0:00:11 > 0:00:14"To be, or not to be,
0:00:14 > 0:00:15"that is the question."
0:00:17 > 0:00:20"Our revels now are ended."
0:00:21 > 0:00:26"Out... Out brief candle!
0:00:26 > 0:00:28"Life's but a walking shadow."
0:00:31 > 0:00:33All words written by a man to whom
0:00:33 > 0:00:36I've devoted a great part of my professional life as an actor,
0:00:36 > 0:00:39a man responsible for some of the most memorable lines
0:00:39 > 0:00:42in British literature - William Shakespeare.
0:00:42 > 0:00:45Now, wouldn't it be wonderful to see those words
0:00:45 > 0:00:48in their original written form, fresh from his pen?
0:00:50 > 0:00:53Well, yes, it would, but, unfortunately, we can't.
0:00:53 > 0:00:55The truth is that in Shakespeare's day,
0:00:55 > 0:00:59original manuscripts of plays weren't considered very important.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02Once they had served their turn, they were simply thrown away.
0:01:02 > 0:01:05Indeed, it's only thanks to a particular printed text
0:01:05 > 0:01:07published after his death - the so-called First Folio -
0:01:07 > 0:01:11that we have many of his plays, at all.
0:01:11 > 0:01:14So what can we learn from this wonderful book?
0:01:21 > 0:01:22We can learn that he collaborated,
0:01:22 > 0:01:25worked with his fellow playwrights and actors,
0:01:25 > 0:01:28that those great words weren't always his.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32We can learn that his plays changed during his own lifetime.
0:01:32 > 0:01:35And, more controversially, I think we can find out
0:01:35 > 0:01:38something about Shakespeare the man, his biography.
0:01:54 > 0:01:56The British Library has an impressive selection
0:01:56 > 0:01:59of early printed versions of Shakespeare's plays.
0:01:59 > 0:02:03When he died in 1616, only 18 had made it into print,
0:02:03 > 0:02:05in small, cheap editions known as quartos.
0:02:05 > 0:02:0918 more survive only in the large, lavish First Folio,
0:02:09 > 0:02:12printed seven years after his death.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17Without the First Folio for some reason it had never been printed
0:02:17 > 0:02:20Shakespeare would quite literally be half the playwright that he is.
0:02:20 > 0:02:23We would have lost all those 18 plays,
0:02:23 > 0:02:26and they include some of Shakespeare's greatest hits -
0:02:26 > 0:02:29Comedy of Errors, Taming of the Shrew, Winter's Tale, The Tempest,
0:02:29 > 0:02:32Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Macbeth.
0:02:32 > 0:02:35Well, they have a copy here in this treasure house,
0:02:35 > 0:02:37the British Library.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47Sonia, this is an enormous privilege for me, it's very exciting.
0:02:47 > 0:02:50- Likewise. - We have four books in front of us.
0:02:50 > 0:02:52This big one here...
0:02:52 > 0:02:55Is the First Folio. The glorious First Folio.
0:02:55 > 0:02:57The hero of our story.
0:02:57 > 0:03:00The publication of this book is the single most important event
0:03:00 > 0:03:02in the history of the rise of Shakespeare in print,
0:03:02 > 0:03:06and, I would say, in the development of Western drama, more generally.
0:03:06 > 0:03:10That's a fairly big claim, but it's true!
0:03:10 > 0:03:13So who's responsible for getting this together?
0:03:13 > 0:03:15Because he was dead by this stage,
0:03:15 > 0:03:17so who's responsible for producing it?
0:03:17 > 0:03:21Well, the Folio names John Heminge and Henry Condell
0:03:21 > 0:03:24as the prime movers behind this ambitious project.
0:03:24 > 0:03:29They were Shakespeare's fellow actors and business partners.
0:03:31 > 0:03:34To make a worthy memorial of their friend, Heminge and Condell
0:03:34 > 0:03:36not only gathered every single play of his they could,
0:03:36 > 0:03:41they also chose to print on a grand scale and at great cost.
0:03:41 > 0:03:44Next to the labour, it was paper that cost the most,
0:03:44 > 0:03:47and the word "folio" means a book in which the paper to be printed on
0:03:47 > 0:03:51has been folded only once - giving four large pages.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56Folio printing was normally reserved for very important books,
0:03:56 > 0:03:58mostly bibles, law text books,
0:03:58 > 0:04:00royal proclamations,
0:04:00 > 0:04:03and the collected works of religious writers.
0:04:03 > 0:04:06So the Shakespeare's Folio is really ground-breaking.
