Romeo and Juliet film and television film adaptation wikipedia pages

 

Romeo and Juliet (1900 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Jump to: navigation, search

Roméo et Juliette was a 1900 French film adaptation of the classic and famous William Shakespeare play, Romeo and Juliet.
This film version was directed by Clément Maurice, starred Emilio Cossira, and is believed to be the earliest film adaptation of the Shakespeare classic.
The film was produced by "Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre", which premiered one of the first synchronized sound film systems at the Paris exhibition of 1900, with this film being one of the earliest to use the sound technique. The sound was recorded first using a Lioretograph onto a cellophane cylinder. This was then played back, and the actors filmed lip-syncing to the recording. To view the film, the sound was played back and the projectionist altered the speed of the hand-cranked projector to try and match the playback.
The film is presumed to be lost with no known copy in existence.[citation needed]
See also[edit]
List of lost films
External links[edit]
Romeo and Juliet at the Internet Movie Database

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

Romeo-and-Juliet-toy-theatre-cut-outs.png

 

·
·
·
·

 


·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·

 
Wikipedia book

 


Stub icon This article related to a French film of the 1900s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
·
·
 
Stub icon This 1900s drama film-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
·
·

 

Categories: 1900 films
Films based on Romeo and Juliet
French films
History of film
Lost films
1900s drama films
Silent French film stubs
Pre-1910 film stubs
1900s drama film stubs



Navigation menu


Create account
Log in


Article
Talk



 

Read
Edit
View history




 Search 



Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Toolbox





Print/export



Languages
Edit links
This page was last modified on 9 April 2013 at 02:26.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
 Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
   


 

Romeo and Juliet (1908 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Jump to: navigation, search

Romeo and Juliet

Directed by
J. Stuart Blackton
Starring
Paul Panzer
Florence Lawrence
Distributed by
Vitagraph Studios
Release date(s)
1908
Country
United States
Language
Silent
The first ever American film version of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was a silent film short made in 1908 made by Vitagraph Studios. Directed by J. Stuart Blackton, it was filmed in Central Park in Manhattan, New York.
The film starred Paul Panzer as Romeo and Florence Lawrence as Juliet. Other performers included John G. Adolfi, Harry Solter, Louise Carver, Florence Turner, and Charles Chapman.
See also[edit]
List of American films of 1908
External links[edit]
Romeo and Juliet at the Internet Movie Database

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

Romeo-and-Juliet-toy-theatre-cut-outs.png

 

·
·
·
·

 


·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·

 
Wikipedia book

 
Stub icon This article about a silent film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
·
·

 

Categories: Silent films
1908 films
American silent short films
Films based on Romeo and Juliet
Black-and-white films
American films
Films directed by J. Stuart Blackton
Vitagraph Studios short films
Silent film stubs

Navigation menu


Create account
Log in


Article
Talk



 

Read
Edit
View history




 Search 



Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Toolbox





Print/export



Languages
Eesti
Italiano
Nederlands
日本語
Polski
Svenska
Edit links
This page was last modified on 6 March 2013 at 21:46.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
 Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
   


 

Romeo and Juliet (1916 Metro Pictures film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Jump to: navigation, search

Romeo and Juliet

Directed by
John W. Noble
Francis X. Bushman
Produced by
Quality Pictures Corporation
Written by
William Shakespeare(play)
 John Arthur(scenario)
Starring
Francis X. Bushman
Beverly Bayne
Music by
Irene Berg
 Samuel Berg
Cinematography
R.J. Bergquist
Distributed by
Metro Pictures
Release date(s)
October 19, 1916
Running time
8 reels
Country
 United States
Language
Silent
Romeo and Juliet is a lost 1916 silent film based on William Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet. John W. Noble is credited as director and Francis X. Bushman and Beverly Bayne star as the lovers. This film was produced in 1916, the 300th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, and was released amongst other celebrations of the "Bard". This film was produced and released in direct competition with another 'Romeo and Juliet' produced by William Fox, starring Theda Bara and released three days later.[1] [2]


Cast[edit]
Francis X. Bushman - Romeo
Beverly Bayne - Juliet
Horace Vinton - Escalus, Prince of Verona
John Davidson - Paris
Eric Hudson - Montague
Edmund Elton - Capulet
Leonard Grover - Old Man
Fritz Leiber, Sr. - Mercutio
Olav Skavlan - Benvolio
Lawson Butt - Tybalt
Robert Cummings - Friar Lawrence
A. J. Herbert - Friar John (as Alexandre J. Herbert)
Edwin Boring - Balthasar
William Morris - Abraham
Joseph Dailey - Peter
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ The American Film Institute Catalog Feature Films: 1911-20 by The American Film Institute, c1988
2.Jump up ^ Romeo and Juliet at silentera.com database
External links[edit]
Romeo and Juliet at IMDb.com
allrovi/synopsis
period promotional for the film

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

Romeo-and-Juliet-toy-theatre-cut-outs.png

 

·
·
·
·

 


·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·

 
Wikipedia book


 

Categories: Silent films
1916 films
American silent feature films
Films based on plays
Lost films
Metro Pictures films

Navigation menu


Create account
Log in


Article
Talk



 

Read
Edit
View history




 Search 



Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Toolbox





Print/export



Languages
Edit links
This page was last modified on 27 September 2012 at 12:28.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
 Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
   


 

Romeo and Juliet (1916 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Jump to: navigation, search

Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet 1916.jpg
Film poster
 
Directed by
J. Gordon Edwards
Produced by
William Fox
Written by
Adrian Johnson
Based on
Romeo and Juliet
 by William Shakespeare
Starring
Theda Bara
 Harry Hilliard
Cinematography
Phil Rosen
Distributed by
Fox Film Corporation
Release date(s)
October 22, 1916
 
Running time
70 minutes
Country
United States
Language
Silent

 

 Bara (center) in a scene from the film
Romeo and Juliet was a 1916 American silent romantic drama film directed by J. Gordon Edwards and starring Theda Bara. The film was based the Shakespearean tragedy and was produced by the Fox Film Corporation.[1] The film was shot at the Fox Studio in was shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey.[2] The film is now considered lost.[1]
This film and other Shakespeare-oriented pictures were released in 1916, the 300th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death. This film went up against direct competition from another feature length Romeo and Juliet film from Metro Pictures starring Francis X. Bushman and Beverly Bayne. In a recorded interview, Bushman states that William Fox had spies working for Metro, and stole some of the intertitles from the Metro version. Fox rushed his version into the theatres in order to capitalize on exhibiting his film first. Bushman recalled going to see Fox's Romeo and Juliet and was startled to see his intertitles flash on the screen.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Cast
2 See also
3 References
4 External links
Cast[edit]
Theda Bara as Juliet
Harry Hilliard as Romeo
Glen White as Mercutio
Walter Law as Friar Laurence
John Webb Dillon as Tybalt
Einar Linden as Paris
Elwin Eaton as Montague
Alice Gale as Nurse
Helen Tracy as Lady Capulet
Victory Bateman as Lady Montague
Jane Lee
Katherine Lee
May De Lacy
Edward Holt as Capulet
See also[edit]
Romeo and Juliet on screen
List of lost films
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b "Romeo and Juliet". silentera.com. Retrieved March 6, 2013.
2.Jump up ^ Fort Lee: Birthplace of the Motion Picture Industry. Arcadia Publishing. 2006. p. 64. ISBN 0-738-54501-5.
External links[edit]
Romeo and Juliet at the Internet Movie Database

