbing.
0:29:25 > 0:29:28"Mine eyes dazzle. She died young."
0:29:30 > 0:29:33It's the "dazzle" that's the...
0:29:33 > 0:29:35I mean, it's such an odd...
0:29:35 > 0:29:37Did it turn the character for you?
0:29:37 > 0:29:39Sometimes when critics talk about that line,
0:29:39 > 0:29:45they feel that Ferdinand's snapped out of it, or there's a...
0:29:45 > 0:29:48No, because I think that word "dazzle" is pathological.
0:29:48 > 0:29:50It's wrong.
0:29:50 > 0:29:52It's not...
0:29:52 > 0:29:56It's not how you react to a dead body, I don't think.
0:29:56 > 0:29:58There's an association in my mind
0:29:58 > 0:30:01with sort of various religious iconography -
0:30:01 > 0:30:04you know, ascensions, and...
0:30:05 > 0:30:10It's like she becomes Elijah, or Christ ascending, or...
0:30:10 > 0:30:12Or...
0:30:12 > 0:30:14It's a weird line.
0:30:14 > 0:30:17In this honour killing,
0:30:17 > 0:30:20Ferdinand takes his final revenge on his sister
0:30:20 > 0:30:23for her covert marriage.
0:30:23 > 0:30:25But the carnage doesn't end here.
0:30:25 > 0:30:29By the end of the play, all the major characters will have died.
0:30:31 > 0:30:35The Duchess Of Malfi represents perhaps the most extreme example
0:30:35 > 0:30:40of a genre that took the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage by storm -
0:30:40 > 0:30:43revenge tragedy.
0:30:43 > 0:30:47It all began in the 1580s with a hugely successful play.
0:30:49 > 0:30:53The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd,
0:30:53 > 0:30:58the most popular and influential tragedy of the age
0:30:58 > 0:31:02for a stage when Webster was just a boy.
0:31:02 > 0:31:03I'm holding in my hands
0:31:03 > 0:31:08an incredibly rare early printed quarto of the play,
0:31:08 > 0:31:12and its woodcut illustration tells it all -
0:31:12 > 0:31:16murder, grief, madness
0:31:16 > 0:31:17and revenge.
0:31:21 > 0:31:25The Spanish Tragedy was revived time and again,
0:31:25 > 0:31:27and Webster must have seen it.
0:31:27 > 0:31:30But it was joined by new plays.
0:31:30 > 0:31:32Around the turn of the century,
0:31:32 > 0:31:33Shakespeare gave us Hamlet,
0:31:33 > 0:31:37which also leaves a stage full of corpses,
0:31:37 > 0:31:41but added deep psychological introspection.
0:31:41 > 0:31:45And when Webster brought revenge tragedy into the Jacobean age
0:31:45 > 0:31:49he could draw on a growing culture of suspicion,
0:31:49 > 0:31:52much of it linked to religious hatred.
0:31:54 > 0:31:55In the 16th century,
0:31:55 > 0:31:58England had been shaken by religious change -
0:31:58 > 0:32:03veering from Catholicism to Protestantism and back,
0:32:03 > 0:32:06riven by persecutions and burnings.
0:32:06 > 0:32:09Now, in Protestant England,
0:32:09 > 0:32:12fear of religious terror was once again on the rise.
0:32:15 > 0:32:19Religion plays its role in The Duchess Of Malfi.
0:32:19 > 0:32:22The Catholic Cardinal is conspiratorial, corrupt,
0:32:22 > 0:32:26and openly consorts with his mistress Julia,
0:32:26 > 0:32:31whom he eventually murders by having her kiss a poisoned Bible.
0:32:36 > 0:32:40A Venetian Catholic priest found himself in the audience
0:32:40 > 0:32:43for one of the early performances, and complained,
0:32:43 > 0:32:48"All this they do in derision of ecclesiastical pomp,
0:32:48 > 0:32:52"which in this kingdom is scorned and hated mortally."
0:32:54 > 0:32:57In an age of scandal and plot,
0:32:57 > 0:33:00the most famous terrorist incident of them all -
0:33:00 > 0:33:04the attempt by Guy Fawkes to blow up Parliament -
0:33:04 > 0:33:08gave Catholicism an even more threatening face.