0:04:06 > 0:04:09One of the ways in which Heminge and Condell,
0:04:09 > 0:04:13or the publishers, rather, market the book,
0:04:13 > 0:04:17is by describing the earlier smaller quarto versions of the plays
0:04:17 > 0:04:23as somehow faulty, and they use a wonderful phrase, right here,
0:04:23 > 0:04:25to describe the earlier editions.
0:04:25 > 0:04:29"You were abused with diverse stolen and surreptitious copies,
0:04:29 > 0:04:34"maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors."
0:04:34 > 0:04:38Which is effectively saying, you MAY have the earlier editions...
0:04:38 > 0:04:39"That's all rubbish!"
0:04:39 > 0:04:42..but you need the Folio, if you want to have the words...
0:04:42 > 0:04:44of Shakespeare's, as he wrote them.
0:04:44 > 0:04:45So this is a, erm...
0:04:45 > 0:04:47It's a marketing ploy.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51What the Folio promises is the final drafts -
0:04:51 > 0:04:54the plays of Shakespeare as he wanted them to be seen.
0:04:54 > 0:04:57But where are those early drafts in Shakespeare's own hand?
0:04:57 > 0:05:01The pages he would have written as the company rehearsed?
0:05:01 > 0:05:04The working manuscripts,
0:05:04 > 0:05:06the lost manuscripts,
0:05:06 > 0:05:08is what all scholars and editors...
0:05:08 > 0:05:10- Would love to see! - ..would love to see.
0:05:10 > 0:05:14Yes. And we have absolutely no full manuscript of a play, do we?
0:05:14 > 0:05:18No. Scholars and editors started to really look
0:05:18 > 0:05:21for the lost manuscripts in the 18th century and 19th century,
0:05:21 > 0:05:23and even forged them when they couldn't find them.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30But is there any real chance that those manuscript pages exist?
0:05:33 > 0:05:35Well, I've just dug up out of my bookshelves
0:05:35 > 0:05:38a copy of Hamlet - a modern copy -
0:05:38 > 0:05:41but it's the rehearsal copy I used when I did a production of the play
0:05:41 > 0:05:45at the National Theatre in London about 14 years ago.
0:05:45 > 0:05:47And it's full of markings -
0:05:47 > 0:05:49lines that have been cut here.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52I don't quite why, but we moved those two lines somewhere else -
0:05:52 > 0:05:53there's an arrow here.
0:05:53 > 0:05:56We obviously cut that little half line, then decided to replace it.
0:05:56 > 0:06:00Then numbers... One, and a one there, that little separate section.
0:06:00 > 0:06:02I've no idea, actually, what they all mean.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05So it's a bit of a mess, and rather difficult to understand even for me.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10This is exactly what would have happened to Shakespeare's first
0:06:10 > 0:06:12drafts as soon as the actors got down to work.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14Covered in cuts, deletions and rewrites,
0:06:14 > 0:06:17they would've become too confusing to keep.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20The best place for them was the bin.
0:06:23 > 0:06:26The Folio was prepared from earlier printed editions
0:06:26 > 0:06:29and copies of written prompt books.
0:06:29 > 0:06:33Both of these types of text had travelled far from Shakespeare's original drafts
0:06:33 > 0:06:37because they reflected how the play developed as the company polished a performance.
0:06:37 > 0:06:39There was, and is, no guarantee that cuts or new lines
0:06:39 > 0:06:42came from Shakespeare in the first place.
0:06:43 > 0:06:48And, in fact, no guarantee that all the plays were written by him -
0:06:48 > 0:06:51apart from the guarantee the Folio gives itself.
0:06:51 > 0:06:54At the beginning of this book it says quite clearly
0:06:54 > 0:06:57"William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories and Tragedies -
0:06:57 > 0:07:01"and nobody else's" - but we know that's not true.
0:07:01 > 0:07:04Quite. We know that Shakespeare collaborated with other dramatists,
0:07:04 > 0:07:10so the title page should also list names of other playwrights, including
0:07:10 > 0:07:14John Fletcher, Thomas Middleton, to name but two.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20For nearly than two decades I've been working at the National Theatre,
0:07:20 > 0:07:22and the fact that Shakespeare had helping hands
0:07:22 > 0:07:26is well known to its director, Nicholas Hytner.
0:07:26 > 0:07:30Current scholarship suggests that around half
0:07:30 > 0:07:32of all the surviving plays from that period
0:07:32 > 0:07:36were, in some degree or other, collaborations.
0:07:36 > 0:07:38And, of course, we know now that there are several plays
0:07:38 > 0:07:42which have always been ascribed to Shakespeare alone
0:07:42 > 0:07:46which do have other hands involved - quite often Middleton.
