Death By Shakespeare

William Shakespeare found dozens of different ways to kill off his characters. But how realistic are these deaths, and did Shakespeare have the knowledge to back them up? In the Bard's day death was a part of everyday life. Plague, pestilence and public executions were a common occurrence. It was also a time of important scientific progress. Shakespeare kept pace with anatomical and medical advances, and he included the latest scientific discoveries in his work. The chemist Kathryn Harkup turns her discerning scientific eye to the Bard and the varied and creative ways the characters die. She investigates what actual events may have inspired Shakespeare, what the accepted scientific knowledge of the time was, and how Elizabethan audiences would have responded to these death scenes