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William Shakespeare is in the last days of his life. Shakespeare is faced with the prospect of losing the land he bought with the money made from his plays. Suddenly he finds himself in the same situation as one of his greatest characters, Lear. Using contemporary documents and what is known of him as a writer and a man, Bond shows that the contradictions of Shakespeare's life and time are uncannily close to those of our own. He, too, lives in crisis. Big local landowners are enclosing land on a heath outside Stratford-on-Avon. Shakespeare owns some of it. The landowners intend to drive off the tenants. Then Shakespeare will lose the rents on which he lives. He is old and the inspiration to write has gone so he cannot make his money again. The prospect of poverty terrifies him. The town people want him to help them fight the enclosures. But the landowners offer to protect his income if he refuses to help the town. They present him with a guarantee to sign - and Shakespeare signs. The tenants are driven off the land and reduced to poverty. Riots break out. Houses and barns burn. Beggars are whipped and hanged. And Ben Jonson, seething with jealousy of Shakespeare, arrives with the news that the Globe Theatre has burned down. The uprising intensifies, spreading from town to the countryside. Shakespeare witnesses at first hand the people's sufferings. He wanders on the heath as Lear had done before him, facing his own guilt. And suddenly the poetry returns, driving him to his last fateful decision.

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Author: Edward Bond