0:00:04 > 0:00:10Under the ermine, are they really like us?
0:00:11 > 0:00:14That's what we all want to know, isn't it?
0:00:16 > 0:00:19Or is the point of a monarch to be NOT like us?
0:00:21 > 0:00:24To be a living symbol of the country.
0:00:24 > 0:00:28The one who holds us together in times of trouble.
0:00:31 > 0:00:36Is the impossibility of their job that they're supposed to be both?
0:00:38 > 0:00:45To be recognisably like us but somehow grander, better.
0:00:50 > 0:00:51Loftier.
0:00:53 > 0:00:56The question of who kings and queens truly are
0:00:56 > 0:00:59obsessed the greatest dramatist of all time.
0:01:02 > 0:01:05In many of Shakespeare's greatest plays
0:01:05 > 0:01:07kings and queens stalk across the stage.
0:01:07 > 0:01:12Grandiose, bloody minded, demented, sociopathic.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15And the question Shakespeare asked of them more insistently,
0:01:15 > 0:01:20more deeply, more tragically than anyone before or since, is this -
0:01:20 > 0:01:23what happens when a human puts on the crown?
0:01:23 > 0:01:28Can they be just like us and not at all like us?
0:01:28 > 0:01:33What happens when the human animal breaks through the mask of royalty?
0:01:33 > 0:01:39They told me I was everything.
0:01:39 > 0:01:40'Tis a lie.
0:01:40 > 0:01:46Shakespeare's plays were performed right in front of Elizabeth I
0:01:46 > 0:01:48and her successor, James.
0:01:49 > 0:01:53There they sat in their finery watching stage versions of themselves
0:01:53 > 0:01:55murder their way to the throne.
0:01:57 > 0:02:01Go mad and get turned into pitiful figures.
0:02:03 > 0:02:06Shakespeare must have thrived on the thrill of it.
0:02:06 > 0:02:12Having his actor king say the unsayable in front of real live monarchs.
0:02:12 > 0:02:15He probed deeper into the royal mind
0:02:15 > 0:02:19than anyone before or since.
0:02:19 > 0:02:23Exploring the great themes of power, war and death.
0:02:25 > 0:02:29From that exploration of kingship,
0:02:29 > 0:02:32Shakespeare revealed the darkest truths -
0:02:32 > 0:02:36not just about them, but about us, too.
0:02:49 > 0:02:51By the late 1590s,
0:02:51 > 0:02:55Shakespeare was one of England's greatest playwrights.
0:03:01 > 0:03:06At his theatre, the Globe, he struck box office gold with hit after hit.
0:03:09 > 0:03:13A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet.
0:03:13 > 0:03:15Henry IV.
0:03:16 > 0:03:18Thousands poured into the theatre
0:03:18 > 0:03:23to cry with Juliet and laugh with Falstaff.
0:03:26 > 0:03:30Laughing too was the ultimate drama queen, Elizabeth I.
0:03:31 > 0:03:34More than any monarch before or since,
0:03:34 > 0:03:39Elizabeth understood the power of performance.
0:03:39 > 0:03:43During her reign, protestant England faced the threat
0:03:43 > 0:03:46of Catholic invasion and rebellion.
0:03:46 > 0:03:48At a time of war, Elizabeth understood
0:03:48 > 0:03:52she had to sell the idea of monarchy to her subjects.
0:03:52 > 0:03:58She had to persuade ordinary people to fight and die for her if need be.
0:04:03 > 0:04:06Elizabeth's greatest performance
0:04:06 > 0:04:08came in the year of the Spanish Armada.
0:04:08 > 0:04:12England was threatened with invasion.
0:04:12 > 0:04:17So Elizabeth travelled to Tilbury in Essex to address her troops.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23I am come amongst you.
0:04:23 > 0:04:27Being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle
0:04:27 > 0:04:29to live and die amongst you all.
0:04:32 > 0:04:35To lay down for my god
0:04:35 > 0:04:39and for my kingdom and my people
0:04:39 > 0:04:44my honour, and my blood, even, in the dust.
0:04:47 > 0:04:52I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman
0:04:52 > 0:04:55but I have the heart and stomach of a king.
0:04:55 > 0:04:57And a king of England, too,
0:04:57 > 0:05:01and think foul scorn that any prince of Europe
0:05:01 > 0:05:05should dare to invade the borders of my realm.
0:05:09 > 0:05:13Elizabeth was a brilliant performer.
0:05:13 > 0:05:17She could write a script that would make the public swoon with adoration
0:05:17 > 0:05:19and cheer itself hoarse.
0:05:20 > 0:05:24But by the late 1590s, her star was fading.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30Increasingly, she shunned the limelight.
0:05:30 > 0:05:33Her eloquence was mostly a memory.
0:05:35 > 0:05:3811 years after her great Tilbury speech,
0:05:38 > 0:05:42another invasion scare highlighted Elizabeth's decline.
0:05:42 > 0:05:46'This is a public order warning...'
0:05:46 > 0:05:53In 1599, London was thrown into a panic by rumours of a new armada.
0:05:53 > 0:05:57The chronicler John Stow described a city on edge.
0:05:58 > 0:06:04"Lanterns hanged at every man's door to burn all the night.
0:06:04 > 0:06:06"Thousands of horsemen, well appointed for the wars,
0:06:06 > 0:06:10"were brought up to London."
0:06:13 > 0:06:16So where was Elizabeth when she was needed?
0:06:19 > 0:06:20Nowhere to be seen.
0:06:22 > 0:06:23Was she ill?
0:06:24 > 0:06:26Was she dead?
0:06:27 > 0:06:30No, just past it.
0:06:30 > 0:06:36Mid-60s, can't always get her act together. Too tired.
0:06:37 > 0:06:42Behind the scenes, the royal make-up artists are working overtime,
0:06:42 > 0:06:46pancaking on the chalk mask to disguise the web of wrinkles.
0:06:46 > 0:06:51Fright wigs are being set on top of a closely shaved royal skull
0:06:51 > 0:06:53with its layer of grey stubble.
0:06:53 > 0:06:56And thank goodness for the whalebone
0:06:56 > 0:06:58to give the old girl a bit of uplift
0:06:58 > 0:07:01but nothing can disguise the fact
0:07:01 > 0:07:05that this is a royal actress well past her prime.
0:07:05 > 0:07:09Her greatest performances are very much yesteryear.
0:07:11 > 0:07:17By the 1590s, Shakespeare's theatre company of the Lord Chamberlain's Men
0:07:17 > 0:07:21was performing at court several times a year.
0:07:21 > 0:07:26Shakespeare could see the aging Queen up close.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29Perhaps it was the contrast between this Elizabeth
0:07:29 > 0:07:31and the commander at Tilbury
0:07:31 > 0:07:34that inspired Shakespeare to write a play
0:07:34 > 0:07:38that was a tribute to the Elizabeth of old.