0:07:46 > 0:07:50Macbeth, Measure for Measure, do have bits by Middleton.
0:07:50 > 0:07:53Maybe they were added after Shakespeare died,
0:07:53 > 0:07:56maybe they were added for later performances as...
0:07:56 > 0:07:58as the audience's taste developed.
0:07:58 > 0:08:00But collaboration is what they did.
0:08:00 > 0:08:02That was the norm, wasn't it?
0:08:02 > 0:08:06It was. The romantic idea of sole authorship would have been mysterious to them.
0:08:06 > 0:08:09And then, erm...
0:08:09 > 0:08:12we got the catalogue, with the three groupings -
0:08:12 > 0:08:15the Comedies, the Histories and the Tragedies.
0:08:15 > 0:08:17And the very first play...
0:08:17 > 0:08:18The Tempest.
0:08:22 > 0:08:23"Our revels now are ended.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28"These our actors, as I foretold you,
0:08:28 > 0:08:30"are vanished into air, into thin air.
0:08:32 > 0:08:35"And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
0:08:35 > 0:08:38"the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
0:08:38 > 0:08:42"the solemn temples, the great globe itself,
0:08:42 > 0:08:45"yea, all which it inherit,
0:08:45 > 0:08:47"shall dissolve,
0:08:47 > 0:08:49"and leave not a rack behind.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56"We are such stuff as dreams are made on,
0:08:56 > 0:09:01"and our little life is rounded with a sleep."
0:09:03 > 0:09:04Elaborately printed, I'd say.
0:09:04 > 0:09:06It looks very polished.
0:09:06 > 0:09:10There's a pretty ornament at the top of the page
0:09:10 > 0:09:14and then a generous amount of space for the title.
0:09:14 > 0:09:17Then, crucially, act and scene divisions,
0:09:17 > 0:09:21which make the play, or the texts, look more classical.
0:09:21 > 0:09:25It's in Latin, too. "Actus primus. Scena prima."
0:09:25 > 0:09:29And then generous...generous directions.
0:09:29 > 0:09:33"Solemn and strange music and Prosper on the top invisible.
0:09:33 > 0:09:35"Enter several strange shapes,
0:09:35 > 0:09:37bringing in a banket" - or banquet -
0:09:37 > 0:09:41"and dance about it with gentle actions of salutations,
0:09:41 > 0:09:44"and inviting the King, etc, to eat, they depart."
0:09:44 > 0:09:47Now that's actually quite elaborate and quite unusual, isn't it?
0:09:47 > 0:09:50- That type of stage direction? - That's right.
0:09:50 > 0:09:52So therefore it's trying to present Shakespeare as a slightly
0:09:52 > 0:09:54different type of writer, isn't it?
0:09:54 > 0:09:56As a literary dramatist, as opposed to a playwright
0:09:56 > 0:09:59who collaborated with other playwrights
0:09:59 > 0:10:01and wrote plays for the commercial stage.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04Now in my head that was a later development.
0:10:04 > 0:10:07But, in fact, this is only pretty recently after his death,
0:10:07 > 0:10:09- that they're beginning to present him as...- That's right.
0:10:09 > 0:10:12..a literary playwright, and, indeed, as a national playwright.
0:10:12 > 0:10:15The veneration of Shakespeare as the natural genius
0:10:15 > 0:10:18and future national poet starts here.
0:10:18 > 0:10:20So there it is, the First Folio,
0:10:20 > 0:10:24a quite astonishing collection of Shakespeare's plays.
0:10:24 > 0:10:26I was trying to work it out recently
0:10:26 > 0:10:29but I think I've been associated with about half of them,
0:10:29 > 0:10:31performing them on radio, on stage, and on film,
0:10:31 > 0:10:35but I'd like to focus on three in particular,
0:10:35 > 0:10:37his masterpiece, King Lear,
0:10:37 > 0:10:40the puzzling, mysterious Timon of Athens,
0:10:40 > 0:10:42but first...Hamlet.
0:10:43 > 0:10:45There are three versions of Hamlet.
0:10:45 > 0:10:46We have it in the Folio,
0:10:46 > 0:10:49but it was printed twice in Shakespeare's life time,
0:10:49 > 0:10:51in smaller quarto editions,
0:10:51 > 0:10:53and the British Library has these, too.
0:11:07 > 0:11:10The quartos were so called because a piece of paper would be taken
0:11:10 > 0:11:12and then folded twice into quarters,
0:11:12 > 0:11:16so effectively you would have eight small pages of printed text.
