The King and the Playwright: A Jacobean History - Series Introduction

Beginning with Shakespeare's first Jacobean play, Measure for Measure, James Shapiro moves us from Queen Elizabeth I's time to the dark and complex reign of the brilliant but flawed King James.

It was an age of upheaval, plot and violent social change. Yet it stimulated unprecedented cultural creativity. The theatre was buzzing with great writing but this is also a period when we get the King James Bible, the Union Jack and November 5th bonfires.

The Jacobean Age is strangely out of focus in popular memory but its first decade saw much of Shakespeare's greatest work.