What better way to celebrate William Shakespeare’s 453rd birth anniversary than to imagine him as a proto-punk rocker, lust-filled gadabout, and gifted but tortured artist?
The TNT network series Will stars newcomer Laurie Davidson stars as Shakespeare. Shekhar Kapur has directed the pilot and three episodes in the series, and the premiere is on July 10.
Series creator Craig Pearce claimed in an interview in January about the theatre scene in the sixteenth century, “It was a completely revolutionary form of entertainment, something for the masses, and…was really rapidly evolving.” Audiences were apparently eating, drinking and even “fornicating” during performances, according to Pearce.
Not surprisingly, Pearce is the longtime writing partner of filmmaker Baz Luhrmann, and is expected to bring a similar anachronistic sensibility to the series. Davidson has described his version of the playwright as a cross between Mick Jagger and David Bowie.