No other play offers us so direct a pathway into the beauty, torment and delight at the deepest core of Shakespeare's soul. A king mad with jealousy, a faithful wife and friend, an adoring daughter, an angry witch, a couple of homespun clowns and a very hungry bear, combine to offer us a story of redemption, a love-letter to country life and an indictment of repressive authority gone mad. It is a heretic that makes the fire, not she which burns in it.