Michael Wood explains how the 29-year-old William Shakespeare became a star of the London stage-a shady story involving a murder-and uncovers a tale of religious conflict behind the Bard's "lost years." He travels with the Royal Shakespeare Company; uses Tudor maps and remarkable Victorian photos to bring Shakespeare's first London home back to life; and retraces the fateful journey of Shakespeare's great rival, Christopher Marlowe, down the river to Deptford.

• Michael Wood

• Julian Glover
• Fred Melamed
• Ray Fearon