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

Romeo-and-Juliet-toy-theatre-cut-outs.png

 

·
·
·
·

 


·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·

 
Wikipedia book

 

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
Films directed by J. Gordon Edwards

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 


Stub icon This article about a romantic drama film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
·
·
 
Stub icon This 1910s drama film-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
·
·

 

Categories: 1916 films
Silent films
1910s drama films
1910s romance films
20th Century Fox films
American films
American romantic drama films
American silent feature films
Black-and-white films
Films based on Romeo and Juliet
Films directed by J. Gordon Edwards
Films shot in Fort Lee
Lost films
Romantic drama film stubs
1910s drama film stubs

Navigation menu


Create account
Log in


Article
Talk



 

Read
Edit
View history




 Search 



Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Toolbox





Print/export



Languages
Italiano
Edit links
This page was last modified on 14 October 2013 at 06:50.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
 Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
   


 

Romeo and Juliet (1936 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Jump to: navigation, search

Romeo and Juliet
Romeo juliet movieposter.jpg
1936 US Theatrical Poster
 
Directed by
George Cukor
Produced by
Irving Thalberg
Written by
Talbot Jennings
William Shakespeare (play)
 
Starring
Norma Shearer
Leslie Howard
 
Music by
Herbert Stothart
Cinematography
William H. Daniels
Editing by
Margaret Booth
Distributed by
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)
August 20, 1936
Running time
125 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$2,066,000[1]
Box office
$962,000 (Domestic earnings)
$1,113,000 (Foreign earnings)
[1]
Romeo and Juliet is a 1936 American film adapted from the play by Shakespeare, directed by George Cukor from a screenplay by Talbot Jennings. The film stars Leslie Howard as Romeo and Norma Shearer as Juliet.[2][3]
The New York Times selected the film as one of the "Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made," calling it "a lavish production" which "is extremely well-produced and acted."[4]

Contents
  [hide] 1 Cast
2 Production 2.1 Development
2.2 Pre-production
2.3 Production
3 Premiere
4 Reception
5 Awards
6 See also
7 References
8 External links
Cast[edit]
Leslie Howard as Romeo
Norma Shearer as Juliet
John Barrymore as Mercutio
Edna May Oliver as the Nurse
Basil Rathbone as Tybalt
C. Aubrey Smith as Lord Capulet
Andy Devine as Peter, servant to Juliet's Nurse
Conway Tearle as Escalus - Prince of Verona
Ralph Forbes as Paris - Young Nobleman Kinsman to the Prince
Henry Kolker as Friar Laurence
Robert Warwick as Lord Montague
Virginia Hammond as Lady Montague
Reginald Denny as Benvolio - Nephew to Montague and Friend to Romeo
Violet Kemble-Cooper as Lady Capulet
Uncredited cast includes Wallis Clark, Katherine DeMille, Fred Graham, Dorothy Granger, Ronald Howard, Lon McCallister, Ian Wolfe[5]
Production[edit]
See also: Romeo and Juliet on screen: George Cukor (1936)
Development[edit]
Producer Irving Thalberg pushed MGM for five years to make a film out of Romeo and Juliet, in the face of the studio's opposition: which stemmed from Louis B. Mayer's belief that the masses considered the Bard over their heads, and from the austerity forced on the studios by the depression. It was only when Jack Warner announced his intention to film Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream that Mayer, not to be outdone, gave Thalberg the go-ahead.[6]
Pre-production[edit]
Thalberg's stated intention was "to make the production what Shakespeare would have wanted had he possessed the facilities of cinema."[7] He went to great lengths to establish authenticity and the film's intellectual credentials: researchers were sent to Verona to take photographs for the designers; the paintings of Botticelli, Bellini, Carpaccio and Gozzoli were studied to provide visual inspiration; and two academic advisers (John Tucker Murray of Harvard and William Strunk, Jr. of Cornell) were flown to the set, with instructions to criticise the production freely.[8]
Production[edit]
The film includes two songs drawn from other plays by Shakespeare: "Come Away Death" from Twelfth Night and "Honour, Riches, Marriage, Blessing" from The Tempest.[9] Thalberg had only one choice for director: George Cukor, who was known as "the women's director". Thalberg's vision was that the performance of Norma Shearer, his wife, would dominate the picture.[8]
Scholar Stephen Orgel describes Cukor's film as "largely miscast ... with a preposterously mature pair of lovers in Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer, and an elderly John Barrymore as a stagey Mercutio decades out of date."[10] Barrymore was in his late fifties, and played Mercutio as a flirtatious tease.[11] Romeo wears gloves in the balcony scene, and Juliet has a pet fawn.[12] Tybalt is usually portrayed as a hot-headed troublemaker, but Basil Rathbone played him as stuffy and pompous.[13]
Thalberg cast screen actors, rather than stage actors, but shipped-in East Coast drama coaches (such as Frances Robinson Duff) to coach Shearer. In consequence, actors previously adored for their naturalism gave stilted performances.[8] The shoot extended to six months, and the budget reached $2 million, MGM's most expensive sound film up to that time.[14]
Like most Shakespearean filmmakers, Cukor and his screenwriter Talbot Jennings cut much of the original script: playing around 45% of it.[15] Many of these cuts are common ones in the theatre, such as the second chorus[16] and the comic scene of Peter with the musicians.[15][17] Others are filmic: designed to replace words with action, or rearranging scenes in order to introduce groups of characters in longer narrative sequences. Jennings retained more of Shakespeare's poetry for the young lovers than any of his big-screen successors. Several scenes are interpolated, including three sequences featuring Friar John in Mantua. In contrast, the role of Friar Laurence (an important character in the play) is much reduced.[18] A number of scenes are expanded as opportunities for visual spectacle, including the opening brawl (set against the backdrop of a religious procession), the wedding and Juliet's funeral. The party scene, choreographed by Agnes de Mille, includes Rosaline (an unseen character in Shakespeare's script) who rebuffs Romeo.[15] The role of Peter is enlarged, and played by Andy Devine as a faint-hearted bully. He speaks lines which Shakespeare gave to other Capulet servants, making him the instigator of the opening brawl.[15][19]
Clusters of images are used to define the central characters: Romeo is first sighted leaning against a ruined building in an arcadian scene, complete with a pipe-playing shepherd and his dog; the livelier Juliet is associated with Capulet's formal garden, with its decorative fish pond.[11]
Premiere[edit]
On the night of the Los Angeles premiere of the film at the Carthay Circle Theatre, legendary MGM producer Irving Thalberg, husband of Norma Shearer, died at age 37. The stars in attendance were so grief-stricken that publicist Frank Whitbeck, standing in front of the theater, abandoned his usual policy of interviewing them for a radio broadcast as they entered and simply announced each one as they arrived.[20]
Reception[edit]
Some critics liked the film, but on the whole, neither critics nor the public responded enthusiastically. Graham Greene wrote that he was "less than ever convinced that there is an aesthetic justification for filming Shakespeare at all... the effect of even the best scenes is to distract."[21] Cinemagoers considered the film too "arty", staying away as they had from Warner's A Midsummer Night Dream a year before: leading to Hollywood abandoning the Bard for over a decade.[22] The film nevertheless received four Oscar nominations [12] and for many years was considered one of the great MGM classics. In his annual Movie and Video Guide, Leonard Maltin gives both this film version and the extremely popular 1968 Franco Zeffirelli version (with Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting) an equal rating of three-and-a-half stars.
Today, the most noticeable element of the film, aside from the quality of the acting, is that nearly every actor in it is too old for his or her role, especially those who are playing teenagers. Leslie Howard, as Romeo, was forty-three when he made the film. John Barrymore, who plays Mercutio, was fifty-four when he made the film and, with his looks aged by years of drinking, could not avoid appearing old enough to be Romeo's father. Even C. Aubrey Smith, who plays the role of Juliet's father Lord Capulet, was seventy-three years old and looked it, and Henry Kolker, who portrayed Friar Lawrence, was sixty-six. Subsequent film versions would make use of "younger, less experienced but more photogenic actors"[11] in the central roles.[11] Cukor, interviewed in 1970, said of his film: "It's one picture that if I had to do over again, I'd know how. I'd get the garlic and the Mediterranean into it."[23]
Awards[edit]

