Critic Reviews

The dialogue ripples with sly and subtle references to plays and immortal lines our young country bumpkin will create in future years. ... [Laurie] Davidson is magnetic. You watch this guy with near certainty that you’re watching a new star. But his is only one of several extraordinary performances.

Precious little, beyond his storied and enduring plays, is known about Shakespeare’s personal life or even his sexuality. So TNT is making him up as he goes along in a rousing, colorful drama that signifies more than nothing and indeed can often be quite something.

Entertaining newcomer full of energy, passion and baloney--the ideal summer diversion.

Sure, it’s fun to see Shakespeare get some; fortunately, Will manages to find depth beyond that.

Will is stimulating, refreshingly original entertainment, rowdy in its lurid re-creation of a riotous Elizabethan era where there is an insatiable appetite for what's new. [10-23 Jul 2017, p.12]

Ewen Bremner is deliciously, excessively vile as a sadist in service to the queen and, worse, a true believer. But the whole cast is, verily, first-rate and clever.

Will is as sensual as it is suspenseful, as bawdy as it is bloody, as lusty as it it is lyrical.

The theatrical shenanigans and poverty-level desperation gives Will a bawdy and often joyfully punkish sense of community.

It’s also a lot of fun, lively and fast-paced, with comedy, tragedy, action and history, just as audiences of 1589, and today, demand.

Will uses this dense, bawdy backdrop to create a highly stylized world, as its namesake receives a sometimes-harsh education in life and love that will inevitably inform his genius. Or more simply, if you're in the market for a slightly different take on a historical costume drama, this TNT show just might be the thing.