0:33:08 > 0:33:15There it is - the iconic image of the Gunpowder Plot, 1605.
0:33:15 > 0:33:18The end of the honeymoon for King James, I'm afraid.
0:33:18 > 0:33:20What changed after this moment?
0:33:20 > 0:33:25What I think it did was create a sense of an enemy within,
0:33:25 > 0:33:27of people you couldn't be sure of.
0:33:27 > 0:33:30Now, for somebody like Webster, or for the dramatists,
0:33:30 > 0:33:33it became an easy button to press -
0:33:33 > 0:33:35the anti-Catholic button -
0:33:35 > 0:33:39and plays have those suspicious cardinals
0:33:39 > 0:33:41and all the rest of it,
0:33:41 > 0:33:46which feed off this kind of culture of suspicion.
0:33:46 > 0:33:48- And paranoia, almost.- Mm.
0:33:50 > 0:33:52So we have a sense of how The Duchess Of Malfi
0:33:52 > 0:33:55fits into its times.
0:33:55 > 0:33:57But how did Webster, son of a coachmaker,
0:33:57 > 0:34:02come to write this play that so brilliantly spoke to the moment?
0:34:10 > 0:34:14A vital clue to his experience and interests
0:34:14 > 0:34:16is here at the Middle Temple,
0:34:16 > 0:34:18where Webster studied law.
0:34:20 > 0:34:22So we're looking at a great document here -
0:34:22 > 0:34:28John Webster's entry in August 1598.
0:34:29 > 0:34:35"Master John Webster admitted to the Middle Temple."
0:34:36 > 0:34:40Tell me what this document tells us,
0:34:40 > 0:34:42and what it would have meant for John Webster
0:34:42 > 0:34:45to have come to this society at the Middle Temple.
0:34:45 > 0:34:47Well, it would have been stellar for him.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50It was a way of moving up the social ladder.
0:34:50 > 0:34:53And this was a place to make connections.
0:34:53 > 0:34:57This was Facebook, Twitter - the lot - of the time.
0:34:57 > 0:34:59And there were lots of people who came here
0:34:59 > 0:35:03who had absolutely no intention of practising the law.
0:35:03 > 0:35:05The elderly benchers who ran the inn
0:35:05 > 0:35:08complained frequently that they're not studying enough,
0:35:08 > 0:35:11and they're not wearing sober clothes, and their hair's too long.
0:35:11 > 0:35:14So if they're not hitting the books, they're not studying law,
0:35:14 > 0:35:16what are they spending their days doing?
0:35:16 > 0:35:18Well, they went to the theatre a lot.
0:35:18 > 0:35:21Their poems explain how they would go
0:35:21 > 0:35:25and watch a law case in Westminster Hall in the morning
0:35:25 > 0:35:27and then in the afternoon
0:35:27 > 0:35:30they would make their way down to the South Bank,
0:35:30 > 0:35:33maybe watch a bear-baiting, have a bit of a beer.
0:35:33 > 0:35:35Maybe resort to a prostitute.
0:35:35 > 0:35:38And then they'd watch a play.
0:35:38 > 0:35:42- Perfect for a playwright in training, then?- Absolutely.
0:35:42 > 0:35:45The Middle Temple gave Webster access to a literary culture
0:35:45 > 0:35:47with other young playwrights,
0:35:47 > 0:35:52writers experimenting with satirical, political themes.
0:35:52 > 0:35:55But just as important must have been the leisure time
0:35:55 > 0:35:57those student days gave him.
0:35:59 > 0:36:01Time he could spend, if he chose,
0:36:01 > 0:36:04at the most famous theatre of all -
0:36:04 > 0:36:07built the year after Webster started his studies -
0:36:07 > 0:36:10The Globe, Shakespeare's playhouse.
0:36:12 > 0:36:14Webster was not only a budding playwright
0:36:14 > 0:36:18but, like many at the Middle Temple, a passionate playgoer.
0:36:18 > 0:36:21In his plays, especially his early ones,
0:36:21 > 0:36:23he borrows so much and so closely
0:36:23 > 0:36:25from what he had heard in the theatre
0:36:25 > 0:36:28that he must have been taking notes.
