In this BBC series, American scholar James Shapiro examines the plays Shakespeare wrote during the turbulent reign of Elizabeth's successor, King James I. One of the new king's first official acts was to name Shakespeare a king's man. Shapiro convincingly argues that the dark, complex plays of Shakespeare's last decade-King Lear, Macbeth, and The Tempest, among others-mirrored both royal life and the era's profound social changes.