Academy Award nomination
Nominee(s)
Best Picture Irving Thalberg
Best Supporting Actor Basil Rathbone
Best Actress Norma Shearer
Best Art Direction Cedric Gibbons, Fredric Hope, Edwin B. Willis
See also[edit]
Romeo and Juliet on screen
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Glancy, H. Mark "When Hollywood Loved Britain: The Hollywood 'British' Film 1939-1945" (Manchester University Press, 1999)
2.Jump up ^ Variety film review; August 26, 1936, page 20.
3.Jump up ^ Harrison's Reports film review; September 19, 1936, page 150.
4.Jump up ^ Review in New York Times
5.Jump up ^ Full cast and credits at Internet Movie Database
6.Jump up ^ Brode, Douglas Shakespeare in the Movies: From the Silent Era to Today (2001, Berkeley Boulevard, New York, ISBN 0-425-18176-6) p.43
7.Jump up ^ Thalberg, Irving - quoted by Brode, p.44
8.^ Jump up to: a b c Brode, p.44
9.Jump up ^ Tatspaugh, Patricia "The Tragedy of Love on Film" in Jackson, Russell The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film (Cambridge University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-521-63975-1) p.137
10.Jump up ^ Orgel, p.91
11.^ Jump up to: a b c d Tatspaugh, p.138
12.^ Jump up to: a b Tatspaugh, p.136
13.Jump up ^ Brode, p.47
14.Jump up ^ Brode, p. 45
15.^ Jump up to: a b c d Tatspaugh, p.137
16.Jump up ^ Romeo and Juliet II.0.1-14
17.Jump up ^ Romeo and Juliet IV.v.96-141
18.Jump up ^ Brode, p. 46
19.Jump up ^ Romeo and Juliet I.i
20.Jump up ^ Higham, Charles (Dec 1994) [1993]. Merchant of Dreams: Louis B. Mayer, M.G.M., and the Secret Hollywood (paperback ed.). Dell Publishing. p. 289. ISBN 0-440-22066-1.
21.Jump up ^ Greene, Graham reviewing George Cukor's 1936 Romeo and Juliet in The Spectator. Extracted from Greene, Graham and Taylor, John Russell (ed.) The Pleasure Dome. Collected Film Criticism 1935-40 (Oxford, 1980) cited by Jackson, Russell "From Play-Script to Screenplay" in Jackson, Russell (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film (15-34) at p.21
22.Jump up ^ Brode, p.48
23.Jump up ^ Tatspaugh, p.136, citing George Cukor. A fuller version of the quotation, used here, appears in Rosenthal, Daniel BFI Screen Guides: 100 Shakespeare Films (British Film Institute, London, 2007, ISBN 978-1-84457-170-3) p.209 (Note that these sources conflict on the date of this interview: Rosenthal says 1971.)
External links[edit]
Romeo and Juliet at the Internet Movie Database
Romeo and Juliet at the TCM Movie Database
Romeo and Juliet at AllRovi
Romeo and Juliet at Virtual History
George Cukor and cast going over script left to right: Edna Mae Oliver, Cukor, Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard, John Barrymore, Basil Rathbone, Violet Kemble-Cooper, ? unidentified, Henry Kolker

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
Films directed by George Cukor

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·

 



 

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
 
Romeo-and-Juliet-toy-theatre-cut-outs.png

 

·
·
·
·

 


·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·

 

Wikipedia book


 

Categories: English-language films
1936 films
American films
Black-and-white films
Films directed by George Cukor
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Films based on Romeo and Juliet
Films set in Italy
Films produced by Irving Thalberg


Navigation menu


Create account
Log in


Article
Talk



 

Read
Edit
View history




 Search 



Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Toolbox





Print/export



Languages
Català
Deutsch
Español
Français
Italiano
Basa Jawa
Magyar
日本語
Norsk bokmål
Polski
Português
Русский
Simple English
Edit links
This page was last modified on 17 July 2013 at 00:47.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
 Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
   


 

Romeo and Juliet (1954 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Jump to: navigation, search

Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet FilmPoster.jpeg
Directed by
Renato Castellani
Produced by
Sandro Ghenzi
Joseph Janni
Earl St. John
Written by
Renato Castellani
William Shakespeare (play)
Starring
Laurence Harvey
Susan Shentall
Music by
Roman Vlad
Cinematography
Robert Krasker
Editing by
Sidney Hayers
Distributed by
Rank Organisation (UK)
United Artists (US)
Release date(s)
1 September 1954 (UK)
 21 December 1954 (US)
Running time
138 minutes
Country
Italy/UK
Language
English
Romeo and Juliet is a 1954 film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same title. It was directed by Renato Castellani and stars Laurence Harvey as Romeo, Susan Shentall as Juliet, Flora Robson as the Nurse, Mervyn Johns as Friar Laurence, Bill Travers as Benvolio, Sebastian Cabot as Lord Capulet, Ubaldo Zollo as Mercutio, Enzo Fiermonte as Tybalt and John Gielgud as the Chorus.
The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and was named the best foreign film by the National Board of Review, which also named Castellani as best director.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Production
2 Critical attention
3 References 3.1 Notes
3.2 Sources
4 External links
Production[edit]
Joan Collins was originally announced to play Juliet.[1]
Critical attention[edit]
Renato Castellani won the Grand Prix at the Venice Film Festival for his 1954 film of Romeo and Juliet.[2] His film contains interpolated scenes intended to establish the class system and Catholicism of Renaissance Verona, and the nature of the feud. Some of Castellani's changes have been criticised as ineffective: interpolated dialogue is often banal, and the Prince's appearances are reimagined as formal hearings: undermining the spontaneity of Benvolio's defence of Romeo's behaviour in the duel scene.[3]
The major supporting roles are vastly reduced, including that of the nurse; Mercutio becomes (in the words of Daniel Rosenthal) "the tiniest of cameos", as does Tybalt, and Friar Laurence "an irritating ditherer".[4], although Pauline Kael, who admired the film, praised Mervyn Johns's performance, claiming that he transformed the Friar from a tiresome presence to "a radiantly silly little man".[5] Castellani's most prominent changes related to Romeo's character, cutting back or removing scenes involving his parents, Benvolio and Mercutio in order to highlight Romeo's isolation, and inserting a parting scene in which Montague coldly pulls his banished son out of Lady Montague's farewell embrace.[3]
Another criticism made by film scholar Patricia Tatspaugh is that the realism of the settings, so carefully established throughout the film, "goes seriously off the rails when it come to the Capulets' vault".[3] Castellani uses competing visual images in relation to the central characters: ominous grilles (and their shadows) contrasted with frequent optimistic shots of blue sky.[6] The fatal encounter between Romeo and Tybalt is here not an actual fight; the enraged Romeo simply rushes up to Tybalt and stabs him, taking him by surprise.
A well-known stage Romeo, John Gielgud, played Castellani's chorus (and would reprise the role in the 1978 BBC Shakespeare version). Laurence Harvey, as Romeo, was already an experienced screen actor, who would shortly take over roles intended for the late James Dean in Walk on the Wild Side and Summer and Smoke.[7] By contrast, Susan Shentall, as Juliet, was a secretarial student who was discovered by the director in a London pub, and was cast for her "pale sweet skin and honey-blonde hair."[8] She surpassed the demands of the role, but she married shortly after the shoot, and she never returned to the screen.[8][4]
Other parts were played by inexperienced actors, also: Mercutio was played by an architect, Montague by a gondolier from Venice, and the Prince by a novelist.[4]
Critics responded to the film as a piece of cinema (its visuals were especially admired in Italy, where it was filmed) but not as a performance of Shakespeare's play: Robert Hatch in The Nation said "We had come to see a play... perhaps we should not complain that we were shown a sumptuous travelogue", and Time's reviewer added that "Castellani's Romeo and Juliet is a fine film poem... Unfortunately it is not Shakespeare's poem!"[9]
Commercially response to the film was underwhelming. One journalist described it as the "unchallenged flop of the year".[10]
References[edit]
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "British films lifted out of doldrums for the Coronation.". The Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982) (1933 - 1982: National Library of Australia). 4 March 1953. p. 29. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
2.Jump up ^ Tatspaugh 2000, p. 138.
3.^ Jump up to: a b c Tatspaugh 2000, p. 139.
4.^ Jump up to: a b c Rosenthal 2007, pp. 213–14.
5.Jump up ^ Kael 1991, p. 639.
6.Jump up ^ Tatspaugh 2000, p. 140.
7.Jump up ^ Brode 2001, pp. 48–9.
8.^ Jump up to: a b Brode 2001, p. 51.
9.Jump up ^ Brode 2001, pp. 50–1.
10.Jump up ^ "Our "Zither Girl " had no hope.". Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 - 1954) (Perth, WA: National Library of Australia). 19 December 1954. p. 39. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
Sources[edit]
Brode, Douglas (2001). Shakespeare in the Movies: From the Silent Era to Today. New York: Berkeley Boulevard. ISBN 0-425-18176-6.
Kael, Pauline (1991). 5001 Nights at the Movies. Holt Paperbacks. ISBN 978-0-8050-1367-2.
Rosenthal, Daniel (2007). 100000. BFI Screen Guides. London: British Film Institute. ISBN 978-1-84457-170-3.
Tatspaugh, Patricia (2000). "The Tragedy of Love on Film". In Jackson, Russell. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-63975-1.
External links[edit]
Romeo and Juliet at the Internet Movie Database

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

Romeo-and-Juliet-toy-theatre-cut-outs.png

 

·
·
·
·

 


·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·

 
Wikipedia book

 

[show]
­v·
 ­t·
 ­e
 
Golden Lion-winning films

 

­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­

 

­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­


 

Categories: English-language films
1954 films
British films
Films based on Romeo and Juliet
Films shot in Technicolor
Leone d'Oro winners
Films directed by Renato Castellani
1950s romantic drama films

Navigation menu


Create account
Log in


Article
Talk



 

Read
Edit
View history




 Search 



Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Toolbox





Print/export



Languages
Français
Italiano
Nederlands
日本語
Polski
Português
Русский
Edit links
This page was last modified on 7 September 2013 at 21:21.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
 Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
   

 

Romeo and Juliet (1955 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Jump to: navigation, search

Romeo and Juliet

Directed by
Lev Arnshtam
Leonid Lavrovsky
Written by
William Shakespeare
 Lev Arnshtam
 Leonid Lavrovsky
Starring
Yuri Zhdanov
Galina Ulanova
Music by
Sergei Prokofiev
Cinematography
Yu-Lan Chen
 Aleksandr Shelenkov
Editing by
Lichorshin
Release date(s)
20 May, 1955
Running time
92 minutes
Country
Soviet Union
Language
Russian
Romeo and Juliet (Russian: Ромео и Джульетта, translit. Romeo i Dzhulyetta) is a 1955 Soviet ballet film directed by Lev Arnshtam. It was entered into the 1955 Cannes Film Festival. [1]
Cast[edit]
Galina Ulanova - Juliet
Yuri Zhdanov - Romeo (as Yu. Zhdanov)
I. Olenina - Juliet's nurse
Aleksandr Radunsky - Lord Capulet (as A. Radunsky)
Ye. Ilyushchenko - Lady Capulet
Aleksey Yermolayev - Tybalt
Sergei Koren - Mercutio (as S. Koren)
V. Kudryashov - Benvolio
L. Loshchilin - Friar Laurence
Aleksandr Lapauri - Paris (as A. Lapauri)
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "Festival de Cannes: Romeo and Juliet". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-02-01.
External links[edit]
Romeo and Juliet at the Internet Movie Database

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
Films directed by Lev Arnshtam

 
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

Romeo-and-Juliet-toy-theatre-cut-outs.png

 

·
·
·
·

 


·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·

 
Wikipedia book

 
Stub icon This article related to Soviet film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
·
·
 
Stub icon This 1950s drama film-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
·
·

 

Categories: Russian-language films
1955 films
Soviet films
1950s drama films
Films directed by Lev Arnshtam
Films based on Romeo and Juliet
Ballet films
Soviet film stubs
1950s drama film stubs



Navigation menu


Create account
Log in


Article
Talk



 

Read
Edit
View history




 Search 


Navigation
Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Toolbox
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Data item
Cite this page

Print/export
Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version

Languages
Edit links
This page was last modified on 29 September 2013 at 09:34.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
 Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
   


 

BBC Television Shakespeare

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Jump to: navigation, search

BBC Television Shakespeare
Shakespeare Collection Box.jpg
DVD Box-Set
 
Also known as
The Shakespeare Collection (UK)
The Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare (US)
Genre
Comedy, Tragedy, History
Created by
Cedric Messina
Written by
William Shakespeare
Theme music composer
William Walton (Seasons 1 & 2)
Stephen Oliver (Seasons 3-5)
Country of origin
UK
Original language(s)
English
No. of series
7
No. of episodes
37 (List of episodes)
Production

Producer(s)
Cedric Messina (Seasons 1 & 2)
Jonathan Miller (Seasons 3 & 4)
Shaun Sutton (Seasons 5, 6 & 7)
Production company(s)
Time–Life
BBC Television
Distributor
2 Entertain
 BBC DVD
Broadcast

Original channel
BBC2
Picture format
4:3
Audio format
Monaural
Original run
3 December 1978 – 27 April 1985
External links
Production website
The BBC Television Shakespeare is a series of British television adaptations of the plays of William Shakespeare, created by Cedric Messina and produced by BBC Television. It was transmitted in the UK from 3 December 1978 to 27 April 1985 and spanned seven series. Development of the series began in 1975 when Messina saw that Glamis Castle would make a perfect location for an adaptation of Shakespeare's play As You Like It. On returning to London, he envisioned an entire series devoted exclusively to the dramatic works of Shakespeare. After encountering numerous problems trying to produce the series, Messina eventually pitched the idea to the BBC’s departmental heads and the series was greenlighted. The series as a whole received generally negative reviews from critics.