0:36:28 > 0:36:32It's easy to imagine a 20-year-old Webster
0:36:32 > 0:36:34going to the newly built Globe
0:36:34 > 0:36:36and seeing Hamlet and Julius Caesar,
0:36:36 > 0:36:40and transcribing memorable passages into his commonplace book.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49Another book gives us our next clue -
0:36:49 > 0:36:52an extraordinary document that provides rich insight
0:36:52 > 0:36:55into the workings of the Elizabethan Theatre.
0:36:55 > 0:37:00Impresario Philip Henslowe recorded in meticulous detail
0:37:00 > 0:37:02the purchase of props and costumes,
0:37:02 > 0:37:03box office takings,
0:37:03 > 0:37:06and payments to playwrights.
0:37:06 > 0:37:10In May 1602, we find Anthony Munday and Michael Drayton
0:37:10 > 0:37:16collaborating with Thomas Middleton, and John Webster, age 22 -
0:37:16 > 0:37:21our first glimpse of him working on a play, now sadly lost,
0:37:21 > 0:37:22called "Caesar's Fall".
0:37:24 > 0:37:27Webster caught a huge break in 1603.
0:37:27 > 0:37:29Until now, he'd been writing collaboratively,
0:37:29 > 0:37:33a wonderful apprenticeship with a group of veteran playwrights
0:37:33 > 0:37:36over at the Rose Theatre across the road.
0:37:36 > 0:37:38But this would be his first shot
0:37:38 > 0:37:41at writing for the greatest group of actors in the land,
0:37:41 > 0:37:44Shakespeare's company at the Globe.
0:37:44 > 0:37:45Here's how it happened.
0:37:47 > 0:37:50Fellow playwright John Marston wrote a runaway hit,
0:37:50 > 0:37:53The Malcontent, for a rival company.
0:37:53 > 0:37:56That company then made the mistake of stealing a play
0:37:56 > 0:37:58from Shakespeare's company,
0:37:58 > 0:38:00who retaliated by stealing The Malcontent.
0:38:05 > 0:38:07And Webster was given the job
0:38:07 > 0:38:09of reworking the play for its new airing.
0:38:09 > 0:38:11His main contribution
0:38:11 > 0:38:14was a brilliantly self-referential introduction
0:38:14 > 0:38:17in which the famous actors of Shakespeare's company
0:38:17 > 0:38:21appear on stage as themselves.
0:38:21 > 0:38:23Maybe Webster was even mocking himself
0:38:23 > 0:38:26in the character of an enthusiastic playgoer -
0:38:26 > 0:38:29a bit of a fan of the actors,
0:38:29 > 0:38:31and such a regular at performances
0:38:31 > 0:38:34he'd written down all the jokes.
0:38:34 > 0:38:36The play appeared in print with Webster's name on it,
0:38:36 > 0:38:39and he must have thought he had arrived -
0:38:39 > 0:38:41his moment had come.
0:38:43 > 0:38:47Soon, he had two successful comedies under his belt,
0:38:47 > 0:38:49written with Thomas Dekker,
0:38:49 > 0:38:52satirising the lives and loves of London citizens.
0:38:54 > 0:38:57Webster had followed a well-trodden path
0:38:57 > 0:39:00from law to the playhouses.
0:39:00 > 0:39:02He'd worked with some of the best.
0:39:02 > 0:39:05But he wasn't really cut out for the world of comedy.
0:39:05 > 0:39:07His vision was too subtle.
0:39:08 > 0:39:10And back at Middle Temple
0:39:10 > 0:39:14we can find intimations of the kind of theatricality
0:39:14 > 0:39:16that really inspired him.
0:39:20 > 0:39:23This picture almost surely hung here
0:39:23 > 0:39:27when Webster was a student at the Middle Temple.
0:39:27 > 0:39:31Feels like a scene from an indoor Jacobean play,
0:39:31 > 0:39:36with its rich colours, stylised gestures and tight composition.
0:39:38 > 0:39:40It's The Judgment Of Solomon.
0:39:41 > 0:39:44Solomon has to resolve a case where two women each claim
0:39:44 > 0:39:47that the living child is hers.