0:11:16 > 0:11:19These were budget editions, unlike the more expensive Folio,
0:11:19 > 0:11:21and, unfortunately, they were very often untrustworthy -
0:11:21 > 0:11:24being printed without the consent of the playwright,
0:11:24 > 0:11:28or indeed the company of actors, who actually owned the plays.
0:11:28 > 0:11:31A very good example of this is the first quarto of Hamlet -
0:11:31 > 0:11:33"To be, or not to be."
0:11:35 > 0:11:38And, in this case, that indeed is the question.
0:11:44 > 0:11:46The first quarto here...
0:11:46 > 0:11:49that came out in 1603.
0:11:49 > 0:11:53This is a very different version from the longer second quarto
0:11:53 > 0:11:56or the version that's included in the Folio.
0:11:56 > 0:11:58Now this got a reputation.
0:11:58 > 0:12:00It was given a nickname, wasn't it?
0:12:00 > 0:12:02- It was called the Bad Quarto. - The Bad Quarto.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07There have been many theories about the less reliable quartos.
0:12:07 > 0:12:09It's been suggested that competing publishers
0:12:09 > 0:12:13sent reporters to performances to take them down in shorthand,
0:12:13 > 0:12:15and also that minor cast members
0:12:15 > 0:12:19were bribed to remember as much of the play as they could.
0:12:19 > 0:12:21- The theory is... - That would explain shortcomings!
0:12:21 > 0:12:25- He would have to have remembered the whole of...- This is a good example.
0:12:25 > 0:12:27We've got the book open
0:12:27 > 0:12:29at the very famous speech
0:12:29 > 0:12:32and would you like to have a go and read it?
0:12:32 > 0:12:33Yes, I'll have a go.
0:12:33 > 0:12:35"To be, or not to be.
0:12:35 > 0:12:36"Aye, there's the point.
0:12:36 > 0:12:39"To die, to sleep, is that all?
0:12:39 > 0:12:40"Aye, all.
0:12:40 > 0:12:42"No, to sleep, to dream,
0:12:42 > 0:12:44"I marry there it goes,
0:12:44 > 0:12:46"for in that dream of death, when we awake,
0:12:46 > 0:12:48"and borne before an everlasting judge
0:12:48 > 0:12:51"from whence no passenger ever returned,
0:12:51 > 0:12:53"the undiscovered country..."
0:12:53 > 0:12:56- Yeah, he doesn't quite know where he's going, does he?- No.
0:12:57 > 0:13:00- The brain of the man who's reporting it...- Attempting to remember.
0:13:00 > 0:13:01Remembering lines that, of course,
0:13:01 > 0:13:03we remember as being the ones that are memorable.
0:13:03 > 0:13:06"The undiscovered country from whose borne, no traveller returns."
0:13:06 > 0:13:09And then the half-remembered lines,
0:13:09 > 0:13:12"For in that "dreame of death" rather than "sleep of death".
0:13:16 > 0:13:19In an attempt to stamp Shakespeare's authority upon the play,
0:13:19 > 0:13:22the second quarto followed about two years later.
0:13:22 > 0:13:25Played uncut it lasts an impossible four hours.
0:13:25 > 0:13:27It's version of "to be or not to be"
0:13:27 > 0:13:30is more familiar than the Bad Quarto,
0:13:30 > 0:13:32but the truth is, when we perform it,
0:13:32 > 0:13:35we shamelessly pick and choose our favourite lines.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38What you're about to hear is a mixture of the second quarto
0:13:38 > 0:13:39and the First Folio.
0:13:46 > 0:13:50"To be, or not to be, that is the question
0:13:52 > 0:13:54"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind
0:13:54 > 0:13:57"To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
0:13:57 > 0:14:00"Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
0:14:00 > 0:14:01"And by opposing, end them.
0:14:04 > 0:14:05"To die...
0:14:06 > 0:14:09"To sleep no more.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12"And by a sleep to say we end
0:14:12 > 0:14:15"The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
0:14:15 > 0:14:17"That flesh is heir to.
0:14:17 > 0:14:19"'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22"To die, to sleep.
0:14:25 > 0:14:27"To sleep...
0:14:29 > 0:14:31"Perchance to dream
0:14:31 > 0:14:33"Aye, there's the rub
0:14:33 > 0:14:35"For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
0:14:35 > 0:14:39"When we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause.
0:14:40 > 0:14:44"There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life.
0:14:44 > 0:14:47"For who would bear the whips and the scorns of time
0:14:47 > 0:14:49"The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
0:14:49 > 0:14:52"The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
0:14:52 > 0:14:54"The insolence of office
0:14:54 > 0:14:58"And the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes
0:14:58 > 0:15:02"When he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?