0:07:38 > 0:07:40And he took a chapter from our history,
0:07:40 > 0:07:43when an English army faced impossible odds,
0:07:43 > 0:07:47to dramatise his theme.
0:07:57 > 0:07:59With Elizabeth missing,
0:07:59 > 0:08:04Shakespeare gave the people a monarch as big and brave as the crisis demanded.
0:08:07 > 0:08:10A royal warrior, young and charismatic,
0:08:10 > 0:08:14who sounded like Elizabeth at her Tilbury best.
0:08:17 > 0:08:21We few, we happy few,
0:08:21 > 0:08:25we band of brothers.
0:08:25 > 0:08:31For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
0:08:31 > 0:08:37Be he ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition
0:08:37 > 0:08:40and gentlemen in England now abed
0:08:40 > 0:08:44will think themselves accursed they were not here
0:08:44 > 0:08:47and hold their manhoods cheap
0:08:47 > 0:08:54whilst any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
0:08:55 > 0:08:58CHEERING
0:08:59 > 0:09:02Sounds a lot like Elizabeth at Tilbury, doesn't it?
0:09:02 > 0:09:06And this echo cannot have been a coincidence.
0:09:06 > 0:09:10Was Shakespeare doffing his hat to the old trooper on the throne?
0:09:10 > 0:09:16And why does the speech still make the hairs stand up on the back of our necks?
0:09:16 > 0:09:18Well, because the king is saying,
0:09:18 > 0:09:22just like Elizabeth at Tilbury, I'm one of you.
0:09:22 > 0:09:25My lot is cast with you. Our blood will comingle.
0:09:25 > 0:09:28We're all part of one family.
0:09:28 > 0:09:33You're my brother, my kin - the battle will gentle you.
0:09:33 > 0:09:37In other words, we will all be equals.
0:09:39 > 0:09:44In Henry V, Shakespeare echoed the great theme of Elizabeth's reign.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47The link between Crown and people.
0:09:50 > 0:09:55The bond was important at any time but in time of war, it was vital.
0:10:00 > 0:10:03And that vision of the band of brothers, equality of sacrifice,
0:10:03 > 0:10:06the slobs and the stiff upper lips,
0:10:06 > 0:10:08all in it together,
0:10:08 > 0:10:13has been dusted off whenever Albion's in trouble.
0:10:13 > 0:10:14AIR RAID SIRENS
0:10:25 > 0:10:29WINSTON CHURCHILL: 'We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.
0:10:30 > 0:10:32'We shall fight on the beaches.
0:10:32 > 0:10:34'We shall fight on the landing grounds.
0:10:34 > 0:10:36'We shall fight in the fields
0:10:36 > 0:10:38'and in the streets.
0:10:38 > 0:10:40'We shall fight in the hills.
0:10:40 > 0:10:42'We shall never surrender.'
0:10:47 > 0:10:49Growing up in London after the war,
0:10:49 > 0:10:52there was one Shakespeare play that spoke to me
0:10:52 > 0:10:55more deeply than any of the others,
0:10:55 > 0:10:57and that was Henry V.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01It was not just the "we happy few" patriotic passion,
0:11:01 > 0:11:06it was not just the defiance of getting to victory despite being outnumbered,
0:11:06 > 0:11:08it was that Shakespeare, in Henry V,
0:11:08 > 0:11:13gives us a king who seems to be one of us, one of the people.
0:11:13 > 0:11:16What does he say in the speech before Harfleur?
0:11:16 > 0:11:19"Dear FRIENDS..."
0:11:19 > 0:11:21So I was taken to the Old Vic
0:11:21 > 0:11:24and listened spellbound to Richard Burton.
0:11:24 > 0:11:28Next morning, there I am on a chair in my mother's living room,
0:11:28 > 0:11:32her broomstick in hand, hamming it up.
0:11:32 > 0:11:34"Once more into the breach dear friends.
0:11:34 > 0:11:40"Once more, or fill the walls up with our English dead."
0:11:43 > 0:11:47The stirring patriotic anthem which Shakespeare gives us
0:11:47 > 0:11:51in Henry V is lodged so deeply in our memory
0:11:51 > 0:11:55we often forget the really remarkable thing about the play -
0:11:55 > 0:12:00the fact that in Henry V we have a true portrait of a king,
0:12:00 > 0:12:04a man full of doubts and fears.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07The climax of the play isn't the battle of Agincourt,
0:12:07 > 0:12:10but the night before Agincourt.
0:12:10 > 0:12:13The chorus sets the scene.
0:12:14 > 0:12:20"The poor condemned English, like sacrifices by their watchful fires,
0:12:20 > 0:12:26"sit patiently and inly ruminate the morning's danger."
0:12:26 > 0:12:30The king, disguised, tours the camp chatting to his troops.
0:12:31 > 0:12:34A common soldier called Michael Williams,
0:12:34 > 0:12:37not realising who he's talking to,
0:12:37 > 0:12:41questions the justness of the king's war.
0:12:41 > 0:12:43If the cause be not good...
0:12:45 > 0:12:49..the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make.
0:12:51 > 0:12:58When all those legs and arms and heads chopped off in battle
0:12:58 > 0:13:02shall join together at the latter day and cry all...
0:13:04 > 0:13:06..we died in such a place.
0:13:07 > 0:13:09Some swearing,
0:13:09 > 0:13:11some crying for a surgeon.
0:13:13 > 0:13:17Some upon their wives left poor behind them.
0:13:17 > 0:13:19Some upon the debts they owe.
0:13:20 > 0:13:24Some upon their children rawly left.
0:13:28 > 0:13:33I am afeard there are few die well that die in battle.
0:13:36 > 0:13:41For how can they charitably dispose of anything
0:13:41 > 0:13:43when blood is their argument?
0:13:45 > 0:13:50Now, if these men do not die well...
0:13:52 > 0:13:56..it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05Henry is shaken by the soldier's frankness.
0:14:05 > 0:14:09He leaves them and broods on the burdens of kingship.
0:14:14 > 0:14:16Upon the king...
0:14:20 > 0:14:27..let us our lives, our souls, our debts,
0:14:27 > 0:14:34our careful wives, our children and our sins, lay on the king.
0:14:38 > 0:14:40We must bear all.
0:14:43 > 0:14:47What do kings get in return for the burden of responsibility?
0:14:47 > 0:14:51Just empty royal ceremony.
0:14:52 > 0:14:57What infinite heart's-ease must kings neglect,
0:14:57 > 0:14:59that private men enjoy.
0:15:02 > 0:15:06And what have kings that privates have not, too...
0:15:10 > 0:15:14..save ceremony, save general ceremony?
0:15:18 > 0:15:22And what art thou, thou idle ceremony?
0:15:25 > 0:15:29What kind of god art thou that suffer'st more of mortal griefs
0:15:29 > 0:15:31than do thy worshippers?
0:15:33 > 0:15:37What are thy rents? What are thy comings in?
0:15:40 > 0:15:43O, ceremony, show me but thy worth.