0:39:47 > 0:39:50He orders that the child be cut in half,
0:39:50 > 0:39:53then closely observes the reactions of both mothers
0:39:53 > 0:39:56to determine who the true mother is.
0:39:57 > 0:39:59A strikingly dramatic image,
0:39:59 > 0:40:01and a child cut in half -
0:40:01 > 0:40:03just Webster's style.
0:40:03 > 0:40:05But as to the message?
0:40:05 > 0:40:09The text panels advise the students to look at the biblical scene
0:40:09 > 0:40:14and learn "this mighty lesson of just decision".
0:40:16 > 0:40:19I can imagine Webster looking past this pious moralising
0:40:19 > 0:40:22about wisdom and judgement.
0:40:22 > 0:40:25The poet TS Eliot famously described Webster
0:40:25 > 0:40:29as a man who saw the skull beneath the skin.
0:40:30 > 0:40:33It's easy to imagine Webster looking at this painting
0:40:33 > 0:40:37and seeing the grief and suffering just below the surface.
0:40:37 > 0:40:39Two desperate mothers,
0:40:39 > 0:40:41and a ruler so eager to show how smart he is
0:40:41 > 0:40:44he's the willing to risk the life of a child.
0:40:46 > 0:40:48And I wonder if that dead child,
0:40:48 > 0:40:52that waxy figure at the centre of this painting,
0:40:52 > 0:40:53didn't lodge in Webster's memory.
0:40:58 > 0:41:01Webster would be at his greatest
0:41:01 > 0:41:04when he delved into moments of human torment.
0:41:04 > 0:41:06But he wasn't quite there yet.
0:41:08 > 0:41:12The years of Webster's late 20s ought to be revealing,
0:41:12 > 0:41:15showing the writer's transition to maturity.
0:41:15 > 0:41:17We know a little of his life.
0:41:17 > 0:41:22In 1606 he married the pregnant, 16-year-old Sara Pennel.
0:41:23 > 0:41:28But as to writing, after 1605, nothing.
0:41:28 > 0:41:33No new plays appeared for an almost biblical seven years.
0:41:35 > 0:41:38It's one of the great puzzles in Webster's life story.
0:41:38 > 0:41:41What was he doing at this time?
0:41:41 > 0:41:44At least Shakespeare's lost years took place
0:41:44 > 0:41:47before he became a dramatist.
0:41:47 > 0:41:52Webster's occurred at the crucial moment in his playwriting career.
0:41:52 > 0:41:55Perhaps he was pulled back into helping out
0:41:55 > 0:41:57with the family coach business.
0:41:57 > 0:42:00Or he might have been wrestling with a massive writer's block.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03We just don't know.
0:42:03 > 0:42:05As frustrating as they are,
0:42:05 > 0:42:08these years seem to have been pivotal for Webster.
0:42:08 > 0:42:12Because when he came back his writing was darker,
0:42:12 > 0:42:17more powerful, revelling in death, madness, and depression.
0:42:20 > 0:42:25I do account this world but a dog kennel.
0:42:26 > 0:42:31I'm always wary of trying to crawl into the mind of somebody
0:42:31 > 0:42:33writing a play written 400 years ago.
0:42:34 > 0:42:37But let's allow ourselves a bit of speculation,
0:42:37 > 0:42:40can you write a play like The Duchess Of Malfi
0:42:40 > 0:42:43and not suffer from depression?
0:42:44 > 0:42:48There's a line, "Life's a dog kennel."
0:42:48 > 0:42:51It seems like every line in that play is some version of that!
0:42:51 > 0:42:54And I remember, after about four weeks of playing it,
0:42:54 > 0:42:56thinking, "Is it?"
0:42:56 > 0:43:00I'm coming up to that particular line and every night thinking,
0:43:00 > 0:43:02"Is that really true?"
0:43:02 > 0:43:09I know it's a dangerous game, but I don't know how you invest it,
0:43:09 > 0:43:12and make it so good, without feeling it.
0:43:12 > 0:43:16I know no other play in which so many characters
0:43:16 > 0:43:19are crippled with depression and madness.
0:43:19 > 0:43:25Ferdinand slides into a madness so severe he thinks himself a wolf.