Contents
  [hide] 1 Introduction 1.1 Origins
1.2 Shakespeare on the BBC
1.3 Funding
1.4 Planning
1.5 Publicity and education
1.6 Scheduling
1.7 Production 1.7.1 Early restrictions
1.7.2 Seasons 1 and 2 (Cedric Messina, producer)
1.7.3 Seasons 3 and 4 (Jonathan Miller, producer)
1.7.4 Seasons 5, 6 and 7 (Shaun Sutton, producer)
1.7.5 Reception

2 The 37 plays 2.1 Season one; Cedric Messina, producer 2.1.1 Romeo & Juliet
2.1.2 King Richard the Second
2.1.3 As You Like It
2.1.4 Julius Caesar
2.1.5 Measure for Measure
2.1.6 The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight

2.2 Season two; Cedric Messina, producer 2.2.1 The First Part of King Henry the Fourth, with the life and death of Henry surnamed Hotspur
2.2.2 The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth containing his Death: and the Coronation of King Henry the Fift
2.2.3 The Life of Henry the Fift
2.2.4 Twelfth Night, Or What You Will
2.2.5 The Tempest
2.2.6 Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

2.3 Season three; Jonathan Miller, producer 2.3.1 The Taming of the Shrew
2.3.2 The Merchant of Venice
2.3.3 All's Well That Ends Well
2.3.4 The Winter's Tale
2.3.5 Timon of Athens
2.3.6 Antony & Cleopatra

2.4 Season four; Jonathan Miller, producer 2.4.1 Othello
2.4.2 Troilus and Cressida
2.4.3 A Midsummer Night's Dream

2.5 Season Five; Shaun Sutton, producer 2.5.1 King Lear
2.5.2 The Merry Wives of Windsor
2.5.3 The First Part of Henry the Sixt
2.5.4 The Second Part of Henry the Sixt
2.5.5 The Third Part of Henry the Sixt
2.5.6 The Tragedy of Richard III

2.6 Season six; Shaun Sutton, producer 2.6.1 Cymbeline
2.6.2 Macbeth
2.6.3 The Comedy of Errors
2.6.4 The Two Gentlemen of Verona
2.6.5 The Tragedy of Coriolanus

2.7 Season seven; Shaun Sutton, producer 2.7.1 The Life and Death of King John
2.7.2 Pericles, Prince of Tyre
2.7.3 Much Ado About Nothing
2.7.4 Love's Labour's Lost
2.7.5 Titus Andronicus

