PBS: Premieres Monday 20 October at 9pm

Set sail on the high seas in search of history’s most misunderstood criminals: pirates. Were they merely petty thieves in pursuit of a good pillage and plunder, or were they in facttalented navigators and trusted captains of loyal crews?

This eight-part series dives deep into the lives of some of the world’s most notorious buccaneers, all swashbuckling and shrouded in myth: from Blackbeard and Francis Drake to John Ward, immortalised in fiction as Jack Sparrow, and the bloodthirsty pirates of the Caribbean. With the help of experts and exclusive access to a wealth of historic artefacts, each episode charts the voyages of an infamous pirate to explore what has kept their legends.