Upstart Crow - Episode Guide

This episode sees Will struggle to find inspiration for Romeo while at the same time having to deal with an angry actor, a very annoying house-guest and his family's not-terribly-helpful script suggestions.

Will's controversial new play is about to be presented to Queen Elizabeth when it goes missing. As the finger of suspicion points at his best friend Marlowe, can Will come up with a way to recover his stolen masterpiece? And 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 Lord Southampton's party. But what should a poorly-educated country boy wear to London's poshest do? And are Sir Robert Greene's fashion tips 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.

There's money to be made investing in cargoes from the New World: but while Marlowe invests in tobacco and potato products, Will would rather invest in building a new theatre. When Will's savings go missing he's forced to make a rather unusual bargain with his rival Robert Greene. Meanwhile Kate's frustration with the lack of roles for women leads her to make a rather dramatic intervention.

Will Shakespeare is desperate to make a good impression with the College of Heralds so he can get his family a coat of arms and finally make the Shakespeares posh. The only problem is that his deadly rival Robert Greene is the Master of Heralds. But when a dashing African Prince comes to town by the name of Otello, Will suddenly sees a way to make a favourable impression amongst the gentry. Meanwhile, Otello has made a very favourable impression on the heart of Will's friend Kate and the stage seems to be set for Robert Greene to stir up a little jealousy.

The Shakespeares are planning a cosy Christmas up in Stratford with just the family.

Until Kit manages to wangle himself an invitation to join them. And then so does Kate. And then so does Robert Green, who claims he has given up evil scheming and is ready to spread peace and goodwill to all mankind. But has he really suddenly gone all nice?

Meanwhile, Will has been rehearsing his latest play ready for it to be performed before Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth as part of her Christmas festivities. But will he make the right impression on the Queen? And does his play Eighth Night actually need a bit more work?

Will has to confront a demon from his past when his former schoolmaster comes to stay uninvited, much to the disgust of his wife Anne. Meanwhile Marlowe is on the hunt for Roman Catholic spies - but he seems to be rather more interested in ale and pies.

Will's desperate to find a new idea for his next play, when it turns out his new patron only likes romances set in exotic foreign locations. But when Marlowe and Kate look like they might be falling for each other he comes up with an ingenious plan to help his friends and find some inspiration. All aboard for a budget trip to Verona!

Will makes theatrical history by inventing the greatest hits musical. All he has to do is get hold of the madrigal back catalogue of Elizabethan England's greatest song writer, Thomas Morley.

Will is thrilled with his new play The Taming of the Shrew in which a bright and strong-minded young woman is crushed and humiliated into submission by the man in her life. For some reason Kate is less than impressed, and back in Stratford his wife Anne isn't convinced either. Will thinks the solution is to try out a bit of 'taming' on his very stroppy teenage daughter Susannah. But it turns out what works in a play doesn't always work out quite so well when it comes to real life.

Romeo and Juliet is finally finished, and the only problem is now who will play the young lovers. Burbage and Condell see themselves in the title roles of course, but is there a polite way for Will to tell them they may no longer look like young teenage lovers? Kate would give anything to take to the stage, but she can't possibly be Juliet as she's a girl, and lady-acting is illegal in Tudor England.

Will is just finishing writing A Midsummer Night's Dream, a tale of love potions, enchantment and a wood full of fairies. He is very pleased with how realistic it is as he based it on his own experience. But Burbage and the other actors tell him it lacks a little comedy, like say a character with a funny name or a big visual joke. Meanwhile back in Will's lodgings where on earth is his servant Bottom going to put that donkey head?

Kate has problems of her own, because Lord Egeus, a rather old but very wealthy gentleman, has taken a shine to her, and Robert Greene is determined to be the matchmaker. Along the way we learn a little more about how Will and Anne found love, and how Will managed to get hold of a love potion.

Will Shakespeare has been working on his masterpiece. His friends tell him it is his greatest comedy yet, but Will insists that Hamlet isn't actually meant to be funny. In the meantime, Greene has hit on an ingenious new way to destroy Will's reputation by excluding him from his high-brow literary set, and Marlowe's reputation is in such a bad way that he could really do with being dead for a bit. Only Will's dad John is pleased because now that Will has bought him a coat of arms he is officially a gentleman, even if none of his behaviour is in any way gentlemanly.

Meanwhile, the players need another box office smash and it looks like Hamlet is going to need a bit more thinking about. As luck would have it, Will does have an idea for a new comedy but there is something not quite right about the title for Love's Labour's Licked.

London is full of anti-immigrant rioting. Will (David Mitchell) 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.

As it happens Will's newest play, the Merchant of Venice, is also about an oppressed outsider. But who will play the ground-breaking character of Shylock? Step forward the greatest actor of the age, Wolf Hall (Ben Miller), a man with amazing stage presence and some rather controversial theories about who really wrote Shakespeare's plays…

With the great fug making London too smelly to stay in, Will and his friends have all come to Stratford. Will hopes for some peace and quiet so he can write but with Kate and Marlowe bickering, Hamnet obsessed with playing at soldiers, Dad busy with his new role as Master of the Watch with not-so-able assistance from Sergeant Dogberry, and Sue excited about the upcoming masked ball there is very little peace to be had.

But 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. Anne has a pretty good idea where he might be, and sets off to get her boy back.

Will has decided to write a play about the life of Julius Caesar. The only problem is how to deal with his assassination. After all Her Majesty is not likely to approve of any play about doing in the head of state, and Robert Greene is particularly keen to label Will a traitor.

Things are not going well in the theatre either. Burbage is hogging the limelight and the other players have decided to get together and depose him. Should Will back the conspirators? Or is there a way he can use his skill with words to stop the plotters in their tracks?

The day of Will's son Hamnet's confirmation is approaching and Anne has made sure it has been in Will's diary for months. The only problem is this also turns out to be the night of the first ever London Theatre Awards, and what with Will being the greatest writer of all time, and what with all the other theatre companies in London being closed all year because of the plague, Will reckons he may be in with a chance of a prize.

And there is another dilemma - if Will does go the London Theatre Awards who is going to be his plus one? He has heard that his favourite dark lady, Emilia Laier, may be free that evening. But as Will wrestles with the temptation of the London theatre there is a far bigger threat to his family's happiness lurking in the wings.

It is a bleak midwinter in the Shakespeare household as the family comes to terms with a cruel loss. But when a mysterious stranger offers to share with Will a tale of redemption, he becomes filled anew with love and light and hope. Now Will has a mission - to save another soul from despair. He and his family and friends get together to save Greene from a mean and miserly life, and arrange for three midnight 'ghosts' to visit him before Christmas.

Who is the stranger? Can Will and his family and friend's efforts persuade Greene to change his ways and show some generosity to his servant Job Scratchit? And at the end of it all could this tale of Yuletide redemption be another smash Shakespeare hit on the stage, or is its time not yet come? In short, what the Dickens is going on?

The plague has hit London, and as Christmas approaches, Will and Kate are in wave fifteen of state-enforced home confinement together in Will's London lodgings.