Homeschool History – Shakespeare

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Hello and welcome to Homeschool History. I’m Greg Jenner, the historian behind TV’s Horrible Histories and the host of the BBC podcast You’re Dead To Me - though that one’s mainly for the grown-ups. I’m here to deliver a snappy history lesson to entertain and educate the whole family. Who says homeschooling can’t be fun? Today we’re journeying back to 16th century England, to explore the life of one of the greatest ever writers. Some people call him England’s National Poet, others The Bard, but most people called him William Shakespeare. Because, y’know, that was his name. Or was it?! More on that later. You may have seen films inspired by Shakespeare plays, such as Gnomeo & Juliet, based on Romeo and Juliet, even Lord of the Rings contain references to Macbeth, or The Lion King, roughly based on Hamlet. SFX: The Circle of Life from The Lion King But this extraordinary writer came from a surprisingly ordinary background. William was born to John and Mary Shakespeare in April 1564, in a town called Stratford-upon-Avon in the West Midlands. His family wasn’t poor, but they certainly weren’t rich either. Dad John worked a few different jobs, as a glove maker, a trader of leather and wool, even a beer taster. SFX: BURP Ordinary jobs for an ordinary Dad. William was the third child of eight, but his two older sisters died tragically young, making him the oldest. A home shared with five younger siblings would have been a bit cramped. SFX: SIBLING SQUABBLES Their house was also their Dad’s glove shop - talk about working from home. William went to the local, perfectly ordinary, grammar school where he would have learned all sorts - including Latin. But one thing he wasn’t taught was spelling. People just spelled things any way they liked in those days, even their own names. William spelled his name at least six different ways, including ‘Willim Shakspere’ and ‘Wm Shakspe’. Hmm, maybe I’ll add a few more “Gs” to name? Ggggreggg Jenner. Grenner? Grej? Hmm, not sure.

Shakespeare got married very young, aged 18, to a slightly older lady called Anne Hathaway (no, not the Hollywood actress), possibly because she was pregnant with their first daughter Susanna, and it wasn’t a good idea to have a child when you weren’t married back then. SFX: GULP Two years later, Anne and William had twins called Judith and Hamnet. Young William Shakespeare was a middle child of a middling family in middle England - all settled with a wife and three kids. He was Mister Average through and through.

SFX: YAWN

Yeah, bit boring. William didn’t spend much time at home with the family, as he was always in London. Poor kids! And poor Anne!

SFX: ‘WHERE’S MY DADDY?’ They didn’t even have Zoom back then. In London, William tried his luck as an actor first. In fact, he wasn’t the only Shakespeare to try. His younger brother, Edmund Shakespeare, also followed him. Under different circumstances, Ed and Will might have been the Hemsworth brothers of their day, but it didn’t really work out for Edmund.

SFX: AWW.

But William did better because he started writing plays. Wanting to be successful, he paid attention to what was trendy and noticed the fashion was for historical subjects, so he wrote a medieval trilogy about King Henry VI. Also trendy were mega gory tragedies where most of the characters get horribly killed, so William scribbled Titus Andronicus, set in ancient Rome, which features properly grisly scenes that I don’t recommend you google if you’ve just had your breakfast.

SFX: VOMIT!

To prove he could do a bit of everything, he also wrote a controversial rom-com, called The Taming of the Shrew, about a man bullying a strong, confident woman into being his obedient wife. #NotOK Like you, William also lived through a pandemic - the plague, in his case, which tragically killed his 11 year old son Hamnet. This devastating loss affected William’s work in a really big way. Disease, death, and grief are common Shakespearean themes, and you may have noticed that ‘Hamnet’ is a very similar name to ‘Hamlet’, one of his greatest tragic characters. SFX: Prince Charles reciting “TO BE OR NOT TO BE”

But Shakespeare also wrote lots of comedies, and this made him unusual. In fact, lots of his tragic plays have a naughty sense of humour, and many of his funny plays are quite sad. He also wrote a lot of cheesy Dad jokes and puns , but I guess he was technically a dad, so I’ll let him off...

