PBS - In Search of Shakespeare with Michael Wood [Repost]

Michael Wood tours the English locations important to William Shakespeare as he explores the playwright and poet's life and work. The four shows follow Shakespeare's life from cradle to grave in a way never hitherto thought possible.

S1, Ep1
Feb. 4, 2004 (US) 28 June 2003 (UK)
A Time of Revolution
The first episode sets Shakespeare's life in the early years of Elizabeth's reign, at the beginning of Elizabeth's Cultural Revolution. We set the scene with the seesaw politics of England in the twenty years since Henry VIII's split with Rome. The age is marked by the battle of conscience and power, which will lead to religious and class struggle, and eventually to Civil War.

S1, Ep2
Feb. 11, 2004
The Lost Years
Shakespeare's "missing years" have mystified scholars for centuries. In Episode Two - The Lost Years - Michael Wood explores conflicting theories of how Shakespeare spent the ten years between his marriage to Anne Hathaway and his emergence as a star writer in London.

S1, Ep3
Feb. 18, 2004
The Duty of Poets
In Episode Three of his historical detective story Michael Wood uncovers Shakespeare's rise to fame and fortune in Elizabethan London, and the disasters in life and love which marked his path to greatness. 1590s England was still split by religious conflict.

S1, Ep4
Feb. 25, 2004
For All Time
In the final episode of his historical detective story, Michael Wood uncovers the story of Shakespeare's life in the "New Age" of King James I. We discover Shakespeare's neighborhood in London where he lived with a French Huguenot family - and played a fascinating part in the marriage of their daughter. Wood visits the present Queen's robe makers - Ede and Ravenscroft - and finds evidence for Shakespeare's role in the royal coronation.