0:15:02 > 0:15:07"Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life
0:15:07 > 0:15:10"But that the dread of something after death.
0:15:12 > 0:15:16"The undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns
0:15:16 > 0:15:19"Puzzles the will
0:15:19 > 0:15:22"And makes us rather bear those ills we have
0:15:22 > 0:15:24"Than fly to others that we know not of.
0:15:26 > 0:15:29"Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all
0:15:31 > 0:15:33"And thus the native hue of resolution
0:15:33 > 0:15:37"Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought
0:15:37 > 0:15:40"And enterprises of great pith and moment
0:15:40 > 0:15:44"With this regard their currents turn awry
0:15:44 > 0:15:46"And lose the name of action."
0:15:53 > 0:15:55Between the Second Quarto version of Hamlet
0:15:55 > 0:15:57and its appearance in the Folio,
0:15:57 > 0:15:59significant differences were made -
0:15:59 > 0:16:01some passages were taken out, others were added -
0:16:01 > 0:16:03and we don't made know who made those decisions,
0:16:03 > 0:16:05whether it was Shakespeare alone
0:16:05 > 0:16:09or the result of his collaboration with fellow practitioners.
0:16:09 > 0:16:12After all, in theatre today, there's always considerable negotiation
0:16:12 > 0:16:13when a new play is put on
0:16:13 > 0:16:16between the playwright, the director and the actors.
0:16:16 > 0:16:19Passages that the playwright might have sweated blood over
0:16:19 > 0:16:23are taken out in the final version and other bits are added.
0:16:23 > 0:16:25But that's always the final stage of the process.
0:16:25 > 0:16:28What we want to see, is Shakespeare at the beginning,
0:16:28 > 0:16:30Shakespeare in the garret, as it were,
0:16:30 > 0:16:33and that's simply not possible -
0:16:33 > 0:16:35or is it?
0:16:35 > 0:16:38Now, I'm going to move on to another play I want to look at
0:16:38 > 0:16:42which is a real puzzle, which is Timon of Athens.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45- Oh, Timon. - Can we find it in the Folio?
0:16:45 > 0:16:50Erm, now, Timon is a play I'm very, very fond of because
0:16:50 > 0:16:55I...did a version of it at the National Theatre in London,
0:16:55 > 0:16:57and...
0:16:57 > 0:16:59it's a mess!
0:16:59 > 0:17:00Famously.
0:17:00 > 0:17:02It's a famous mess.
0:17:02 > 0:17:05We don't even know whether it was meant to be in the Folio in the first place.
0:17:05 > 0:17:08Not printed before its appearance in the Folio,
0:17:08 > 0:17:10Timon of Athens is a profoundly ugly morality tale
0:17:10 > 0:17:14about foolishness, ingratitude and bad faith.
0:17:14 > 0:17:17It tells the story of a wealthy man who loses all his money
0:17:17 > 0:17:19and who then asks his friends for help,
0:17:19 > 0:17:23friends who'd enjoyed his generosity when times were good.
0:17:23 > 0:17:26Predictably enough, they leave him high and dry.
0:17:26 > 0:17:30He leaves the city, becomes a recluse, a hermit.
0:17:30 > 0:17:33He becomes the embodiment of rage and hatred.
0:17:34 > 0:17:36He becomes this.
0:17:41 > 0:17:43"Let me look back upon thee.
0:17:46 > 0:17:51"O thou wall, that girdlest in those wolves, dive in the earth
0:17:51 > 0:17:52"And fence not Athens!
0:17:52 > 0:17:54"Matrons, turn incontinent!
0:17:54 > 0:17:56"Obedience fail in children!
0:17:56 > 0:17:59"Slaves and fools, pluck the grave wrinkled senate from the bench,
0:17:59 > 0:18:01"And minister in their steads!
0:18:01 > 0:18:04"To general filths convert o' the instant, green virginity,
0:18:04 > 0:18:06"Do it in your parents' eyes!
0:18:06 > 0:18:09"Bankrupts, hold fast Rather than render back
0:18:09 > 0:18:12"Out with your knives, And cut your trusters' throats!
0:18:12 > 0:18:13"Bound servants, steal!
0:18:13 > 0:18:17"Large-handed robbers your grave masters are, and pill by law
0:18:17 > 0:18:19"Maid, to thy master's bed
0:18:19 > 0:18:21"Thy mistress is o' the brothel!
0:18:21 > 0:18:24"Son of 16, pluck the lined crutch from thy old limping sire,
0:18:24 > 0:18:26"With it, beat out his brains!"