SFX: EMBARRASSED CHILD: ‘DAAAADDD’

This versatility came in really handy. And, unlike Leonardo Da Vinci, Shakespeare actually finished things. In fact, he wrote at least 37 plays in his life, which averages out to two per year! SFX: WOAH!

Even though he was living in London, and writing for Londoners, Shakespeare often set his stories in faraway places like Denmark, Italy, Greece, Spain, Turkey, Austria, Egypt, and the Middle East. For example a Midsummer Night’s Dream is set in Athens, in Greece. These locations would have been exciting and exotic, but London was home to many immigrants, diplomats, and foreign merchants, so his audiences might have known people, or been people, from those places. Shakespeare’s genius was that he wrote complex characters of many different backgrounds - Othello is a Moor from Africa, Shylock is Jewish, and Shakespeare’s lower class characters speak very differently to his posh and powerful ones. He also wrote great roles for women… although those parts were played by boys in a dress, because women weren’t allowed on the stage back then. Well that’s not fair is it? SFX: Booooo! After his early successes, Shakespeare was also rubbing shoulders with the A List stars of his day. SFX: LET ME TAKE A SELFIE! He hung out with playwrights such as Ben Jonson and Thomas Middleton, and famous actors like Will Kemp and Richard Burbage who starred in many of his plays. Fancy! In fact, audiences were probably more excited about seeing Kemp and Burbage perform, than seeing something written by Shakespeare who wasn’t himself made properly famous until 150 years after his death.

SFX: ‘SHAKESPEARE? NEVER HEARD OF HIM!’

Shakespeare's friends and colleagues were really important. It’s easy to imagine him as a lone genius scribbling away, but he collaborated closely with his trusted actors, musicians, costume makers, business partners, and other writers, such as his famous pal Thomas Middleton, who is possibly responsible for adding some of the famous witchy bits in Macbeth. SFX: DOUBLE DOUBLE TOIL AND TROUBLE. FIRE BURN AND CAULDRON BUBBLE!

This was normal at the time, and still is for many writers today - I wrote this script with my pals Emma and Gabby. Team work makes the dream work.

SFX: ‘DING’!

He wasn’t just good at writing, William was also a savvy businessman. He co-owned his theatre company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, and the Globe theatre, which was built in London in 1599.

SFX: KERCHING

Public theatres were really new and exciting, and were visited by people from different walks of life. The Globe had expensive seats and comfy cushions at the back, for the posh people...

SFX: WHAT WHAT

… And mega cheap tickets for the common people, called groundlings

SFX: OI!

The cheap tickets didn’t get you a seat, you had to watch the whole play standing up for as long as 4 hours, sometimes! SFX: ‘MY FEET ARE REALLY SORE!’ And there was no roof so you might get rained on. SFX: TORRENTIAL RAIN The atmosphere was quite raucous too. Today, you’re not meant to talk in a theatre, but 400 years ago, the audience would shout at the actors on stage, who would often turn and talk to the audience directly - a bit like panto!

SFX: ‘IS THIS A DAGGER I SEE BEFORE ME?’ ‘OH NO IT ISN’T!’

Even though the scenery was very simple, the actors’ costumes were really flamboyant, and Shakespeare even used special effects - no CGI goblins or lightsabers, but they could make thunder sounds by rolling a cannon ball across the roof…

SFX: ROLLING BALL/THUNDER

...and lightning by throwing fireworks through a trapdoor in the ceiling

SFX: BIG EXPLOSION

Bit dangerous. Also, the fireworks were partially made of dung, so when you burned them, they gave off quite the aroma...

SFX: Ewwwww!

In fact, in a stormy scene during Macbeth, when the three witches say this…

SFX: FAIR IS FOUL AND FOUL IS FAIR, HOVER THROUGH THE FOG AND FILTHY AIR

Well the mention of that filthy air may have been a joke about the special effects team having just set off a poo firework.