0:15:48 > 0:15:52Henry has stripped away the mask of royalty.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55Beneath it he is a frightened, vulnerable man.
0:15:57 > 0:15:59On the eve of Agincourt he prays,
0:15:59 > 0:16:04"O, god of battles, steel my soldiers' hearts.
0:16:04 > 0:16:08"Possess them not with fear, not today, O, lord.
0:16:08 > 0:16:10"O, not today."
0:16:11 > 0:16:15They're a band of brothers all right - brothers in terror.
0:16:22 > 0:16:27How did the audience react when they saw the man behind the royal mask?
0:16:29 > 0:16:32Were they troubled or were they swept along
0:16:32 > 0:16:35by Henry's victory at Agincourt?
0:16:39 > 0:16:42Bashing the French was always a winner.
0:16:44 > 0:16:46Maybe they went off to the alehouses happy.
0:16:50 > 0:16:54But in those same alehouses, recruiting officers
0:16:54 > 0:16:59were lying in wait for the drunken and unsuspecting...
0:17:01 > 0:17:05..ready to pressgang them off to real, very deadly, wars.
0:17:11 > 0:17:14In the last 20 years of Elizabeth's reign
0:17:14 > 0:17:18100,000 Englishmen were sent to fight abroad.
0:17:20 > 0:17:23Many went to Ireland to quell a long-running rebellion.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29The English soldiers were described as miserable,
0:17:29 > 0:17:32naked and hunger-starven.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36There were some whose feet and legs rotted off for want of shoes.
0:17:38 > 0:17:41No Agincourts in the offing there, then.
0:17:45 > 0:17:48It wasn't just the bloody Irish war.
0:17:51 > 0:17:55By the 1590s, high prices and low wages produced a crime wave.
0:17:57 > 0:18:01People went to the gallows in record numbers.
0:18:03 > 0:18:06To many, the afflictions visiting England
0:18:06 > 0:18:10were the result of Elizabeth's failing powers.
0:18:13 > 0:18:16"We shall never have a merry world while the queen lyveth,"
0:18:16 > 0:18:19said John Feltwell, an Essex labourer.
0:18:25 > 0:18:29The court was a nest of intrigue.
0:18:29 > 0:18:31Elizabeth had a toy-boy favourite -
0:18:31 > 0:18:37the Earl Of Essex was a handsome, dashing 34-year-old.
0:18:37 > 0:18:40Essex had been sent to Ireland to destroy the rebels.
0:18:40 > 0:18:47Instead, he negotiated a truce in defiance of the queen's orders.
0:18:51 > 0:18:56Desperate to explain his decision to Elizabeth, he sped to London.
0:18:58 > 0:19:01His timing was catastrophic.
0:19:02 > 0:19:04Elizabeth had just risen
0:19:04 > 0:19:07and the royal face was still being constructed
0:19:07 > 0:19:11when Essex burst into the Queen's bed chamber.
0:19:11 > 0:19:14It was not just a breach of protocol -
0:19:14 > 0:19:16it was tantamount to a dethronement.
0:19:16 > 0:19:21By seeing the Queen's body natural in all its aged, wizen truth,
0:19:21 > 0:19:24deprived of the make-up that turned her
0:19:24 > 0:19:26into the imperishable Virgin Queen,
0:19:26 > 0:19:29Essex had shattered the royal mystique.
0:19:29 > 0:19:35It was as though he'd torn the crown off her head with his own hands.
0:19:37 > 0:19:39Essex was arrested.
0:19:42 > 0:19:46When he was released, he was disgraced and deep in debt.
0:19:49 > 0:19:52Two years later in February 1601,
0:19:52 > 0:19:56Shakespeare's Richard II was playing at The Globe.
0:19:56 > 0:20:01If Shakespeare had given us the portrait of a strong king in Henry V,
0:20:01 > 0:20:04then in Richard II we get something quite different.
0:20:07 > 0:20:11Richard is arrogant and self obsessed,
0:20:11 > 0:20:13utterly out of touch with his people.
0:20:15 > 0:20:19His enemy is Bolingbroke, charismatic crowd pleaser.
0:20:22 > 0:20:26At the heart of the play there's an explosive question -
0:20:26 > 0:20:29is it ever justifiable to overthrow a king?
0:20:34 > 0:20:39But this was a highly unusual performance of Richard II.
0:20:42 > 0:20:47Essex's men had paid for a private showing of the play.
0:20:49 > 0:20:52They hoped it would steel their nerves and help justify
0:20:52 > 0:20:56the coup d'etat they were launching the very next day.
0:21:03 > 0:21:08At the emotional climax of the play, the king turns to Bolingbroke and says,
0:21:08 > 0:21:12"Mark me, how I will undo myself.
0:21:12 > 0:21:15"I give this heavy weight from off my head,
0:21:15 > 0:21:19"this unwieldy sceptre from out my hand,
0:21:19 > 0:21:22"the pride of kingly sway from out my heart.
0:21:22 > 0:21:26"With mine own tears I wash away my sacred balm,
0:21:26 > 0:21:30"with mine own hands I give away my crown,
0:21:30 > 0:21:34"with mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
0:21:34 > 0:21:38"with mine own breaths release all duty's oaths.
0:21:38 > 0:21:43"All pomp and majesty I do forswear."
0:21:43 > 0:21:48The scene and the speech is heartbreakingly full of pathos,
0:21:48 > 0:21:52but so excited were they by its potential message,
0:21:52 > 0:21:56it's unlikely Essex's men noticed that.
0:22:00 > 0:22:03Essex saw himself as a new Bolingbroke,
0:22:03 > 0:22:05someone who would restore the Sceptred Isle.
0:22:09 > 0:22:15Essex believed there were parallels between Richard and Elizabeth.
0:22:16 > 0:22:20Both were childless. Both were surrounded by self-interested men
0:22:20 > 0:22:24who stopped them listening to the grievances of the people.
0:22:27 > 0:22:31Essex wanted to turn Elizabeth into a puppet queen.
0:22:31 > 0:22:34He would be the real power behind the throne.
0:22:39 > 0:22:43On the 8th February 1601,
0:22:43 > 0:22:48the day after the performance of Richard II, Essex's rebellion began.
0:22:53 > 0:22:57There was a morning of pathetic skirmishing.
0:22:57 > 0:23:00The rebels were arrested.
0:23:00 > 0:23:03Essex was later beheaded.
0:23:05 > 0:23:10Shakespeare lived in an age when writing was a dangerous game.
0:23:12 > 0:23:15Christopher Marlowe was murdered.
0:23:15 > 0:23:17Thomas Kyd was tortured.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21Ben Jonson was thrown into jail.
0:23:21 > 0:23:23So what about Shakespeare?
0:23:24 > 0:23:28After the Essex rebellion, could the writer of Richard II
0:23:28 > 0:23:32be had up as an accessory to high treason?
0:23:32 > 0:23:35It is a dangerous dance.
0:23:35 > 0:23:37There's no doubt about it.
