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In Search of Shakespeare
Background Information: In Search Of Shakespeare The BBC series In Search of Shakespeare could be the English teachers most important ally yet. With his typical mixture of intensive research, detective work, boyish enthusiasm & popular appeal, television historian Michael Wood comes closer than anyone to bringing the Bard to life. There are some astonishing discoveries along the way, which help to give a documentary cohesion to Shakespeares story. But Wood is never arrogant enough to claim to have pinned the playwrights character down. The ifs, buts & maybes are all part of the fascination. The man himself remains tantalisingly just out of reach, which is probably as it should be. Instead, Wood takes us on an exhilarating journey through Elizabethan & Jacobean England, building a picture of his subject through painstaking reference to the climate of the age: a police state in which Shakespeares family was devastated by the persecution of Catholics. Social, familial & political influences are all unravelled & pieced together, counterpointed with scenes from the plays, RSC actors conveniently to hand, & the life & times of the travelling actor & playwright are evoked in front of our eyes, becoming tangible & relevant. Wood gives us the chance to consider the plays in context, products of a great mind living in interesting times, rather than in academic isolation. Its a compelling tale, full of bloody danger, sex, celebrity & social history, & densely packed with layers of detail. Woods great gift is to tell it in such an accessible way & without the sense of superiority that some of his peers bring to popular history. Michael Wood is a popular British historian & broadcaster, presenter of numerous television documentary series. He was educated at grammar school in Manchester & at Oriel College, Oxford. His special interest was Anglo-Saxon history & this was the field in which he first made his name, coming to the screen in In Search of the Dark Ages, a BBC2 series in which he explored the lives of individual leaders of the period, including Athelstan, King Arthur & Eric Bloodaxe. Wood quickly became popular with female viewers for his blond good looks, deep voice & habit of wearing tight jeans & a sheepskin jacket. However, he draws his audience from all walks of life because of his ability to present history in striking & memorable ways. To date, he has over sixty documentary films to his name. Woods work is also well known in the U,S. where it receives much airplay on PBS & on various cable television networks. The series Legacy 1991 is one of his more frequently broadcast documentaries on US television. Series presented by Michael Wood In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great.
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David Wallace is an American actor who has starred in movies & on television. His first television roll was in the 1980 tv movie The Babysitter with Stephanie Zimbalist & William Shatner. David starred on the soap operas Days of Our Lives as Todd Chandler from 1985-1986 & General Hospital as Dr Tom Baldwin Sr. from 1987-1993. Davids first feature film he starred in was in the 1982 horror movie Humongous as Eric Simmons & he starred in the 1983 movie Mortuary. He has made guest appearances on tv shows such as Vega$, The Facts of Life, Different Strokes, The Powers of Matthew Star, Hart to Hart, Matt Houston, Hotel & JAG. David is married to actress Lisa Trusel & they have 4 children. David Wallace at the Internet Movie Database.
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