I agree with the second commenter. Despite the credentials of the usually entertaining John Mortimer, this is an overblown example of the bad Brit Lit series. There's a lot of swanning about and half-hearty flourishes and seemingly endless and tedious scenes of eating! I also agree that Ian McShane is wasted in a throwaway role as Kit Marlowe as a boozy rakish "secret agent" who mentors young Will from the country as a promising cockrel with a potential for word use. Tim Curry is not wasted, but simply IS a waste. His acting range is minimal: a flash of teeth, a shouting voice, and you've seen all of it. The worst is that this series never engages the viewer in the characters or what's going on. It's all surface and, sadly, cliché after cliché. SPOILER: When Shakespeare's son Hamnet dies (historically of plague though the series cocks that up, too), grieving Will returns home and -- gasp -- sets free the pet bird from its cage. Pardon us for the collective yawn.
The costumes, too, (not for the plays but the daily wearing of clothing) are something out of "court appearances", not to mention the flow of gold coins is abundant here in an era when actual cash money was impossibly scarce and ha' pennies were the standard exchange (not crowns and sovereigns as portrayed). This is truly a bad series made worse by the inconstant soundtrack in which "period music" tends to overblow the dialogue. The repartee one might expect in a "wordsmith" of Shakespeare's ability is tossed away for tepid and strained conversations punctuated by sullen silences. The entire richness of Shakespeare's literary ability is replaced with ho-humdrum delivery. Best advice is to eschew the series and watch Shakespeare in Love or any of the fine performances of the plays.
The costumes, too, (not for the plays but the daily wearing of clothing) are something out of "court appearances", not to mention the flow of gold coins is abundant here in an era when actual cash money was impossibly scarce and ha' pennies were the standard exchange (not crowns and sovereigns as portrayed). This is truly a bad series made worse by the inconstant soundtrack in which "period music" tends to overblow the dialogue. The repartee one might expect in a "wordsmith" of Shakespeare's ability is tossed away for tepid and strained conversations punctuated by sullen silences. The entire richness of Shakespeare's literary ability is replaced with ho-humdrum delivery. Best advice is to eschew the series and watch Shakespeare in Love or any of the fine performances of the plays.