DOCUMENTARIES

Nearly 400 years after the death of the world’s greatest playwright, academics are arguing with increased vigour about who actually wrote the plays allegedly penned by William Shakespeare.

Hardly a year goes by without a new candidate being put forward as the real author.

This promoted Steve Orme Productions to make the first television documentary which compares the cases of the four individuals who are proclaimed more than any others to have written the works of Shakespeare.

The fascinating, controversial programme The Shakespeare Enigma features diverse opinions from various experts. Professor Stanley Wells of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust presents the orthodox view that William of Stratford wrote the plays. He says people who don’t believe that Shakespeare penned them are “crackpots”.

Francis Carr expounds the explosive theory that the statesman and philosopher Francis Bacon was not only the true author but also the illegitimate son of Queen Elizabeth I.

Historians also make the case for Christopher Marlowe and the scandalous Edward de Vere, earl of Oxford, to be the playwright behind Shakespeare’s works.

The Shakespeare Enigma has been sold to various European countries and was also shown at the Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference at Concordia University in Portland, Oregon.

A preview is available below:

Steve Orme Productions were recently commissioned by Derby Shakespeare Theatre Company to make a DVD of the company's history to coincide with its centenary celebrations. An extract is available at:

N.B. Larger resolution versions of these videos can be viewed at the YouTube page by clicking the video.