/////The man we know something about (if not as much as we'd like) was more than capable of writing the plays we now have, and didn't hold "ordinary" jobs, unless you think that the theatre is an ordinary job.////

Actually, no, I don't. The theatre is full of starving actors looking for a big break. Many are talented, many are not. Some do it for fun, others do it in hopes of striking the big time. Some have written their own plays and even had them performed. The theatre is like sports--any idiot can break into it but going pro is very, very tough.

////Read Bill Bryson's excellent summary of the arguments against Shakespeare being the author of the plays and just why none of them hold much water.////

I agree none of them hold water. But the point is, you can't prove Shakespeare wrote the plays and the circumstances of his life argue against it.

////Read some of the very good accounts of Shakespeare's life and times.////

I have yet to read one that says Shakespeare had more than a minimal education and that his father was an illiterate glove-maker. Here's some interesting points:

·        Shakespeare attended a few years at the Stratford Free School which supposedly had a pretty good system but he simply wasn't there that long. He had never been to university or ever traveled abroad, so where did he suddenly get the education to be able to write plays about such varied subject matter? Many his plays include detailed knowledge about royal court. So how did lowly out of town Will get to find out so many accurate details about what life in a royal court was really like?
        
·        People of his hometown, Stratford, don't seem to have known that Shakespeare was a writer at all. None of his plays seemed to have been put on in Stratford during his life despite the fact that Ben Johnson supposedly wrote that Shakespeare was idolized during his life. Where?

·        When he died, Shakespeare didn't leave any letters or diaries that referred to his writing career at all. No one has ever found any early drafts of a play or indeed any play in his writing either. Nor does he mention any of his plays in his will. All we know about him from his personal effects are that he was accused once of hoarding grain and had sued someone for non-payment of a debt.

·        The exact date of his birth is unknown. Few documents or verifiable sources of Shakespeare's life exist, much fewer than would be expected of such a prominent figure. Originals of none of his manuscripts have survived. Not one document exists giving evidence of anyone ever seeing him. Not even his own family ever referred to him as a famous playwright.

·        The case for Shakespeare writing his own material rests on testimony contained in the First Folio plays published in 1623, seven years after his death. But there is no corroborative documentary evidence from his life.

·        None of these items by themselves mean much. Some other provable playwrights of that time, for example, came from humble origins. It's when you take all the facts together, circumstantial though they are, present a puzzler. Sir Derek Jacobi, Mark Rylance, Michael York and Kenneth Branaugh—all great modern Shakespearean actors do not believe William Shakespeare authored the plays that made their careers. Rylance was also artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe. Other doubters are John Gielgud, Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Sigmund Freud, Henry James and Orson Welles. And if that doesn't impress you, there's also Keanu Reeves.