History channel marks 400 years of Shakespeare

Today marks 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare.

Tonight the History Channel screens The Shakespeare Enigma

This high-gloss documentary examines a highly controversial topic: Who was William Shakespeare, and did he write the works we associate with his name? Among the most interesting candidates advanced by scholars as the “real” dramatist is Christopher Marlowe, a successful author and secret agent of Queen Elizabeth I. Shakespeare’s first plays weren’t performed until after Marlowe’s early death in 1593 at the age of 29 in a sordid pub brawl in Deptford, by the River Thames, East of London. Until now this has seemed to rule out Marlowe as a candidate for the writer of Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear.

But in this new documentary, biography and history specialists explore a fascinating and revolutionary thesis: Christopher Marlowe faked his own death to avoid arrest and possible execution by Elizabeth I’s ministers. This freed him to devote his life to literature, using actor-manager William Shakespeare as his straw man drawing on his own life’s experiences for at least some of his subject matter! High-budget re-enactments and shooting on original locations sketch an image of the golden age of Elizabethan theatre, and scholars from various fields weigh in on the question of Shakespeare’s secret.

Saturday April 23 at 8.30pm on History.