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Saying his name evokes images of silver-tongued actors in elaborate costumes, stage sword fights, long-winded speeches, lofty language and august academics.

But in reality, the resolutely middle-class, grammar-school-educated William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was a hardworking dramatist. poet and sometime actor who juggled writing what turned out to be immortal sonnets, dramas, histories and comedies with performing, running an acting company, managing a theater, and sending money back home to support the wife and kids.

There's a persistent belief among some enthusiasts that the Bard of Avon, as he came to be called (having been born and raised in Stratford-on-Avon in Warwickshire, England), didn't actually write his plays, which were instead the work of one or another university-educated nobleman of the same period.

Richard Denton, producer of the documentary series "Shakespeare Uncovered," airing Fridays, Jan. 25 through Feb. 8, on PBS (check local listings), takes a dim view of this assertion, especially considering the...

Los Angeles -- Jeremy Irons has a suggestion for "Downton Abbey" fans: Give William Shakespeare a try, too.

Irons is among the prominent hosts of "Shakespeare Uncovered," an inventive series tracing the origins of eight of the writer's plays through a combination of history, new analysis, selected scenes – and, for Irons, a gallop on horseback across a fabled battlefield.

The series begins 9 p.m.-11 p.m. Est Friday (check local listings) on PBS, which happens to be the home of the hit period soap opera, "Downton Abbey."

"Shakespeare Uncovered," along with PBS' planned fall airing of new films of four of Shakespeare's plays, "open up to this huge American audience this gold dust," Irons told reporters recently, and demonstrates that TV "doesn't end with `Downton Abbey.'"

After then mischievously comparing Shakespeare to an Aston Martin and "Downton" to a Ford Fiesta, Irons admitted he hadn't seen the serial...