Upstart Crow (Seasons 1–3)

Upstart Crow (2016) is a BBC Two sitcom you can watch online on iFILM, written by Ben Elton — the mind behind Blackadder — with David Mitchell playing a young William Shakespeare trying to crack London's theatre scene while keeping his Stratford family from falling apart.

Will shuttles between the city and Stratford-upon-Avon, pitching plays nobody commissioned, arguing with a patron who keeps changing the terms, and getting baffled by his own output. The anachronisms are deliberate and relentless — that's the joke. Elton plants modern attitudes into Elizabethan dialogue to expose how little ambition, domestic friction and artistic self-doubt have actually changed. Mitchell's signature exasperated deadpan is the engine; Harry Enfield, Liza Tarbuck and Gemma Whelan keep the ensemble sharp around him. Stream all seasons of Upstart Crow online on iFILM.