0:23:39 > 0:23:42And you had to become
0:23:42 > 0:23:47as good with antithesis and metaphor
0:23:47 > 0:23:51as Shakespeare did
0:23:51 > 0:23:54to ski along that razorblade.
0:23:57 > 0:24:00The reason Shakespeare managed to stay out of jail and
0:24:00 > 0:24:05got his plays on stage and the reason Shakespeare escaped
0:24:05 > 0:24:11the lesser role of essayist and commentator on the times
0:24:11 > 0:24:14and achieved the role of the greatest dramatist ever,
0:24:14 > 0:24:19was that he dramatised opposing positions
0:24:19 > 0:24:23in a way that it is almost impossible to nail him down.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31Richard II is a case in point.
0:24:33 > 0:24:35In the opening scenes the king is complacent,
0:24:35 > 0:24:38believing that his majesty makes him untouchable.
0:24:40 > 0:24:45After his dethronement, Richard becomes humble and self aware.
0:24:45 > 0:24:49He learns what it is to be a man as well as a monarch.
0:24:49 > 0:24:53His painful journey wrings our hearts.
0:24:59 > 0:25:03Perhaps the play and the lessons of the Essex rebellion
0:25:03 > 0:25:04preoccupied the old queen.
0:25:06 > 0:25:11Perhaps they reminded Elizabeth that she needed the loyalty of
0:25:11 > 0:25:14her subjects, especially when times were tough.
0:25:14 > 0:25:18Because nine months after the rebellion
0:25:18 > 0:25:21she finally emerged from the shadows.
0:25:21 > 0:25:23She turned on that old stage magic
0:25:23 > 0:25:26and gave her long-suffering subjects
0:25:26 > 0:25:30the swan song they had waited so long to hear.
0:25:31 > 0:25:36The great speech of beauty, intensity and emotional power
0:25:36 > 0:25:37was late in coming,
0:25:37 > 0:25:43but when it did in November 1601, delivered to a parliament hostile to
0:25:43 > 0:25:48her government, it was a masterpiece of Elizabethan stagecraft.
0:25:48 > 0:25:51The queen revelled gloriously, shamelessly,
0:25:51 > 0:25:56just as she had done at Tilbury, in saying, "I am one of you.
0:25:56 > 0:26:01"Those unscrupulous men who've committed deeds in my name,
0:26:01 > 0:26:04"I am not with them. I am with you.
0:26:04 > 0:26:08"There's only one thing that unites us. You know it.
0:26:08 > 0:26:11"One word. The jewel."
0:26:14 > 0:26:15"There is no jewel
0:26:15 > 0:26:18"be it of never so rich a price
0:26:18 > 0:26:21"which I set before this jewel.
0:26:22 > 0:26:24"I mean your love.
0:26:26 > 0:26:29"For I do esteem it more than any treasure or riches.
0:26:30 > 0:26:33"For that we know how to prize,
0:26:33 > 0:26:37"but love and thanks I count invaluable.
0:26:41 > 0:26:46"I know the title of a king is a glorious title.
0:26:46 > 0:26:50"But assure yourself that to be a king and wear a crown
0:26:50 > 0:26:53"is a thing more glorious to them that see it
0:26:53 > 0:26:56"than it is pleasant to them that bear it.
0:26:58 > 0:27:02"And though you have had, and may have,
0:27:02 > 0:27:06"many princes more mighty and wise sitting in this seat,
0:27:07 > 0:27:11"yet you never had, nor shall have,
0:27:11 > 0:27:14"any that will be more careful and loving."
0:27:29 > 0:27:33In February 1603, the Lord Chamberlain's men
0:27:33 > 0:27:37performed in front of the queen for the last time.
0:27:42 > 0:27:46A month later, Elizabeth was dead.
0:27:48 > 0:27:52Describing her funeral, the poet Thomas Dekker wrote,
0:27:52 > 0:27:55"Her hearse seemed to be an island swimming in water,
0:27:55 > 0:28:00"for round it there rained a shower of tears."
0:28:03 > 0:28:07It was as if her death reminded people of what they had lost.
0:28:09 > 0:28:14That rare thing, a queen who was first and foremost a human being.
0:28:15 > 0:28:17A monarch who had the common touch.
0:28:29 > 0:28:34That's not something that could be said of her successor, James Stewart.
0:28:34 > 0:28:37So unlike the Virgin Queen.
0:28:37 > 0:28:41One minute a swaggering drunk with an eye for pretty-boy courtiers,
0:28:41 > 0:28:46the next a pious pedant reciting scripture at sinners.
0:28:49 > 0:28:53And unlike Elizabeth, James was not especially keen
0:28:53 > 0:28:55to get downwind of his subjects.
0:28:58 > 0:29:02"He does not caress the people nor make them that good cheer
0:29:02 > 0:29:06"that the late queen did," said the Venetian ambassador.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09"This king manifests no taste for them."
0:29:18 > 0:29:23James's official entry into London was in March 1604.
0:29:26 > 0:29:29It was the most grandiose affair imaginable.
0:29:29 > 0:29:34Triumphful arches thrown up across the city.
0:29:34 > 0:29:37A lot of nose-in-the-air Latin poems
0:29:37 > 0:29:40which meant nothing to ordinary folk.
0:29:42 > 0:29:46So didn't Shakespeare, the god of the groundlings,
0:29:46 > 0:29:50feel a bit estranged from all this high culture?
0:29:50 > 0:29:51Not a bit.
0:29:51 > 0:29:55He wasn't the jobbing, inky-fingered playwright of Southwark any more.
0:29:57 > 0:29:59In the last years of the old queen's reign,
0:29:59 > 0:30:04Shakespeare had definitely arrived. He was raking it in.
0:30:04 > 0:30:08Rich enough to buy the second-largest house in Stratford
0:30:08 > 0:30:13and, tellingly, he was using his family's new coat of arms.
0:30:13 > 0:30:17Insofar as you could ever be and still stay in a theatre,
0:30:17 > 0:30:19he was a gent.
0:30:19 > 0:30:23At James's coronation he was dressed resplendently
0:30:23 > 0:30:27in four and a half yards of red cloth.
0:30:27 > 0:30:31His company, which had been grand enough as the Lord Chamberlain's men,
0:30:31 > 0:30:35was now even grander as the King's Men,
0:30:35 > 0:30:40their title authorised at record speed by the royal pen pushers.
0:30:40 > 0:30:45He was now officially THE court playwright.
0:30:45 > 0:30:48The question was, with all that financial security
0:30:48 > 0:30:53and royal recognition, would he lose his edge?
0:30:56 > 0:31:00James was a notorious big spender
0:31:00 > 0:31:03and when it came to the arts he lavished cash.
0:31:03 > 0:31:08Shakespeare was among the happy beneficiaries of James's largesse.
0:31:10 > 0:31:15Between 10 and 20 times a year, far more than under Elizabeth,
0:31:15 > 0:31:17the King's Men performed at court.
