Upstart Crow

- Season 3

(2018)

Will needs inspiration for his new play A Midsummer Night's Dream. Meanwhile, how can he get hold of some love potion, and where is Bottom going to put that stuffed donkey head?

After the success of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' Will is urged to write another comedy and is annoyed when his friends find his new project 'Hamlet' to be hilarious. He is also angered when Greene excludes him from a proposed literary salon but this proves to be a cover for killing Kit. To save him Will agrees to help him feign his death, using the plot of 'Hamlet' whilst events inadvertently inspire 'Love's Labours Licked'.

Sheltering Kit, who has feigned his own death, Will is interrupted in writing 'The Merchant of Venice' by Kate, who has been on a rally to protest against the anti-immigration riots. Taking his lead from her Will decides that the money-lender in his new play should be a sympathetic Jew and soulful actor Wolf Hall is cast in the role. However, due to Greene's connivance, he does not last long in the role which reverts to caricature.

Will is in Stratford with his London friends when Susanna is invited to a masked ball. Too shy to approach the boy she fancies, Claude, she lets Kate take her place but things do not go as planned. So Will hatches a plan to make amends as well as dissuading his son Hamnet from enlisting and trying to match-make Kate and Kit though it all proves to be much ado about nothing.

Will's attempt to fire one of his regular players for being too old, Kate's wish to marry a special kind of guy with both male and female qualities, and Greene's plan to arrest Will for treason mimic Will's new play "Julius Caesar."

Will invites a woman he desires to the theatrical Academy Awards instead of his wife to witness his "triumph." Later, a sudden family tragedy makes him question his atheism. The day ends with a somber quote from his play "King John."

Still dealing with grief after his tragic loss, Will gets inspired by a ghostly traveler to use his setup for Christmas Carol to save Green's soul for Christmas by making him face his past, present and future with the help of his troupe.