0:43:25 > 0:43:29His brother the cardinal has nightmarish visions.
0:43:29 > 0:43:35And Bosola's every word and deed is shaped by his chronic depression.
0:43:35 > 0:43:38It's fitting, then, that these depressed tormentors
0:43:38 > 0:43:41try to drive the Duchess to distraction
0:43:41 > 0:43:43through the singing and dancing of madmen.
0:43:43 > 0:43:48HARPSICHORD PLAYS
0:44:02 > 0:44:04In a brilliant piece of stagecraft,
0:44:04 > 0:44:07Webster, anticipating the Duchess's own swansong,
0:44:07 > 0:44:11writes a haunting lyric, "Oh, let us howl."
0:44:11 > 0:44:14And for the dismal music he required,
0:44:14 > 0:44:16turned to Robert Johnson,
0:44:16 > 0:44:20whose music for this song miraculously survives.
0:44:27 > 0:44:35# Oh, let us howl
0:44:36 > 0:44:44# Some heavy note
0:44:45 > 0:44:54# Some deadly dogged howl... #
0:44:54 > 0:44:58He penned something that's full of weird harmonic changes,
0:44:58 > 0:45:00abrupt changes of tempo,
0:45:00 > 0:45:03again, something that we're quite used to these days,
0:45:03 > 0:45:06but imagine a time when if you start a pattern
0:45:06 > 0:45:08it starts in the same tempo that it ends,
0:45:08 > 0:45:12and you're playing a piece that switches mood so abruptly
0:45:12 > 0:45:14and so dramatically.
0:45:14 > 0:45:16That's how he suggests this madness.
0:45:18 > 0:45:22'Music was a defining feature of the Jacobean indoor theatre,
0:45:22 > 0:45:25'not just influencing the mood of the audience
0:45:25 > 0:45:29'but also shaping the entire theatrical experience.'
0:45:29 > 0:45:32You could hear music for up to an hour before the performance.
0:45:32 > 0:45:34At Blackfriars?
0:45:34 > 0:45:36Yeah, at Blackfriars, just extemporised by the ensemble.
0:45:44 > 0:45:49And then, during the production, the ensemble might provide music
0:45:49 > 0:45:50for dancing, in-between the acts,
0:45:50 > 0:45:53because they had to trim the candles,
0:45:53 > 0:45:56so the music would provide some cover.
0:45:56 > 0:45:59Which is something that they weren't accustomed to
0:45:59 > 0:46:00in the outdoor theatre.
0:46:00 > 0:46:03The outdoor theatre was a very short play
0:46:03 > 0:46:05and everything ran pell-mell,
0:46:05 > 0:46:08without break, from one end to the other, as fast as they could.
0:46:08 > 0:46:12RAUCOUS CROWD SHOUT AND JEER
0:46:12 > 0:46:17In the outdoor playhouses, it wasn't only the music that lacked subtlety.
0:46:17 > 0:46:21The crowd often had rather different expectations of the play itself,
0:46:21 > 0:46:24as Webster found to his cost.
0:46:27 > 0:46:30In 1612 the first of Webster's two great plays
0:46:30 > 0:46:32first appeared on stage.
0:46:32 > 0:46:34The White Devil.
0:46:34 > 0:46:36The play tells the story of a Venetian lady
0:46:36 > 0:46:38put on trial for murder,
0:46:38 > 0:46:42after her lover, The Duke of Brachiano, has her husband killed.
0:46:43 > 0:46:47It's based on a series of sensational real-life murders
0:46:47 > 0:46:50that took place 27 years earlier.
0:46:50 > 0:46:54Like The Duchess Of Malfi, it was a revenge tragedy
0:46:54 > 0:46:56with a powerful female lead,
0:46:56 > 0:47:00full of corruption, sex, and murder.
0:47:00 > 0:47:05Unlike The Duchess Of Malfi, it was a box-office disaster.
0:47:05 > 0:47:10Webster's introduction to the printed edition of The White Devil
0:47:10 > 0:47:14is deeply revealing of what went wrong
0:47:14 > 0:47:17and how defensive he was.
0:47:17 > 0:47:20As far as Webster was concerned, the problem wasn't with his play
0:47:20 > 0:47:21but with everything else.