0:31:18 > 0:31:21Shakespeare was now much closer to the throne.
0:31:21 > 0:31:26He could observe James's obsessions at first hand.
0:31:26 > 0:31:30Perhaps that's what inspired Shakespeare to dig deeper
0:31:30 > 0:31:35and explore what lay in the heart and the head of a king.
0:31:38 > 0:31:42In the great tragedies written during James's reign
0:31:42 > 0:31:47Shakespeare explored the most profound issues of all.
0:31:47 > 0:31:49Madness and sanity.
0:31:53 > 0:31:54Good and evil.
0:31:57 > 0:31:58The corrupting nature of ambition.
0:32:00 > 0:32:03Revenge.
0:32:07 > 0:32:09We don't know for sure, but it seems likely
0:32:09 > 0:32:13that the first tragedy that James saw
0:32:13 > 0:32:17was performed at Hampton Court in the Christmas season of 1603.
0:32:19 > 0:32:23At 10 o'clock, after heavy drinking and feasting,
0:32:23 > 0:32:27the audience, all 600 of them, stagger in.
0:32:27 > 0:32:31On each side, against the walls there are tiered benches
0:32:31 > 0:32:33for the less important of the audience.
0:32:33 > 0:32:35The aristocrats get the floor
0:32:35 > 0:32:39and the creme de la creme have reserved boxes.
0:32:39 > 0:32:43There is a throne-like pair of seats for the king and queen.
0:32:43 > 0:32:46The audience parts to let the royal couple through.
0:32:46 > 0:32:49Much bowing and curtseying.
0:32:49 > 0:32:52We don't know exactly what plays were performed that Christmas,
0:32:52 > 0:32:57but it seems very likely that for the king and his Danish queen,
0:32:57 > 0:33:00it would have been the Danish play, Hamlet.
0:33:00 > 0:33:05Where else had they spent their honeymoon but Elsinore Castle?
0:33:07 > 0:33:10If there was any question that the royal playwright
0:33:10 > 0:33:17had lost his edge, then staging Hamlet was an emphatic response.
0:33:17 > 0:33:20Of all Shakespeare's plays about the theatre of the court
0:33:20 > 0:33:24it's the one most obsessed with false appearances -
0:33:24 > 0:33:26what's fake and what's true.
0:33:29 > 0:33:33The biggest faker of all is Hamlet's uncle, Claudius.
0:33:35 > 0:33:37Claudius acts like the rightful king.
0:33:37 > 0:33:42He acts like a devoted husband to Hamlet's mother, Gertrude.
0:33:46 > 0:33:50But Hamlet suspects Claudius of murder.
0:33:51 > 0:33:55The murder of HIS father, the king of Denmark.
0:33:59 > 0:34:05So Hamlet decides to reveal the truth with, what else? A play.
0:34:05 > 0:34:08"The play's the thing," he says,
0:34:08 > 0:34:11"Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."
0:34:15 > 0:34:18James would have loved the melodrama.
0:34:19 > 0:34:24But as Hamlet unfolded he must have felt increasingly ill at ease.
0:34:24 > 0:34:26Because what James was watching
0:34:26 > 0:34:31was a reflection of his own life played out on stage.
0:34:32 > 0:34:35His father, Darnley, had been murdered.
0:34:35 > 0:34:39The murderer, Bothwell, had married James's mother,
0:34:39 > 0:34:41Mary Queen of Scots.
0:34:44 > 0:34:45They lived as king and queen,
0:34:45 > 0:34:49flaunting their crime like Claudius and Gertrude.
0:34:50 > 0:34:53This nightmare haunted James
0:34:53 > 0:34:57and here it was again played out right in front of him.
0:34:58 > 0:35:00At one point during the play,
0:35:00 > 0:35:04when Hamlet has the players act out the poisoning of his father,
0:35:04 > 0:35:08there are no less than three pairs of kings and queens,
0:35:08 > 0:35:10all within a few feet of each other.
0:35:10 > 0:35:14James I and Queen Anne, Gertrude and Claudius
0:35:14 > 0:35:16and the player king and queen.
0:35:16 > 0:35:18And what is being acted out
0:35:18 > 0:35:22is essentially the crime of James' own childhood.
0:35:22 > 0:35:25Now there was no reason why he necessarily
0:35:25 > 0:35:27should have taken offence of this.
0:35:27 > 0:35:31After all, he hadn't tried to take revenge for the death of his father.
0:35:31 > 0:35:34But, all the same, you have to wonder whether,
0:35:34 > 0:35:38confronted with these incredible mind games,
0:35:38 > 0:35:40his head wasn't spinning.
0:35:45 > 0:35:51Hamlet was about sorting out true kings from criminal assassins.
0:35:51 > 0:35:54So why would James have a problem with that?
0:35:54 > 0:35:58Especially at a time when king-murderers
0:35:58 > 0:36:01were lurking around every corner.
0:36:06 > 0:36:09On 4th November, 1605,
0:36:09 > 0:36:1336 barrels of gunpowder were discovered
0:36:13 > 0:36:15beneath the House of Lords.
0:36:15 > 0:36:18The plotters were Catholic militants.
0:36:18 > 0:36:22Their target was not just Parliament, but James himself.
0:36:25 > 0:36:29Shakespeare must have been particularly worried.
0:36:29 > 0:36:33His mother was from a staunch Catholic family.
0:36:33 > 0:36:37Robert Catesby, the ringleader of the Gunpowder Plot,
0:36:37 > 0:36:39was one of Shakespeare's relatives.
0:36:43 > 0:36:46In this climate of treason and paranoia,
0:36:46 > 0:36:50Shakespeare wrote something designed to appeal to James.
0:36:54 > 0:36:57A play about the anarchy engulfing a country
0:36:57 > 0:36:59after the murder of its king.
0:37:05 > 0:37:07Macbeth.
0:37:11 > 0:37:15"Each new morn, new widows howl.
0:37:15 > 0:37:17"New orphans cry.
0:37:17 > 0:37:20"New sorrows strike heaven on the face."
0:37:22 > 0:37:26WEIRD SISTERS: Fair is foul and foul is fair.
0:37:26 > 0:37:28Hover through the fog...
0:37:28 > 0:37:30James' obsession with sorcery
0:37:30 > 0:37:33inspired the very first scene of the play.
0:37:35 > 0:37:40WEIRD SISTERS: Macbeth. Fair is foul and foul is fair.
0:37:40 > 0:37:45Hover through the fog and filthy air.
0:37:45 > 0:37:47Fair is foul...
0:37:47 > 0:37:52In the early 1590s, more than 100 Scottish witches had gone on trial.
0:37:54 > 0:37:57Under torture, they confessed to casting spells
0:37:57 > 0:37:59in order to kill James.
0:37:59 > 0:38:03BIRDS SHRIEK
0:38:05 > 0:38:08When Macbeth's witches cook up a cauldron
0:38:08 > 0:38:10of wool of bat and toe of frog,
0:38:10 > 0:38:14James would have been reminded of the North Berwick witches.
