Upstart Crow

Episode one sees Will struggle to find inspiration for Romeo while having to deal with an angry actor, a very annoying house-guest and his family’s not terribly helpful script suggestions.

Just when Will’s controversial new play is about to be presented to Queen Elizabeth, it goes missing. As the finger of suspicion points to his best friend Marlowe, can Will come up with a way to recover his stolen masterpiece? Given its politically sensitive content, is he really wise to want it back?

Will hopes to move up in the world when he is invited to a high-society party hosted by Lord Southampton, but is unsure what a poorly-educated country boy should wear to one of London's most upmarket events. The playwright's rival Sir Robert Greene offers him some fashion tips, but is it a double bluff, a triple bluff, or something even more fiendish?

Will has completed his final sonnet and senses literary immortality just around the corner. But will the fair youth and the dark lady like them as much as he hopes? And is Anne likely to be impressed that her husband’s 154 hot new love poems don’t contain much about her?

The plague leads Will and his friends to escape to the family home in Stratford. On the way, they meet three witches who have some surprising predictions to make about Will’s future, leading to a very serious case of house envy.

When Will's savings go missing, he is forced to make an unusual bargain with his rival. Kate's frustration with the lack of roles for women leads her to make a dramatic intervention.

When a dashing African Prince comes to town, Will decides to befriend him.

When his old teacher invites himself to stay, Will must confront some awful memories.

Will has to write a romance set in an exotic foreign location Kate has fallen for Marlowe.

Will Shakespeare has invented an amazing new dramatic form: the greatest hits musical.

The women in Will's life are not impressed with his play about a strong woman humiliated.

Will's finished Romeo and Juliet but now there's competition over who will play Juliet.

Will needs inspiration for his new play A Midsummer Night's Dream. Meanwhile how can he get hold of some love potion, and where is Bottom going to put that stuffed donkey head?

Will Shakespeare has been working on his masterpiece. His friends tell him it's his greatest comedy yet, but Will insists that Hamlet isn't actually meant to be funny.

London is full of anti-immigrant rioting. Will looks forward to an age when such sentiments are long-gone, but in the meantime he and the players plan to do their bit to help those worse off than themselves with a fund-raising charity gala night. “Inflated Pig's Bladder Day” is a triumph.

When Kate stands in for Sue at the masked ball she accidentally sets off a chain of events that leaves Sue humiliated by the other local teenagers and Will needs to come up with a ruse to turn the tables on the bullies. Meanwhile in all the confusion Hamnet has gone missing.

Will's troupe plot against each other, but his defusing of the situation helps give him a better idea for his new play about Julius Caesar.

As Will wrestles with temptation a bigger threat to his family lurks in the wings.