0:18:28 > 0:18:31The writing is vital, full-throated,
0:18:31 > 0:18:34but Timon of Athens is almost impossible to play
0:18:34 > 0:18:38because Timon's torrent of bile goes on for what seems like an eternity.
0:18:38 > 0:18:40I've always imagined Richard Burbage,
0:18:40 > 0:18:43the man for whom Shakespeare probably wrote this part,
0:18:43 > 0:18:46saying to his colleague, "For God's sake, give me rest.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49"You can't do this to me. I can't sustain this for a whole hour."
0:18:49 > 0:18:51"Do what you do with other characters
0:18:51 > 0:18:54"and give me a rest around about the fourth act."
0:18:54 > 0:18:56So what we have here - although it might look finished
0:18:56 > 0:18:58in the First Folio - is, I think, a draft.
0:19:01 > 0:19:03And not all Shakespeare's work.
0:19:03 > 0:19:06Timon was a collaboration with Thomas Middleton,
0:19:06 > 0:19:09whose stock in trade was sly and bitter satire.
0:19:09 > 0:19:11The first half of Timon is mostly his work,
0:19:11 > 0:19:14the second half is mostly Shakespeare.
0:19:14 > 0:19:16So why is it unfinished?
0:19:16 > 0:19:18What went wrong?
0:19:18 > 0:19:21Timon of Athens is the odd one out in the Folio.
0:19:21 > 0:19:24It certainly seems when you're working on it
0:19:24 > 0:19:26that it can never have hit the stage.
0:19:26 > 0:19:30And it doesn't add up, it doesn't fit together.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33Once upon a time, it was thought that it was so fragmented and
0:19:33 > 0:19:37disintegrated because it in some way reflected Shakespeare's inner life,
0:19:37 > 0:19:41that he must have been undergoing some kind of nervous breakdown.
0:19:41 > 0:19:43More recent scholarship has established -
0:19:43 > 0:19:44pretty well comprehensively -
0:19:44 > 0:19:47that it's a collaboration between Shakespeare and Middleton,
0:19:47 > 0:19:50but it doesn't feel like it's a collaboration that they ever took
0:19:50 > 0:19:51to the final stage.
0:19:51 > 0:19:55It feels as if somebody, maybe the two writers themselves,
0:19:55 > 0:19:57maybe the rest of the company,
0:19:57 > 0:19:59said, "This isn't working. We're going to shelve it."
0:19:59 > 0:20:03You feel Shakespeare get into gear in the second half,
0:20:03 > 0:20:08when Timon has been exiled to a kind of literal and spiritual wasteland.
0:20:08 > 0:20:12But even when Shakespeare gets into gear, it feels experimental,
0:20:12 > 0:20:16it feels as if he hasn't pulled it into the kind of shape
0:20:16 > 0:20:18he would expect it to be in to get onto the stage.
0:20:18 > 0:20:21"The gods confound, hear me, you good gods all,
0:20:21 > 0:20:23"The Athenians both within and out that wall
0:20:23 > 0:20:27"And grant as Timon grows his hate may grow
0:20:27 > 0:20:31"To the whole race of mankind, high and low.
0:20:33 > 0:20:34"Amen!"
0:20:39 > 0:20:42As Nick says, current academic opinion is that the incoherence
0:20:42 > 0:20:45of Timon is caused by the failure of the collaboration
0:20:45 > 0:20:46between Middleton and Shakespeare,
0:20:46 > 0:20:50the mismatch between their very different gifts.
0:20:50 > 0:20:52But it's in the play's second half
0:20:52 > 0:20:55the vast majority of which was Shakespeare's work
0:20:55 > 0:20:57that Timon loses its way.
0:20:57 > 0:20:59And I've never been able to convince myself
0:20:59 > 0:21:02that its unrelieved darkness is caused by anything as innocent
0:21:02 > 0:21:04as a lack of inspiration.
0:21:05 > 0:21:08So why didn't Shakespeare finish it?
0:21:08 > 0:21:10Why did he just leave it for dead?
0:21:10 > 0:21:14To my inexpert eye, it looks potentially like rather a good play,
0:21:14 > 0:21:17but it must've been very depressing to write.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22It's as if Shakespeare can't stop this flow of invective and bile.
0:21:22 > 0:21:24It's like a nervous tic.
0:21:24 > 0:21:27So, perhaps, I'm suggesting, he himself was depressed,
0:21:27 > 0:21:30he'd temporarily lost faith in human nature.
0:21:31 > 0:21:34Which brings me to King Lear,
0:21:34 > 0:21:37a play written around the same dark period.
0:21:46 > 0:21:48King Lear is very much on my mind at the moment
0:21:48 > 0:21:51he's who I'm playing at the National Theatre.