0:38:20 > 0:38:22He had personally cross-examined the witches.
0:38:23 > 0:38:27After the trial, he wrote a book about sorcery -
0:38:27 > 0:38:28Daemonologie.
0:38:29 > 0:38:34He believed witches got their power through sex with the Devil.
0:38:36 > 0:38:39The connection between sex and power
0:38:39 > 0:38:41is at the heart of Shakespeare's play.
0:38:44 > 0:38:47Macbeth and his wife lust for the throne.
0:38:50 > 0:38:54The sexual rush of killing is at the heart of Macbeth.
0:38:54 > 0:38:57Macbeth does what his wife urges him to do
0:38:57 > 0:39:00because she makes it clear his manhood is at stake.
0:39:00 > 0:39:04"Art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and valour
0:39:04 > 0:39:07"as thou art in desire?" she says.
0:39:07 > 0:39:11"Screw thy courage to the sticking place."
0:39:13 > 0:39:19Macbeth flinches at his demonic conversion, but his wife invites it.
0:39:21 > 0:39:22Come here, spirits...
0:39:24 > 0:39:26..that tend on mortal thoughts.
0:39:26 > 0:39:28Unsex me here.
0:39:30 > 0:39:36And fill me from the crown to the toe topful of direst cruelty.
0:39:36 > 0:39:38SHE GASPS
0:39:39 > 0:39:42Make thick my blood.
0:39:42 > 0:39:45Stop up the access and passage to remorse
0:39:45 > 0:39:49That no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose.
0:39:49 > 0:39:52Nor keep peace between the effect and it.
0:39:54 > 0:39:57Come to my woman's breasts and take my milk for gall,
0:39:57 > 0:39:59You murdering ministers,
0:39:59 > 0:40:01Wherever in your sightless substances
0:40:01 > 0:40:03You wait on nature's mischief.
0:40:03 > 0:40:07Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell.
0:40:07 > 0:40:10That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
0:40:10 > 0:40:15Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark to cry, "Hold!
0:40:15 > 0:40:16"Hold!"
0:40:17 > 0:40:21When Lady Macbeth says, "Unsex me,"
0:40:21 > 0:40:24she's abandoning all the qualities of the right kind of woman -
0:40:24 > 0:40:27chastity, humility, and obedience.
0:40:27 > 0:40:32And the result is exactly what male moralists would have predicted...
0:40:33 > 0:40:37..madness, insomnia, suicide.
0:40:42 > 0:40:46Macbeth is a very interesting case in terms of the kingship debate,
0:40:46 > 0:40:50because I think it's a completely different quality of play
0:40:50 > 0:40:53to any of the other tragedies or the histories.
0:40:53 > 0:40:56I think it's an almost unique play in terms of its...
0:40:56 > 0:40:59detailed and extremely depressing picture
0:40:59 > 0:41:03of a man who undergoes a profound crisis
0:41:03 > 0:41:07by having done something dreadful in order to obtain absolute power.
0:41:07 > 0:41:10What Shakespeare's interested in is the psychological damage.
0:41:10 > 0:41:13He takes the past and the future out of his world, out of Macbeth's world.
0:41:13 > 0:41:16So Macbeth ends up living entirely in the present.
0:41:16 > 0:41:19And the great "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" speech
0:41:19 > 0:41:22is about each day being exactly the same.
0:41:36 > 0:41:41Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
0:41:41 > 0:41:45Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
0:41:45 > 0:41:48To the last syllable of recorded time.
0:41:49 > 0:41:54And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.
0:41:56 > 0:41:59Out, out, brief candle.
0:41:59 > 0:42:01Life's but a walking shadow.
0:42:01 > 0:42:06A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
0:42:06 > 0:42:08and then is heard no more.
0:42:08 > 0:42:11It is a tale told by an idiot -
0:42:11 > 0:42:14Full of sound and fury,
0:42:14 > 0:42:15signifying nothing.
0:42:20 > 0:42:25Macbeth explores how men turn into predatory animals
0:42:25 > 0:42:28but there's a moment when Shakespeare asks
0:42:28 > 0:42:31whether you need witches to convert to the dark side.
0:42:32 > 0:42:36Is there something about the crown itself which makes beasts of men?
0:42:39 > 0:42:43In one of the strangest scenes in the play, we meet Malcolm.
0:42:43 > 0:42:48He's the good guy who will become king once Macbeth implodes.
0:42:49 > 0:42:55Through Malcolm, Shakespeare explores the corrupting influence of kingship.
0:42:55 > 0:42:58"I'm not what I appear," Malcolm says.
0:42:58 > 0:43:00"You think Macbeth is bad.
0:43:00 > 0:43:02"Wait till you get King Malcolm."
0:43:03 > 0:43:07Were I king, I should cut off the nobles for their lands,
0:43:07 > 0:43:09Desire his jewels, this other's house
0:43:09 > 0:43:12And my more having would be as a sauce to make me hunger more
0:43:12 > 0:43:16That I should forge quarrels unjust against the good and loyal,
0:43:16 > 0:43:17Destroying them for wealth.
0:43:19 > 0:43:24In Malcolm's experience, a king is either murdered in his bed
0:43:24 > 0:43:27or is a bloody tyrant.
0:43:27 > 0:43:28That's what a king is.
0:43:30 > 0:43:32Does he really want to be that?
0:43:32 > 0:43:35Can he avoid either of those fates?
0:43:35 > 0:43:37He certainly doesn't want to be murdered in his bed.
0:43:37 > 0:43:41So I think it's partly a playing out of Malcolm's own self-doubt
0:43:41 > 0:43:44in the face of what seems to be the way of the world.
0:43:46 > 0:43:49Through the character of Malcolm,
0:43:49 > 0:43:54Shakespeare flags up how whimsical and unreliable kings can be.
0:43:54 > 0:43:56It's a dangerous thing to do,
0:43:56 > 0:44:00but Shakespeare knows how far to push his luck.
0:44:00 > 0:44:04So after his outburst, Malcolm takes it all back.
0:44:04 > 0:44:06"Only kidding. I'm a good guy after all."
0:44:09 > 0:44:13I here abjure the taints and blames I laid upon myself,
0:44:13 > 0:44:15for strangers to my nature.
0:44:22 > 0:44:26My first false speaking was this upon myself.
0:44:29 > 0:44:33What I am...truly...
0:44:37 > 0:44:40..is thine and my poor country's to command.
0:44:42 > 0:44:45THUNDER CRACKS
0:44:45 > 0:44:49Shakespeare has ventured a shocking line of questioning
0:44:49 > 0:44:54about what the crown does to the human, and yet he gets away with it.
0:44:54 > 0:44:59But some demon compels him to keep chipping away at the royal mask.
0:45:01 > 0:45:03It's as if being so close to James,
0:45:03 > 0:45:08seeing at first hand the extravagance and pretension of his court,
0:45:08 > 0:45:11provokes Shakespeare to take ever greater risks.