3 Omissions and changes
4 Footnotes
5 See also
6 External links
Introduction[edit]
Origins[edit]
The concept for the series originated in 1975 with Cedric Messina, a BBC producer who specialised in the television production of theatrical classics, while he was on location at Glamis Castle in Angus, Scotland, shooting an adaptation of J.M. Barrie's The Little Minister for the BBC Play of the Month series.[1] During the location video-taping of the production, it occurred to Messina that the castle would make a perfect location for an adaptation of William Shakespeare's As You Like It. By the time Messina had returned to London, however, the concept had grown considerably, and he now envisioned an entire series devoted exclusively to the dramatic work of Shakespeare; a series which would adapt all thirty-seven Shakespearean plays.[2]
Almost immediately upon pitching the idea to his colleagues, however, Messina encountered problems. He had anticipated that everyone in the BBC would be excited about the concept, but this did not prove so. In particular, the Drama/Plays division felt that the series could not possibly be a financial success without international sales, which they did not see as likely. Furthermore, they argued that Shakespeare on television rarely worked, and they were of the opinion that there was simply no need to do all thirty-seven plays, as many were obscure and would not find an audience amongst the general public. Disappointed with their lack of enthusiasm, Messina went over the departmental heads, forwarding his proposal directly to Director of Programmes, Alasdair Milne and Director-general, Ian Trethowan, both of whom liked the idea.[3] Although there were still reservations within the BBC, and although Messina's decision to bypass the accepted hierarchy would not be forgotten, with the support of Milne and Trethowan, the series was greenlit, with its daunting scope championed as part of its initial appeal; "it was a grand project, no one else could do it, no one else would do it, but it ought to be done."[4] Writing several months into production, journalist Henry Fenwick wrote that the project was "gloriously British, gloriously BBC."[5]
Shakespeare on the BBC[edit]
The BBC had screened many Shakespearean adaptations before, and by 1978, the only plays which they had not shown in specifically made-for-TV adaptations were The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Titus Andronicus, Timon of Athens, Pericles, Prince of Tyre and Henry VIII.[6] However, despite this level of experience, they had never produced anything on the scale of the Shakespeare Series. Shakespeare productions had commenced on 5 February 1937 with the live broadcast of a scene from As You Like It, directed by Robert Atkins.[7] Later that evening, the wooing scene from Henry V was broadcast, directed by George More O'Ferrall.[8] O'Ferrall would oversee numerous productions of Shakespeare over the course of 1937, including extracts from Julius Caesar (11 February),[9] Much Ado About Nothing (also 11 February),[10] Macbeth (25 March),[11] Twelfth Night (14 May)[12] and Othello (14 December).[13]
Other 1937 productions included two different screenings of scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream; one directed by Dallas Bower (18 February),[14] the other an extract from Stephen Thomas' Regent's Park production, aired as part of the celebrations for Shakespeare's birthday (23 April).[14] 1937 also saw an extract from Richard III (9 April)[15] and a live broadcast of a scene from an Old Vic production of Macbeth, directed by Michel Saint-Denis (3 December).[16] In 1938, the first full-length broadcast of a Shakespeare play took place; Dallas Bower's modern dress production of Julius Caesar at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (24 July).[16] The following year, 1939, saw the first feature length made-for-TV production; The Tempest, also directed by Bower.[13] The vast majority of these transmissions were broadcast live, and they came to an end with the onset of war in 1939. None of them survive now.
After the war, Shakespearean adaptations were screened much less frequently, and tended to be more 'significant'. In 1947, for example, O'Ferrall directed and produced a made-for-TV two-part adaptation of Hamlet (5 & 15 December).[17] Other post war productions included a live broadcast of Richard II, directed by Royston Morley (29 October 1950),[18] a made-for-TV production of Henry V, directed by Morley and Leonard Brett (22 April 1951),[19] an original Sunday Night Theatre production of The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Desmond Davis (20 April 1952),[20] a TV version of John Barton's Elizabethan Theatre Company production of Henry V (19 May 1953),[21] a live performance of Lionel Harris' musical production of The Comedy of Errors specifically commissioned for Sunday Night Theatre (16 May 1954),[22] and The Life of Henry the Fifth, the inaugural programme of BBC's new World Theatre series, directed by Peter Dews (29 December 1957).[19]
There were also four multi-part made-for-TV Shakespearean adaptations shown during the 1950s and 1960s; three specifically conceived as TV productions, one a TV adaptation of a stage production. The first was The Life and Death of Sir John Falstaff (1959). Produced and directed by Ronald Eyre, and starring Roger Livesey as Falstaff, the series took all of the Falstaff scenes from the Henriad and adapted them into seven thirty minute episodes.[23] The second was An Age of Kings (1960). Produced by Peter Dews and directed by Michael Hayes, the show comprised fifteen sixty and seventy-five minute episodes which adapted all eight of Shakespeare's sequential history plays (Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, Henry V, 1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI and Richard III).[24][25] The third was The Spread of the Eagle (1963), directed and produced by Dews. Featuring nine sixty minute episodes, the series adapted the Roman plays, in chronological order of the real life events depicted; Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra.[26] The fourth series was an original TV production, but a made-for-TV "re-imagining" of a stage production; The Wars of the Roses, which was screened twice, both times in different formats. The Wars of the Roses was a three part adaptation of Shakespeare's first historical tetralogy (1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI and Richard III) which had been staged to great critical and commercial success at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in 1963, directed by John Barton and Peter Hall. At the end of its run, the production was remounted for TV, shot on the actual Royal Shakespeare Theatre stage, using the same set as the theatrical production, but not during live performances. Directed for television by Michael Hayes and Robin Midgley, it originally aired in 1965 as a three parter, just as the plays has been staged. Then, in 1966, the three plays were divided up into ten episodes of fifty minutes each and rescreened.[27][28]
Although An Age of Kings, which was the most expensive Shakespearean production up to that point, was a critical and commercial success, The Spread of the Eagle was not, and afterwards, the BBC decided to return to smaller scale productions with less financial risk.[29] In 1964, for example, they screened a live performance of Clifford Williams' Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production of The Comedy of Errors from the Aldwych Theatre.[30] 1964 also saw the broadcast of Hamlet at Elsinore, directed by Philip Saville and produced by Peter Luke. Starring Christopher Plummer as Hamlet, Robert Shaw as Claudius, Michael Caine as Horatio and Donald Sutherland as Fortinbras, the entire play was shot on-location in Helsingør, Denmark at the real Elsinore Castle.[31] In 1970, they screened The Tragedy of Richard II, sourced from Richard Cottrell's touring production, starring Ian McKellen as Richard and Timothy West as Bolingbroke.[32]
Additionally, the Play of the Month series had screened several Shakespearean adaptations over the years; Romeo and Juliet (1967), The Tempest (1968), Julius Caesar (1969), Macbeth (1970), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1971), The Merchant of Venice (1972), Love's Labour's Lost (1974) and King Lear (1975).
Funding[edit]
The BBC Television Shakespeare project was the most ambitious engagement with Shakespeare ever undertaken by either a television or film production company. So large was the project that the BBC could not finance it alone, requiring an American partner who could guarantee access to the United States market, deemed essential for the series to recoup its costs. In their efforts to source this funding, the BBC met with some initial good luck. Cedric Messina's script editor, Alan Shallcross, was the cousin of Denham Challender, executive officer of the New York branch of Morgan Guaranty Trust. Challender knew that Morgan were looking to underwrite a public arts endeavour, and he suggested the Shakespeare series to his superiors. Morgan contacted the BBC, and a deal was quickly reached.[4] However, Morgan was only willing to invest about one-third of what was needed (approximately £1.5 million/$3.6 million), and securing the rest of the necessary funding took considerably longer - almost three years.
Exxon were the next to invest; in 1976, they offered another third of the budget.[33] The following year, Time–Life, the BBC's US distributor, was contacted by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) about possible investment in the project. However, because CPB used public funding, its interest in the series caught the attention of US labour unions and theatre professionals, who objected to the idea of US money subsidising British programming. The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) began to put pressure on the CPB not to invest in the series. Joseph Papp, director of the New York Shakespeare Festival was particularly aghast, arguing that US television could do the entire canon for TV just as easily as the BBC, and publicly urging CPB not to invest.[34] Before the situation came to a head, however, the necessary third investor was found, Metropolitan Life, who offered the final third.[33] Their investment meant that with the $5.5 million invested by the BBC, plus the money from Morgan and Exxon, the project was fully funded.[6]
The complexity of this funding is indicated by the general opening credits for the US screening of each episode; "The series is made possible by grants from Exxon, Metropolitan Life, and Morgan Bank. It is a BBC-TV and Time/Life television co-production, presented for the Public Broadcasting Service by WNET/Thirteen, New York." According to Jac Venza, executive producer at WNET, "it was one of the few times that we got three separate corporate funders to agree to funding something six years into the future. That was in itself a kind of extraordinary feat."[35]
Planning[edit]
One of Messina's earliest decisions regarding the series was to hire a literary advisor; Professor John Wilders of Worcester College, Oxford. Wilders initially wanted the shows to work from completely new texts re-edited from the various quartos, octavos and folios specifically for the productions, but when the time necessary for this proved impractical, Wilders decided instead to use Peter Alexander's 1951 edition of the Complete Works as the series "bible".[36]
At first, Messina envisioned the series as having six seasons of six episodes each, the plan being to adapt the three Henry VI plays into a two-part episode. This idea was quickly rejected, however, as it was felt to be an unacceptable compromise and it was instead decided to simply have one season with seven episodes. Initially, Messina toyed with the idea of shooting the plays in the chronological order of their composition, but this plan was abandoned because it was felt that doing so would necessitate the series beginning with a run of relatively little known plays, not to mention the fact that there is no definitive chronology.[36] Instead, Messina, Wilders and Alan Shallcross decided that the first season would comprise some of the better known comedies (Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It) and tragedies (Romeo & Juliet and Julius Caesar). Measure for Measure was selected as the season's "obscure" play, and King Richard the Second was included to begin the eight-part sequence of the history plays. When the production of the inaugural episode, Much Ado About Nothing, was abandoned after it had been shot, it was replaced by The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight as the sixth episode of the season.[36]
Almost immediately, however, the concept for the historical octology ran into trouble. Messina had wanted to shoot the eight sequential history plays in chronological order of the events they depict, with linked casting and the same director for all eight adaptations (David Giles), with the sequence spread out over the entire six season run.[37] During the early planning stages for King Richard the Second and The First Part of King Henry the Fourth however, the plan for linked casting fell apart, when it was discovered that although Jon Finch (Henry Bolingbroke in Richard) could return as Henry IV, Jeremy Bulloch as Hotspur and David Swift as the Earl of Northumberland were unable to do so, and the parts would have to be recast, thus undermining the concept of shooting the plays as one sequence.[38] Ultimately, during the first season, King Richard the Second, although still directed by Giles, was treated as a stand-alone piece, whilst The First Part of King Henry the Fourth, The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth and The Life of Henry the Fift (all also directed by Giles) were treated as a trilogy during the second season, with linked casting between them (to establish a strong connection with the first season's Richard, Jon Finch returned as Henry IV, and The First Part of King Henry the Fourth opened with the murder scene of Richard from the previous play). The second four plays were then directed by Jane Howell as one unit, with a common set and linked casting, and aired during the fifth season.
Another early idea which never came to fruition was the concept of forming a single repertory acting company to perform all thirty-seven plays. The RSC were not especially pleased at this idea as it saw itself as the national repertory, but before the plan could be put into practice, the British Actors' Equity Association blocked the proposal, arguing that as many of its members as possible should get the chance to appear in the series.[34] They also wrote into their contract with the BBC that only British actors could be cast. During the planning for season two, when it came to their attention that Messina was trying to cast James Earl Jones as Othello, Equity threatened to have their members strike, thus crippling the series. This forced Messina to abandon the casting of Jones, and Othello was pushed back to a later season.[34]
Messina's initial aesthetic concept for the series was realism, especially in terms of the sets, which were to be as naturally representational as possible. This was based upon what Messina knew of TV audiences and their expectations. His opinion, supported by many of his staff, was that the majority of the audience would not be regular theatre goes who would respond to stylisation, so the only route to go was realism. Speaking of the Romeo & Juliet set, Henry Fenwick notes that