0:21:51 > 0:21:54Lear tells the story of an ageing King of Britain,
0:21:54 > 0:21:57who decides to divide his kingdom between his three daughters,
0:21:57 > 0:22:00according to how much love they profess for him.
0:22:02 > 0:22:04And when the youngest refuses to play,
0:22:04 > 0:22:08refuses to overstate her affections as her older sisters have,
0:22:08 > 0:22:10he disinherits her.
0:22:10 > 0:22:12He leaves her without a dowry,
0:22:12 > 0:22:15he says to her face, "We have no such daughter."
0:22:18 > 0:22:21But Lear has trusted the wrong children.
0:22:21 > 0:22:24The two older daughters treat Lear abominably,
0:22:24 > 0:22:28depriving him of his knights and all his possessions.
0:22:28 > 0:22:32Shakespeare seems to have pursued a fairly consistent method of writing.
0:22:32 > 0:22:34He rarely wrote a play from scratch.
0:22:34 > 0:22:37He used to use material from the books that he'd read -
0:22:37 > 0:22:40old fables, old histories, earlier plays
0:22:40 > 0:22:42what's called his source material.
0:22:42 > 0:22:44And the source material that he would have used for Lear,
0:22:44 > 0:22:47tells the story of a king who returns to the court of his
0:22:47 > 0:22:50youngest daughter, her husband wages war against her two sisters,
0:22:50 > 0:22:55Lear is restored to his throne and everyone lives happily ever after.
0:22:55 > 0:22:58But, of course, Lear was written at the same time as Timon of Athens,
0:22:58 > 0:23:02so what does Shakespeare bring to this happily-ever-after tradition?
0:23:02 > 0:23:05Well, first of all he introduces the figure of a Fool
0:23:05 > 0:23:08a comedian whose stock in trade is not cheap and easy laughs,
0:23:08 > 0:23:10but the unrelenting telling of the bitter truth,
0:23:10 > 0:23:12above all to his master.
0:23:12 > 0:23:14Lear loses his mind.
0:23:14 > 0:23:17The play is a wonderfully detailed study of madness.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20And, crucially, at the end of the play, Cordelia,
0:23:20 > 0:23:24the much-loved and blameless daughter is killed
0:23:24 > 0:23:27and the king himself dies shortly afterwards.
0:23:27 > 0:23:32Shakespeare obliterates the happy ending entirely.
0:23:32 > 0:23:34I think the thing that is shocking to me still
0:23:34 > 0:23:36is the violence in the play.
0:23:38 > 0:23:40The cruelty of it.
0:23:40 > 0:23:42It is a truly dark play
0:23:42 > 0:23:46and I think we've shared that vision of the play from the beginning.
0:23:46 > 0:23:49And, you know, I'd always wanted the violence of the play
0:23:49 > 0:23:51to ring true to a contemporary audience.
0:23:51 > 0:23:54I mean, he deliberately changed the end so he kills Cordelia,
0:23:54 > 0:23:55from the source material.
0:23:55 > 0:23:57That seems to me the most...
0:23:59 > 0:24:03..savage rewriting of a source material that I can think of.
0:24:03 > 0:24:06But I just think I wonder whether he was going through...
0:24:07 > 0:24:08..a bad patch!
0:24:10 > 0:24:12I mean, I know it's a dangerous game to play,
0:24:12 > 0:24:15but I cannot believe that you do something so violent
0:24:15 > 0:24:17to your source material, as that,
0:24:17 > 0:24:20without a personal investment of some kind.
0:24:20 > 0:24:24Do you think he was going through a bad...patch?
0:24:24 > 0:24:27It would be foolish to assume that there is no connection
0:24:27 > 0:24:30between biography and art.
0:24:30 > 0:24:35It's not wise to think of Shakespeare
0:24:35 > 0:24:39as someone who would write in a kind of almost
0:24:39 > 0:24:42disembodied sort of fashion,
0:24:42 > 0:24:45as if he didn't belong to a place and a time, and to a family group,
0:24:45 > 0:24:48and to a group of friends and fellow actors,
0:24:48 > 0:24:50and would be unaffected by what happened around him.
0:24:50 > 0:24:52I mean, I'm not a writer, but I...
0:24:52 > 0:24:56- I can't imagine that would be possible.- Exactly, exactly.
0:24:56 > 0:24:59As soon as you begin to compare the final scenes
0:24:59 > 0:25:01in the Quarto published in 1608,
0:25:01 > 0:25:04and the Folio, the differences are striking.
0:25:04 > 0:25:06Shakespeare - or someone - has rewritten, moved lines around,
0:25:06 > 0:25:08changed them completely.