0:45:14 > 0:45:19What Shakespeare is obsessed with is the tension between humanity
0:45:19 > 0:45:22and the delusions of majesty.
0:45:22 > 0:45:26And it's this issue that's at the heart
0:45:26 > 0:45:28of his greatest play about kingship -
0:45:28 > 0:45:29Lear.
0:45:48 > 0:45:50There are many shocking things in Lear.
0:45:50 > 0:45:52The eye-gouging.
0:45:52 > 0:45:55The most heartbreaking ending in all of Shakespeare.
0:45:55 > 0:45:58But performed as it was at the Stuart court,
0:45:58 > 0:46:01amidst all that heavy jewellery, the rivers of silk,
0:46:01 > 0:46:03the cascades of lace,
0:46:03 > 0:46:07nothing is more shocking than its immense moral argument.
0:46:07 > 0:46:09That a monarch has to be reduced
0:46:09 > 0:46:12to a lightning-struck, destitute, homeless person
0:46:12 > 0:46:15before he can achieve real grace
0:46:15 > 0:46:19and see the truth about himself and his place in humanity.
0:46:19 > 0:46:23And it's not enough even to uncrown yourself.
0:46:23 > 0:46:25You have to sink the lowest of the low.
0:46:29 > 0:46:32To grasp the level of Shakespeare's audacity,
0:46:32 > 0:46:35imagine a command performance in front of the Queen,
0:46:35 > 0:46:40featuring a naked, demented bag lady version of herself,
0:46:40 > 0:46:42shuffling among the homeless.
0:46:42 > 0:46:46Raving and crying and finding salvation.
0:46:49 > 0:46:51But Shakespeare is smart.
0:46:51 > 0:46:55He doesn't undermine the idea of kingship right away.
0:46:55 > 0:46:58Instead, he begins on a theme
0:46:58 > 0:47:00which would have delighted his royal master.
0:47:00 > 0:47:02Give me the map.
0:47:02 > 0:47:04There.
0:47:04 > 0:47:10James's great project was to be king of something called Great Britain.
0:47:10 > 0:47:13He believed the union of England, Scotland and Ireland
0:47:13 > 0:47:16would bring security, prosperity and peace.
0:47:17 > 0:47:21"But by dividing your kingdoms," he warned,
0:47:21 > 0:47:25"ye shall leave the seed of discord among your posterity,"
0:47:25 > 0:47:28and this is exactly what Lear is about to do.
0:47:30 > 0:47:31He wants to retire,
0:47:31 > 0:47:35so he decides to parcel out his kingdom amongst his daughters.
0:47:37 > 0:47:40Know that we have divided in three our kingdom,
0:47:40 > 0:47:43And 'tis our fast intent
0:47:43 > 0:47:47To shake all cares and business from our age.
0:47:47 > 0:47:49Conferring them on younger strengths
0:47:49 > 0:47:54Whilst we, unburdened, crawl towards death.
0:47:55 > 0:47:59The story of Cinderella and the story of King Lear are the same.
0:47:59 > 0:48:03It's two nasty sisters and one nice one
0:48:03 > 0:48:06and the two nasty ones are picked over the nice one.
0:48:06 > 0:48:10It's sort of based on a fairytale fable construction.
0:48:10 > 0:48:13It does run away from him so dramatically
0:48:13 > 0:48:15and becomes both operatic, both very grand
0:48:15 > 0:48:18and also sort of painfully simple and direct.
0:48:20 > 0:48:24The daughters who flatter Lear will get the lion's share of the land.
0:48:25 > 0:48:30The youngest, Cordelia, refuses to butter up her father.
0:48:30 > 0:48:35But the elder daughters trowel on the praise shamelessly.
0:48:35 > 0:48:39Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter.
0:48:39 > 0:48:42Dearer than eyesight, space and liberty.
0:48:42 > 0:48:45Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare.
0:48:45 > 0:48:46No less than life...
0:48:46 > 0:48:50In attacking flattery, Shakespeare was treading a dangerous line,
0:48:50 > 0:48:55for Lear's weakness was also, notoriously, James'.
0:48:55 > 0:48:57There was no praise, however fawning,
0:48:57 > 0:48:59that wouldn't go down well with the king.
0:48:59 > 0:49:03James often demanded his subjects address him
0:49:03 > 0:49:07as "Most sacred," or "Most wise."
0:49:07 > 0:49:10Beyond all manner of so much, I love you.
0:49:10 > 0:49:13And there was another striking parallel between the two kings.
0:49:13 > 0:49:16The boorishness of the royal entourage.
0:49:18 > 0:49:23James' court was a byword for licentiousness.
0:49:23 > 0:49:28During a state visit in 1606, one courtier remarked,
0:49:28 > 0:49:33"We had women and wine, too, in such plenty
0:49:33 > 0:49:36"as would have astonished each sober beholder."
0:49:36 > 0:49:39In the play, it's this kind of royal debauchery
0:49:39 > 0:49:41that is Lear's undoing.
0:49:43 > 0:49:48He wants to keep a retinue of 100 knights.
0:49:48 > 0:49:52It's like a travelling band of rowdy football supporters.
0:49:52 > 0:49:55But Lear's daughters won't allow it.
0:49:55 > 0:50:01And now he's handed over his crown, Lear is powerless to resist them.
0:50:01 > 0:50:03There is something deeply painful about a man
0:50:03 > 0:50:05who puts himself into that position.
0:50:05 > 0:50:09That ludicrous sort of position of the king without a crown.
0:50:09 > 0:50:12It's an amazing moment when you can see
0:50:12 > 0:50:14a man of huge power and huge influence
0:50:14 > 0:50:19just suddenly... his function has disappeared,
0:50:19 > 0:50:21so he disappears with it.
0:50:21 > 0:50:25And that seems to be an extension of the kingship,
0:50:25 > 0:50:31the mask cracking and one's self-worth disappearing with it.
0:50:31 > 0:50:36And I think that's a profoundly Shakespearean movement.
0:50:36 > 0:50:38Dost thou know the difference, my boy,
0:50:38 > 0:50:42- between a bitter fool and a sweet one?- No, lad. Teach me.
0:50:44 > 0:50:46Bling.
0:50:46 > 0:50:49# That lord that counselled thee Bling, bling
0:50:49 > 0:50:51# To give away thy land Bling, bling... #
0:50:51 > 0:50:55Only when his power has been stripped away
0:50:55 > 0:50:59can Lear begin to comprehend the human condition.
0:50:59 > 0:51:03He's on the torturing road to understanding.
0:51:03 > 0:51:07But the man who must help him on his journey is his fool.
0:51:07 > 0:51:09# Bling, bling To give away thy land
0:51:09 > 0:51:10# Bling! #
0:51:10 > 0:51:13Once again, Shakespeare dares to make comparisons
0:51:13 > 0:51:17between James' and Lear's worlds.
0:51:17 > 0:51:21James was the first monarch for a long time to have a fool.