Both [director] Rakoff and Messina were sure that the play should be staged as naturalistically as possible. "You have to see a proper ballroom, a balcony, the garden, the piazza," Messina insisted. "In order to grab the audience's attention, you've got to do it as realistically as possibly," Rakoff stresses. "You're asking the audience to do a hell of a thing; the most real medium in the world is television; they're watching the news at nine o'clock and they're seeing real blood and suddenly we're saying 'Come to our pretend violence.' I've done stylised productions before, and it takes the audience a hell of a long time to get with you. You could do Romeo & Juliet against white or black drapes but I think you'd alienate a hell of a lot of the potential viewers. I would love to have tried to do Romeo outside in a Verona town somewhere."[39]
Indeed, two of the first season episodes were video-taped on location; As You Like It and The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight.
However, despite the insistence on realism, both of the initial episodes, Romeo & Juliet and King Richard the Second, featured obviously fake, newly-constructed studio-bound sets which were much criticised by reviewers for failing to achieve any sense of lived-in reality; "such half-realism repeatedly belies the very verisimilitude that was its goal."[40] The scathing reviews of the early sets led to the series adopting an even more realistic approach in future productions, especially in productions such as Twelfth Night, Or What You Will, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Cymbeline, all of which feature "a credible studio verisimilitude of exteriors, of places that work like filming on location rather than in a somewhat realistic stage or studio set."[40] However, not everyone was a fan of the more extreme realistic aesthetic. John Wilders, for example, preferred the "fake realism" of the first plays to be tackled, which he felt were "much more satisfactory than location work because the deliberate artificiality of the scenery works in harmony with the conventions of the plays. Unfortunately, it may create the impression that we have tried to build realistic sets but have failed for want of skill or money."[41] This is exactly the impression it had created and was why later episodes featured far more elaborate sets, and why realism was the general stylistic approach for the first two seasons. Only with Hamlet, Prince of Denmark at the end of the second season did the realistic mandate begin to wane, and when Jonathan Miller took over as producer at the start of season three, realism ceased to be a priority.
Publicity and education[edit]
Prior to the premier of the first episode, publicity for the series in the UK was extensive, with virtually every department at the BBC involved. As the series began, one major aspect of the publicity campaign involved press previews of each episode prior to its airing on TV, so reviews could appear before the episode aired; the idea being that good reviews might get people to watch who otherwise would not. Other publicity 'events' included a party to celebrate the commencement of the third season, at The George Inn, Southwark, near the site of the Globe Theatre, and a similar party at the start of the sixth season, in Glamis Castle, which was attended by Ian Hogg, Alan Howard, Joss Ackland, Tyler Butterworth, Wendy Hiller, Patrick Ryecart and Cyril Cusack, all of whom were on hand for interviews by the many invited journalists.[42]
In the US, the BBC hired Stone/Hallinan Associates to handle publicity. However, because the show aired on public television, many US newspapers and magazines would not cover it.[43] To launch the show in the US, a reception was held at the White House, attended by Rosalynn Carter, followed by lunch at the Folger Shakespeare Library. The main representative was Anthony Quayle, who had been cast as Falstaff for the second season Henry the Fourth episodes. It also helped that, unlike many of the other actors appearing in early episodes, Quayle was well known in the US. Also in attendance were Richard Pasco, Celia Johnson, Patrick Ryecart and Helen Mirren. James Earl Jones was initially scheduled to appear, in anticipation of the second season production of Othello, but by the time of the reception, Messina had been forced to abandon casting him.[44] In the weeks leading up to the premier, Stone/Hallinan sent out press kits for each episode, whilst Exxon produced TV and radio commercials, and MetLife held Shakespearean open days in its head office, and sent out posters and viewer guides for each episode.[45]
Another major aspect of the promotional work was supplementary educational material. For example, the BBC had their books division issue the scripts for each episode, prepared by script editor Alan Shallcross (seasons 1 and 2) and David Snodin (seasons 3 and 4) and edited by Henry Fenwick. Each publication included an introduction by literary consultant John Wilders, an essay on the production itself by Fenwick, interviews with the cast and crew, also by Fenwick, photographs, a glossary and annotations on textual alterations, with explanations as to why certain cuts had been made.
As well as the published annotated scripts, the BBC also produced two complimentary shows designed to help viewers engage with the plays on a more scholarly level; the radio series Prefaces to Shakespeare and the TV show Shakespeare in Perspective. Prefaces was a series of thirty minute shows focused on the performance history of each play, with commentary provided by an actor who had performed the play in the past. He or she would discuss the general stage history, as well as their own experiences working on the play, with each episode airing on BBC Radio 4 one to three nights prior to the screening of the actual episode on BBC 2. Over the course of the seven years, presenters included Peggy Ashcroft (speaking about Romeo and Juliet), Janet Suzman (As You Like It), Ronald Pickup (Julius Caesar), Judi Dench (Measure for Measure), Michael Redgrave (The First Part of King Henry the Fourth), Timothy West (The Merchant of Venice), Bob Peck (Othello) and Patrick Stewart (Titus Andronicus).[46]
The TV supplement, Shakespeare in Perspective, was a more generally educational show, with each twenty-five minute episode dealing with various aspects of the production, hosted by various well-known figures, who, generally speaking, were not involved in Shakespeare per se. Presenters included journalist Germaine Greer (Romeo & Juliet), psychologist Fred Emery (The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth), playwright Wolf Mankowitz (The Merchant of Venice), TV presenter Barry Took (All's Well That Ends Well), journalist Anna Raeburn (Antony & Cleopatra), historian Michael Wood (The First Part of Henry the Sixt) and novelist Rosemary Anne Sisson (The Tragedy of Richard III).[47] Aired on BBC 2 the night before the transmission of the show itself, the main intention of the series was "to enlighten a new audience for Shakespeare on television, attract people to the plays and give them some background material. [The presenters] encapsulated the stories of the plays, provided an historical framework, where feasible, and offer some original thoughts which might intrigue those already familiar with the text."[48] The level of scholarship was purposely gauged for O and A-level exams, with presenters writing their own scripts. However, the series often ran into trouble. For the show on Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, for example, when the crew turned up to shoot, the presenter stated simply, "This is one of the silliest plays ever written, and I have nothing to say about it." This prompted a hastily organised program hosted by Clive James.[49]
The biggest problem with Perspective, however, and the one most frequently commented upon in reviews, was that the presenter of each episode had not seen the production about which he/she was speaking, and oftentimes, there was a disparity between their remarks and the interpretation offered by the show. For example, poet Stephen Spender's comments about The Winter's Tale being a play of great beauty which celebrates the cycles of nature seemed at odds with Jane Howell's semi-stylised single-set production, where a lone tree was used to represent the change in seasons. The most commented upon example of this disparity was in relation to Cymbeline, which was hosted by playwright and screenwriter Dennis Potter. In his review for The Observer of both the production and the Perspective show, Julian Barnes wrote "several furlongs understandably separate the left hand of the BBC from the right one. Only rarely, though, do we witness such a cameo of intermanual incomprehension as occurred last week within their Shakespeare cycle: the right hand seizing a hammer and snappishly nailing the left hand to the arm of the chair." Barnes points out that clearly, Potter had not seen the play when recording his commentary; in fact, he had recorded his Perspective episode before Cymbeline had even been shot. According to Barnes,

