Hello and welcome to the History Extra podcast from BBC History Magazine, Britain's best-selling history magazine.

I'm Ellie Cawthorne.

From Cleopatra's fatal aspite to Macbeth's bloody murders

and the tragic demise of King Lear,

Shakespeare conjured up a wide range

of iconic death scenes.

In her new book, Death by Shakespeare, Catherine Harcup delves into this grisly theatrical history,

looking at the real stories and science that Shakespeare drew on in his death scenes

and how they might have been staged for Elizabethan audiences.

I spoke to Catherine to find out more.

Shakespeare killed off more than 250 named characters across his canon.

So you've got plenty to work with here, haven't you?

Can you give us an idea of the range of spectacular, sad, funny, tragic deaths that he served up?

Oh, there are, like you say, there are so many.

Over 250 deaths.

I mean, a lot of them, the vast bulk, are at the end of a very sharp, pointy thing,

be it a sword or an arrow or whatever.

But there is huge variety.

Sad ones.

There are all sorts of sad deaths.

Full staff's death always gets me.

I mean, that's tragic.

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