0:51:21 > 0:51:25Archie Armstrong. His very own Billy Connolly.
0:51:25 > 0:51:29Archie was paid to be rude to the king on the understanding
0:51:29 > 0:51:33that at the end of the routine, everything returned to normal.
0:51:33 > 0:51:38King on his throne. Fool on the bottom step, jiggling his bells.
0:51:38 > 0:51:40Not in Lear.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43The fool is merciless. Piercing.
0:51:43 > 0:51:45# The sweet and bitter fool Bling, bling
0:51:45 > 0:51:48# Will presently appear Bling, bling
0:51:48 > 0:51:52# The one in motley here Bling, bling
0:51:52 > 0:51:58# The other found out there Bling, bling. #
0:51:58 > 0:52:01Dost thou call me fool, boy?
0:52:01 > 0:52:06All thy other titles thou hast given away that thou was born with.
0:52:06 > 0:52:10Like Lear, James had famously been called a fool.
0:52:10 > 0:52:13The wisest fool in Christendom.
0:52:13 > 0:52:14THUNDER CRACKS
0:52:14 > 0:52:17In brimful man!
0:52:17 > 0:52:22Stripped of his knights, powerless and homeless,
0:52:22 > 0:52:25Lear goes out into the wilderness while a storm rages.
0:52:27 > 0:52:31Shakespeare views that outside is the point where you discover things
0:52:31 > 0:52:33you didn't know and the inside is, you know,
0:52:33 > 0:52:35the safe and secure place.
0:52:35 > 0:52:38So you know, in the comedies, it's the magic forest
0:52:38 > 0:52:44and the magic island and, in the tragedies, it's the blasted heath.
0:52:44 > 0:52:46And in the comedies, you learn how to love,
0:52:46 > 0:52:49and in tragedies, you learn how to die.
0:52:49 > 0:52:53And actually that's what the tragic heroes do outside.
0:52:53 > 0:52:55They discover... They confront death.
0:53:09 > 0:53:13And there in that terrible place, literally at his wits' end,
0:53:13 > 0:53:17the destitute king wises up at last
0:53:17 > 0:53:19and does what kings are not supposed to do
0:53:19 > 0:53:23but what the Christian saviour required of them.
0:53:23 > 0:53:26That they become fully part of the human condition,
0:53:26 > 0:53:30no matter how filthy, sick, prostrate or demented.
0:53:30 > 0:53:34The homeless, childless, crazy, fallen king
0:53:34 > 0:53:38becomes just another un-accommodated man
0:53:38 > 0:53:42and into his foaming, roaring mouth,
0:53:42 > 0:53:47Shakespeare puts a terrible warning to all the mighty of the world.
0:53:49 > 0:53:53Poor, naked wretches wheresoe'r you are.
0:53:53 > 0:53:58That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm.
0:53:58 > 0:54:03How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
0:54:03 > 0:54:05Your loop'd and window'd raggedness
0:54:05 > 0:54:09Defend you from seasons such as these?
0:54:10 > 0:54:13O,
0:54:13 > 0:54:16I have ta'en too little care of this.
0:54:17 > 0:54:20Take physic, pomp.
0:54:20 > 0:54:24Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel
0:54:24 > 0:54:26And show the heavens more just.
0:54:26 > 0:54:29THUNDER BOOMS
0:54:35 > 0:54:36I think it is subversive
0:54:36 > 0:54:40at the most profound level of all of Shakespeare's plays.
0:54:40 > 0:54:46In that it is the play, the reason the poetry is at its barest...
0:54:48 > 0:54:51..and simplest and most powerful in that play
0:54:51 > 0:54:58is because that is where Shakespeare is testing humanity most brutally.
0:55:00 > 0:55:07The sandblasting of experience on the individual of King Lear
0:55:07 > 0:55:12is so extreme that you really do see the skull underneath the skin.
0:55:16 > 0:55:19The profundity of Lear may have been its saving grace.
0:55:24 > 0:55:28It was a searing portrayal of kingship,
0:55:28 > 0:55:30but it was also much more than that.
0:55:32 > 0:55:37It was a play which transcended court politics
0:55:37 > 0:55:40to speak about universal truths.
0:55:40 > 0:55:44And its truth is what helped get Shakespeare off the hook.
0:55:46 > 0:55:47Got any spare change?
0:55:49 > 0:55:55By humbling a king, Shakespeare reveals our common humanity.
0:56:01 > 0:56:05The deep experiences we all share -
0:56:05 > 0:56:10love and loss and loneliness.
0:56:11 > 0:56:13The equality of suffering.
0:56:16 > 0:56:20Was James listening to Lear's message to "Take physic, pomp.
0:56:20 > 0:56:24"Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel?"
0:56:25 > 0:56:27Probably not.
0:56:27 > 0:56:29Neither he nor his son, Charles,
0:56:29 > 0:56:32had much interest in the plight of the poor.
0:56:35 > 0:56:40Why should they? In their own minds, they were gods on earth.
0:56:40 > 0:56:45James had written that monarchs were as if on a stage,
0:56:45 > 0:56:50but his stage was a platform of incomparable elevation,
0:56:50 > 0:56:55closer to the god who had anointed him than to his subjects.
0:56:55 > 0:56:58Shakespeare though, knew about both high and low.
0:56:58 > 0:57:01He had burrowed through the ant heap of London
0:57:01 > 0:57:04and he had strode through the palaces of kings.
0:57:04 > 0:57:07His stage was different.
0:57:07 > 0:57:11A place where high-born illusions could be brought down to earth,
0:57:11 > 0:57:13to the saving recognition
0:57:13 > 0:57:17that we are all made of the same human stuff.
0:57:18 > 0:57:22At the most heart-rending moment of the play,
0:57:22 > 0:57:27Lear uses this image, not preeningly but tragically,
0:57:27 > 0:57:31to comfort the blinded, wailing, old Gloucester.
0:57:31 > 0:57:33"When we are born, we cry
0:57:33 > 0:57:38"That we are come to this great stage of fools."
0:57:38 > 0:57:43That the royal lead actor, the wisest fool in Christendom,
0:57:43 > 0:57:49was permanently stage-struck by his invulnerable sense of grandeur.
0:57:50 > 0:57:54Likewise, James' son, Charles I,
0:57:54 > 0:57:58with the result that on a wintry morning in January 1649,
0:57:58 > 0:58:02some 40 years after the first performance of King Lear,
0:58:02 > 0:58:05and more than 30 years after Shakespeare's death,
0:58:05 > 0:58:09Charles I stepped onto the scaffold from this room,
0:58:09 > 0:58:13his father's banqueting house theatre.
0:58:14 > 0:58:18Lear had won wisdom by losing his mind.
0:58:18 > 0:58:21Charles would merely lose his head.
0:58:24 > 0:58:27A head which, when held up to the crowd,
0:58:27 > 0:58:32was the head of just another man.
0:58:59 > 0:59:02Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd