Molière collapsed on stage during a performance of The Imaginary Invalid, a play about a man who thinks he is dying. He was actually dying. The greatest comic playwright in French history performed his final role with blood on his lips and was dead within hours.

This episode tells the story of how Jean-Baptiste Poquelin abandoned a career in upholstery, built the most important theater company in France, and used comedy as a weapon against hypocrisy, pretension, and religious extremism.

• How he abandoned the family trade to become an actor
• The Tartuffe scandal and the church’s campaign to silence him
• His complicated relationship with Louis XIV as patron and censor
• The legendary final performance that killed him