0:47:21 > 0:47:24He blamed the wintry weather, the theatre -
0:47:24 > 0:47:26the Red Bull in Clerkenwell -
0:47:26 > 0:47:29an outdoor playhouse with a reputation for rowdiness.
0:47:29 > 0:47:35And he even accused playgoers of being insufficiently discerning.
0:47:35 > 0:47:37Most of the people who come to that playhouse
0:47:37 > 0:47:41resemble those ignorant asses, who, visiting stationers' shops,
0:47:41 > 0:47:44their use is not to enquire for good books,
0:47:44 > 0:47:46but new books.
0:47:47 > 0:47:50Webster also took the unusual step
0:47:50 > 0:47:52of praising one of the actors by name.
0:47:52 > 0:47:55But as for the rest of the company - Queen Anne's Men -
0:47:55 > 0:47:58he didn't think them good enough to do his play justice.
0:48:01 > 0:48:03Actors were important to Webster.
0:48:03 > 0:48:06Their talents helped to shape a play.
0:48:07 > 0:48:09When it came to Webster's masterpiece,
0:48:09 > 0:48:13The Duchess Of Malfi, everything came together.
0:48:13 > 0:48:17The new, indoor theatre, the light, the music,
0:48:17 > 0:48:20and of course, The King's Men, Shakespeare's company.
0:48:25 > 0:48:27Here's evidence that Webster was working with
0:48:27 > 0:48:31the best actors in the land, if not the world.
0:48:32 > 0:48:37The first printed quarto of The Duchess Of Malfi, from 1623,
0:48:37 > 0:48:40which amazingly contains an actors list,
0:48:40 > 0:48:43the first time any quarto had done so.
0:48:43 > 0:48:51And what an all-star cast it is - Lowen, Condon, Burbage.
0:48:51 > 0:48:56And here, Richard Sharpe, an 18-to-20-year-old
0:48:56 > 0:49:00who's the first actor we know to have played the Duchess.
0:49:08 > 0:49:11That's right - a young man, playing a woman.
0:49:11 > 0:49:14Real women wouldn't appear on the public stage in England
0:49:14 > 0:49:16for another 50 years.
0:49:18 > 0:49:21But things were changing for the boy actors.
0:49:21 > 0:49:24Where once they had been mere children,
0:49:24 > 0:49:26now the female roles were played by young men
0:49:26 > 0:49:29who had matured in the public eye.
0:49:29 > 0:49:32It meant they could take on more challenging parts,
0:49:32 > 0:49:36like Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra.
0:49:38 > 0:49:42And now the Duchess of Malfi, written for a man to perform,
0:49:42 > 0:49:46but which has become one of the greatest roles for women actors.
0:49:51 > 0:49:54The way he's written the Duchess is so advanced,
0:49:54 > 0:49:56in terms of how he thought,
0:49:56 > 0:50:00and if you think a man would have played that part...
0:50:00 > 0:50:05But it's so complex - it's a brilliant female part
0:50:05 > 0:50:08written with great sensitivity.
0:50:08 > 0:50:12And even when you play her you never quite can reach her,
0:50:12 > 0:50:15and so I think that's why the play continues,
0:50:15 > 0:50:20because she's like a Goddess, but without being perfect.
0:50:22 > 0:50:24I think what Webster's really trying to do
0:50:24 > 0:50:28is put a real, flesh-and-blood human female centre stage.
0:50:28 > 0:50:30Which is unusual.
0:50:30 > 0:50:35And someone who isn't just somebody's wife or lover
0:50:35 > 0:50:39or mother or daughter - which I have to say Shakespeare tends to do.
0:50:39 > 0:50:42You know, and I can't think of a Shakespeare play
0:50:42 > 0:50:45who has the title role of a female...
0:50:45 > 0:50:47Who doesn't share one.
0:50:47 > 0:50:50There's double billing - there's Juliet and Romeo,
0:50:50 > 0:50:52Anthony and Cleopatra,
0:50:52 > 0:50:55but I can't think of a Shakespeare play
0:50:55 > 0:50:58that's called The Countess Of This or The Princess Of That.