0:25:08 > 0:25:12This is the last moment of the play
0:25:12 > 0:25:15when Lear famously carries on his dead daughter.
0:25:15 > 0:25:18This is the Quarto version, of course, and is much bleaker.
0:25:20 > 0:25:23In the Quarto version, Lear's final words are, to my eyes,
0:25:23 > 0:25:24somewhat cliched -
0:25:24 > 0:25:26"Break heart, I prithee break."
0:25:26 > 0:25:28The Folio gives that line to Kent,
0:25:28 > 0:25:31which works better and expands Lear's last words.
0:25:32 > 0:25:34"No, no life?
0:25:36 > 0:25:42"Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,
0:25:42 > 0:25:44"And, thou, no breath, at all?
0:25:47 > 0:25:49"Thou'lt come no more.
0:25:51 > 0:25:52"Never.
0:25:54 > 0:25:58"Never, never, never...
0:26:02 > 0:26:03"..never."
0:26:06 > 0:26:11These are the Folio-only lines that make the ending so different,
0:26:11 > 0:26:14"Thank you, sir. Do you see this?
0:26:14 > 0:26:16"Look on her. Look on her lips.
0:26:16 > 0:26:18"Look there, look there."
0:26:18 > 0:26:20And in the Folio a lot more attention is given
0:26:20 > 0:26:23to the sense of hope that there might be a world elsewhere
0:26:23 > 0:26:26for this father and his daughter,
0:26:26 > 0:26:29- because he sees something that maybe we're not able to see.- Yes.
0:26:29 > 0:26:33It depends how you...how you read the "Look there, look there."
0:26:33 > 0:26:36As you say, it could be... It could be seeing something.
0:26:36 > 0:26:39His last lines in the Folio in the version that we do
0:26:39 > 0:26:41is actually about Lear going,
0:26:41 > 0:26:45"Just look at that. That is what life means a dead child."
0:26:46 > 0:26:48"Look on her.
0:26:48 > 0:26:49"Look.
0:26:49 > 0:26:51"Her lips.
0:26:52 > 0:26:53"Look there.
0:26:56 > 0:26:57"Look there!"
0:27:02 > 0:27:05But what has this re-writing achieved?
0:27:05 > 0:27:08Sonia thinks the later Folio text is less bleak,
0:27:08 > 0:27:11but I think it could be bleaker still,
0:27:11 > 0:27:13and that's the greatest irony of all.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16For all our yearning for those lost first drafts, what we have
0:27:16 > 0:27:19even if we stick to only one version -
0:27:19 > 0:27:21can be endlessly re-interpreted.
0:27:21 > 0:27:26Lear, as a text, remains an absolutely unsurpassed
0:27:26 > 0:27:30extraordinary piece of poetic - heightened poetic - writing,
0:27:30 > 0:27:33probably the greatest I've ever read and have ever worked on.
0:27:33 > 0:27:35This is a piece of work that was -
0:27:35 > 0:27:38it's like a giant lump of clay, to a degree -
0:27:38 > 0:27:41written, given to you, by a man of the theatre.
0:27:41 > 0:27:42Not by a poet, necessarily,
0:27:42 > 0:27:45but by someone who is used to going in and rehearsing plays
0:27:45 > 0:27:48and making alterations depending on the situation,
0:27:48 > 0:27:49depending on the environment,
0:27:49 > 0:27:51in a sense, depending on the production.
0:27:51 > 0:27:54There is no such thing as THE King Lear and THE Tempest.
0:27:54 > 0:27:56It's A Tempest, A King Lear.
0:27:56 > 0:27:58You have to start with the view that it's an interpretative act.
0:28:05 > 0:28:07So much of what we learn from the First Folio
0:28:07 > 0:28:10explodes our romantic preconceptions about the author -
0:28:10 > 0:28:13the idea of a solitary genius, for example.
0:28:13 > 0:28:16But I still think we can glimpse a little of the man
0:28:16 > 0:28:18behind the words - shadowy, of course -
0:28:18 > 0:28:21but always absolutely and profoundly dynamic.
0:28:21 > 0:28:23We don't know exactly what he saw in the world around him
0:28:23 > 0:28:26in 1605, for example, but we know HOW he saw it,
0:28:26 > 0:28:28what he FELT about it,
0:28:28 > 0:28:31and that's quite enough to ask of any book.
0:28:37 > 0:28:40To dig deeper into Shakespeare's First Folio
0:28:40 > 0:28:42and the other books in this series,
0:28:42 > 0:28:46a free app from the Open University is available to download.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49Go to...
0:28:51 > 0:28:53..and follow the links to the Open University.