by James Shapiro

Episode Four : Religion

The ferment in the country and King James' insistence on an Oath of Allegiance brings religious tensions to the fore in 1606. Anyone refusing to take communion (and therefore presumed to be Catholic) was fined. These matters come very close to William Shakespeare when a member of his family refuses communion in Stratford Upon Avon.

Ten years ago James Shapiro won the Samuel Johnson Prize for his bestseller 1599: A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

1606: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND THE YEAR OF LEAR is a compelling look at a no less extraordinary year in his life. The book traces Shakespeare's life and times from the autumn of 1605, when he took an old and anonymous Elizabethan play, THE CHRONICLE HISTORY OF KING LEIR, and transformed it into his most searing tragedy, KING LEAR.

1606 proved to be an especially grim year for England, witnessing the bloody aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, divisions over the Union of England and Scotland, and an outbreak of plague. But it turned out to be an exceptional one for Shakespeare who, before the year was out, went on to complete two other great Jacobean tragedies that spoke directly to these fraught times: MACBETH and ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

Abridged by Anna Magnusson

Read by Ian McDiarmid

Produced by Gaynor Macfarlane. Show less