0:51:00 > 0:51:03There's no doubt that the role of the Duchess
0:51:03 > 0:51:07holds the key to the power of The Duchess Of Malfi as a play.
0:51:08 > 0:51:12It's easy to be drawn into Webster's dark cynicism,
0:51:12 > 0:51:16his mastery of staging and his distinctive way with words.
0:51:16 > 0:51:18But to solve the mystery
0:51:18 > 0:51:22of the creation of Webster's masterpiece
0:51:22 > 0:51:26we need to understand where the Duchess herself came from.
0:51:26 > 0:51:29We know that she was based on a real woman,
0:51:29 > 0:51:32but the inspiration for Webster's Duchess
0:51:32 > 0:51:34came not only from Renaissance Italy,
0:51:34 > 0:51:37but also from his own time and place.
0:51:38 > 0:51:43Once again, part of the answer comes from the theatre itself.
0:51:43 > 0:51:45The audience at Blackfriars would have contained
0:51:45 > 0:51:47a higher proportion of women -
0:51:47 > 0:51:49or at least, more respectable ones -
0:51:49 > 0:51:51than the outdoor theatres.
0:51:51 > 0:51:55They must have enjoyed seeing female protagonists on the stage.
0:51:55 > 0:52:00And, in the years before Malfi appeared, a series of scandals
0:52:00 > 0:52:05helped to change the popular image of women's motives and desires.
0:52:06 > 0:52:08Take Frances Howard,
0:52:08 > 0:52:11daughter of one of the most powerful families in the land.
0:52:11 > 0:52:16In May 1613 she filed for an annulment of her marriage
0:52:16 > 0:52:19to the Earl of Essex.
0:52:19 > 0:52:22She claimed he was unable to consummate the match.
0:52:22 > 0:52:24Soon word spread that she was planning to marry
0:52:24 > 0:52:27the King's favourite, Robert Carr.
0:52:27 > 0:52:30The Archbishop of Canterbury spoke out against her -
0:52:30 > 0:52:34but the King intervened, and her petition was granted.
0:52:34 > 0:52:38There's something both alluring about her gaze,
0:52:38 > 0:52:42and, I suspect, threatening.
0:52:42 > 0:52:45This is a different kind of woman
0:52:45 > 0:52:49than we've seen in Tudor portraiture.
0:52:49 > 0:52:56In her own conduct we might see her right to self-assertion.
0:52:56 > 0:53:00Others might have seen the immorality of the court writ large.
0:53:00 > 0:53:03So I think the divided perception that one might have of her
0:53:03 > 0:53:07really says something about the way in which she
0:53:07 > 0:53:11epitomises not just the court, but the attitudes to the court.
0:53:11 > 0:53:14It would connect perhaps with what Webster's dealing with
0:53:14 > 0:53:17in The Duchess Of Malfi, with women who are problematic,
0:53:17 > 0:53:21who are asserting their independence, asserting their rights.
0:53:23 > 0:53:28Frances Howard and Robert Carr were married in December 1613,
0:53:28 > 0:53:32just as The Duchess Of Malfi hit the stage.
0:53:32 > 0:53:36Early playgoers may well have been tempted to draw parallels
0:53:36 > 0:53:40between the play and this scandalous match at the English court.
0:53:41 > 0:53:44Fie, madam. Forget this base, low fellow.
0:53:44 > 0:53:45Were I a man
0:53:45 > 0:53:49I'd beat that counterfeit face into thy other.
0:53:54 > 0:53:57But the Duchess is a figure of rich ambiguity.
0:53:57 > 0:54:02Whatever her private desires, she's also a powerful woman,
0:54:02 > 0:54:03the ruler of Malfi,
0:54:03 > 0:54:06drawing on the memory of one woman in particular.
0:54:09 > 0:54:14For me, the Duchess captures a profound sense of nostalgia
0:54:14 > 0:54:17for Elizabeth I, ten years dead,
0:54:17 > 0:54:19when the Duchess came to life.
0:54:21 > 0:54:23By the end of Elizabeth's long reign,
0:54:23 > 0:54:28the English had - as one contemporary put it - grown weary
0:54:28 > 0:54:30of an old woman's government.
0:54:30 > 0:54:33But a few years under James changed that.