SFX: OORR Shakespeare’s success kept growing. In 1597 he bought the biggest house in Stratford- upon-Avon, which had maybe as many as 30 rooms. And in 1603, his theatre company became The King’s Men, the official performers for the new King James I of England, who was also James VI of Scotland. William ‘Mister Average’ Shakespeare had officially made it big, and his family were granted a special family crest, meaning he was now a gentleman. Pretty impressive for a guy who grew up in a glove shop. Now that he was fancy, William opened up a second, much posher theatre called Blackfriars. Unlike the Globe, Blackfriars was an indoor theatre, and was just for very rich people.

SFX: “I AM VERY RICH” Between the 1590s and early 1600s, he also wrote a lot of poetry, mostly poems called sonnets, and in 1609 he published a whopping 154 of them! Crikey! SFX: WOAH! Shakespeare stopped writing in 1613, because this was the year that his theatre, The Globe, burned down. During a performance of Henry VIII, his play, the cannon that they used to announce that the play was starting… well, it set fire to the roof! SFX: TORCHED WOOD This is why you don’t have cannons in theatres!

Anyway, Shakespeare went home to Stratford-upon-Avon and he died there three years later in 1616. Some people think he died on his 52nd birthday, though we’re not sure about that. His wife, Anne, only lived a few years longer than William. But his story didn’t end there, and in the mid-1700s he became recognised as England’s greatest national poet. So, why do people still love his work so much? Well, it helps that he wrote so much stuff because there’s loads of things to enjoy, so many different things of course.

SFX: FRANTICALLY SCRIBBLING QUILLS

And he was incredible at making up clever phrases that we still use today! Have you ever said “melted into thin air”, “wild goose chase”, “I haven’t slept a wink”, or “break the ice”? Then you’ve performed Shakespeare! Go, you! SFX: HOORAY! He was also brilliant at rude insults! I’m very fond of “a blinking idiot!” but a less subtle one was “Thou art a boil, a plague sore” . I also love the line: “You have such a February face, So full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness.” Beautiful, but also savage! You wouldn’t have wanted to get in a Tik-Tok insult battle with Billy Shakespeare. That dude was savage! SFX: DO YOU NEED SOME ICE FOR THAT BURN?

Shakespeare’s exciting storylines, tantalising cliffhangers, fascinating characters, and the way he could capture feelings like love, fear, and sadness meant he was beloved by audiences, rich and poor, for years after his death. Even today, Shakespeare’s work feels profoundly meaningful to people all over the world. He wrote about humanity in all its forms. Bravo, William.

SFX: HOORAY!

And that brings us to the end of Shakespeare’s story. Now it’s time for the quiz!

We have 5 questions…

QUIZ

You ready? Go!

1. Where was William Shakespeare’s home town?

2. Who was WIlliam Shakespeare married to?

3. Shakespeare worked in, and co-owned, which famous outdoor theatre in London?

4. When performing a play, what was one of the ways they created the sound of thunder?

5. Shakespeare’s 154 poems were published in 1609. What type of poem were they? OK let’s get the answers SFX: Fanfare

1. Where was William Shakespeare’s home town? STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

2. Who was WIlliam Shakespeare married to? ANNE HATHAWAY

3. Shakespeare worked in, and co-owned, which famous outdoor theatre in London? THE GLOBE

4. When performing a play, what was one of the ways they created the sound of thunder? A CANNON BALL

5. Shakespeare’s 154 poems were published in 1609. What type of poem were they? SONNETS

OUTRO

How did you do? If you didn’t get all five, why not listen to another episode from series one or two. Hopefully you’re a William Shakespeare whizz!

Tune in next time for some more homeschool history. And make sure to subscribe to the podcast on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode. Thanks for listening, take care, and goodbye!

HomeSchool History was a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio Four and BBC Sounds. The script writers were Gabby Hutchinson Crouch, Emma Nagouse and me. The Research Assistant was Hannah MacKenzie. The producer was Abi Paterson and the historical advisor was Professor Farah Karim-Cooper, Head of Higher Education & Research at Shakespeare’s Globe. For more Shakespeare facts and learning resources, check out their website at www.shakespearesglobe.com