0:54:33 > 0:54:39His unpopularity soon made Elizabeth seem, in retrospect,
0:54:39 > 0:54:43truly, a glorious virgin queen.
0:54:43 > 0:54:46In 1606, Elizabeth was reinterred
0:54:46 > 0:54:50in a glorious tomb in Westminster Abbey.
0:54:50 > 0:54:55And printed images of it soon circulated across the land.
0:54:55 > 0:54:58It was said each devoted subject
0:54:58 > 0:55:03created a mournful monument for her in his heart.
0:55:05 > 0:55:09And, on the stage, a rash of powerful women soon appeared,
0:55:09 > 0:55:13with The Duchess Of Malfi the last and probably the greatest of them.
0:55:15 > 0:55:18In her defiance against detractors,
0:55:18 > 0:55:23her determination, strength and fortitude,
0:55:23 > 0:55:29she called to mind the idealised image of England's beloved queen.
0:55:35 > 0:55:38A flesh and blood woman with loves and desires,
0:55:38 > 0:55:41a shining icon of regal virtue,
0:55:41 > 0:55:44surrounded by the darkest of oppressors.
0:55:44 > 0:55:46Out of these ingredients,
0:55:46 > 0:55:49Webster created a Duchess who could be timeless.
0:55:52 > 0:55:54For me, she seems sort of like...
0:55:54 > 0:55:57Within the painting of the Duchess of Malfi,
0:55:57 > 0:56:00if there was one, there would be a beautiful light,
0:56:00 > 0:56:02and all this darkness around it,
0:56:02 > 0:56:05but the darkness is most of it.
0:56:05 > 0:56:11And she's just one sort of strand, and that's how I saw it.
0:56:11 > 0:56:15No wonder her most famous line, in all its layers of meaning,
0:56:15 > 0:56:16stays with us.
0:56:16 > 0:56:21I am Duchess of Malfi still.
0:56:21 > 0:56:25I think that "I am Duchess of Malfi still" is about,
0:56:25 > 0:56:27"I haven't gone mad."
0:56:27 > 0:56:29You know, it would be easier to bear all of this
0:56:29 > 0:56:32if I could just escape through insanity
0:56:32 > 0:56:33but I'm actually holding...
0:56:33 > 0:56:35I still have the heart and soul
0:56:35 > 0:56:38of this woman I was born, and always will be.
0:56:40 > 0:56:44Webster's story doesn't end with The Duchess Of Malfi, of course.
0:56:44 > 0:56:47He died around 1638.
0:56:47 > 0:56:50But in the quarter-century left in his writing career
0:56:50 > 0:56:55he never again reached the heights he did in 1613.
0:56:58 > 0:57:00So who was John Webster?
0:57:00 > 0:57:04He will always be seen in the light of his greatest play.
0:57:04 > 0:57:07A creator of bizarre and bloody scenes,
0:57:07 > 0:57:11yet also of an almost modern female lead.
0:57:11 > 0:57:15A writer able to bend the English language in unique,
0:57:15 > 0:57:18unsettling and unforgettable ways.
0:57:20 > 0:57:22What's this flesh?
0:57:22 > 0:57:24Little crudded milk?
0:57:24 > 0:57:27Fantastical puff paste?
0:57:28 > 0:57:31In the final scenes of The Duchess Of Malfi,
0:57:31 > 0:57:34Webster offers a grimmer version
0:57:34 > 0:57:37of Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage."
0:57:37 > 0:57:41Such a mistake as I have often seen in a play.
0:57:41 > 0:57:44Not the open, outdoor stage,
0:57:44 > 0:57:47but the intimate, enclosed one of Blackfriars.
0:57:49 > 0:57:51Ah, this gloomy world.
0:57:53 > 0:57:57In what a shadow or deep pit of darkness
0:57:57 > 0:58:00doth womanish and fearful mankind live!
0:58:02 > 0:58:07Webster saw life through the prism of theatre.
0:58:07 > 0:58:10The flickering darkness and shadowy world
0:58:10 > 0:58:13of the candlelit, indoor stage.
0:58:13 > 0:58:19A world we can now reconnect with and a fitting metaphor still
0:58:19 > 0:58:21for our own existence.