Potter was first discovered lurking among the mossy rocks and echoing grottoes of the Forest of Dean, fit backdrop, he explained, to introduce a play full of "the stonily mysterious landscapes of both my own childhood and all our fairytale-ridden memories." He urged us lullingly into the world of dream: "Cast your mind back to the dusky evenings of childhood. Your eyelids are drooping [...] the warm, cosy house is preparing itself to drift off, unanchored, into the night [...] the realm of once upon a time." Megaliths and memory, ferns and faerie: such was the world of Cymbeline. Elijah Moshinsky, the director, obviously hadn't heard. Faerie was out; rocks were off; stonily mysterious landscapes could get stuffed. Ancient Britain in the reign of Augustus Caesar became a foppish 17th-century court, with nods to Rembrandt, Van Dyck and (when Helen Mirren was caught in a certain light and a certain dress) Vermeer. The fairytale Mr Potter had promised became a play of court intrigue and modern passion: a sort of offcut from Othello.[50]
In the US, WNET planned a similar series of thirty minute programs to act as general introductions to each episode. This created something of a media circus when they (half) jokingly asked Joseph Papp if he would be interested in hosting it.[51] Ultimately, however, they abandoned the idea and simply aired the BBC's Shakespeare in Perspective episodes. In terms of US Radio publicity, in 1979, National Public Radio (NPR) aired Shakespeare Festival; a series of operas and music programs based on Shakespeare's plays, as well as a two-hour docudrama, William Shakespeare: A Portrait in Sound, written and directed by William Luce, and starring Julie Harris and David Warner. They also broadcast a lecture series from the Lincoln Center, featuring Samuel Schoenbaum, Maynard Mack and Daniel Seltzer. Additionally, NPR station WQED-FM aired half-hour introductions to each play the week before the TV broadcast of the episode. However, when the early episodes of the show did not achieve the kind of ratings which had been initially hoped, financing for publicity quickly dried up; a Shakespeare variety show planned for PBS in 1981, set to star Charlton Heston, Robin Williams, Richard Chamberlain and Chita Rivera, failed to find an underwriter and was cancelled.[52] The Folger Shakespeare Library's Shakespeare: The Globe and the World, a multimedia touring exhibition, was more successful and travelled to cities all over the country for the first two seasons of the show.[53]
Much as the UK promotional efforts by the BBC focused at least partially on education, so too did US publicity, where the underwriters spent as much on the educational material as they did on underwriting the series itself. The job of handling the US educational outreach program was given to Tel-Ed, a subsidiary of Stone/Hallinan. Educational efforts were focused on middle school and high school, which is when US students first encounter Shakespeare. Tel-Ed had a three pronged goal; making students familiar with more plays (most schools taught only Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar and Macbeth), encouraging students to actually enjoy Shakespeare, and having Shakespeare taught more frequently. Tel-Ed's aim was to make the entire series available to every high-school in the US. During the first season, they sent out 36,000 educational packs to English departments, receiving 18,000 requests for further information.[53] The educational aspect of the series was considered such a success in the US that when the show went off the air in 1985, Morgan Bank continued with educational efforts, creating The Shakespeare Hour in 1986. The concept of the show was that episodes of the BBC Television Shakespeare would be presented specifically as educational tools. Planned as a three year show with five episodes per year over a fifteen week season, the series would group plays together thematically. Walter Matthau was hired as host, and each episode featured documentary material intercut with extensive clips from the BBC productions themselves. A book was also published with the full transcript of each episode; The Shakespeare Hour: A Companion to the PBS-TV Series, edited by Edward Quinn. In all, the first season cost $650,000, but everyone expected it to be a success. Covering the theme of love, it used A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, Or What You Will, All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure and King Lear. However, the show achieved very poor ratings and was cancelled at the end of the first season. The second season had been set to cover power (King Richard the Second, The First Part of King Henry the Fourth, The Tragedy of Richard III, The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth and Julius Caesar), with the third looking at revenge (The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest and Othello).[54]
Scheduling[edit]
The scope of the series meant that from the very beginning, scheduling was a major concern. Everyone knew that achieving good ratings for thirty-seven episodes over six years was not going to be easy, and to ensure that this could be accomplished, the BBC were (at first) rigorous about the show's schedule. Each of the six season was to be broadcast in two sections; three weekly broadcasts in late winter, followed by a short break, and then three weekly broadcasts in early spring. This was done so as to maximise marketing in the lead up to Christmas, and then capitalise on the traditionally quiet period in early spring.[55] The first season followed this model perfectly, with broadcasts in 1978 on 3 December (Romeo & Juliet), 10 December (King Richard the Second) and 17 December (Measure for Measure), and in 1979 on 11 February (As You Like It), 18 February (Julius Caesar) and 25 February (The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight). All episodes were broadcast on BBC 2 on a Sunday, and all began at eight o'clock, with a five minute interval around 9 for News on 2 and a weather report. The second season began with the same system, with productions in 1979 on 9 December (The First Part of King Henry the Fourth), 16 December (The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth) and 23 December (The Life of Henry the Fift). However, the schedule then began to run into problems. The fourth episode, Twelfth Night, Or What You Will was shown on Sunday, 6 January 1980, but the fifth episode, The Tempest was not shown until Wednesday, 27 February, and the sixth, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (which had been held up because of Derek Jacobi's schedule) did not air until Sunday, 25 May.
Moving into the third season, under Jonathan Miller's producership, the scheduling, as was commented on by many critics at the time, seemed nothing short of random. Episode one of season three (The Taming of the Shrew) aired on Wednesday, 23 October 1980. The following episode (The Merchant of Venice) aired on Wednesday, 17 December, followed by All's Well on Sunday, 4 January 1981, The Winter's Tale on Sunday, 8 February, Timon of Athens on Thursday, 16 April and Antony & Cleopatra on Friday, 8 May. Miller's second season as producer was even more erratic, with only three episodes appearing during the entire season; Othello on Sunday, 4 October 1981, Troilus and Cressida on Saturday, 7 November and A Midsummer Night's Dream on Sunday, 13 December. The fourth season saw no second section, with the next group of episodes not appearing until the fifth season in September 1982, under Shaun Sutton's producership. Sutton's scheduling, if anything, was even more random than Miller's; the fifth season began with King Lear on Sunday, 19 September, but this was not followed until The Merry Wives of Windsor on Tuesday, 28 December. The first historical tetralogy temporarily regularised the schedule, and was aired on successive Sundays; 2, 9, 16 and 23 January 1983. The sixth season began with Cymbeline on Sunday, 10 July, but the second episode did not follow until Saturday, 5 November (Macbeth). The Comedy of Errors aired on Saturday, 24 December, followed only three days later by The Two Gentlemen of Verona on Tuesday, 27 December, with The Tragedy of Coriolanus bringing the season to a close on Saturday, 21 April 1984. Season seven aired entirely on Saturdays; The Life and Death of King John on 24 November, Pericles, Prince of Tyre on 8 December, Much Ado About Nothing on 22 December, Love's Labour's Lost on 5 January 1985, and finally Titus Andronicus on 27 April.
Scheduling was even more complex in the US. In the UK, each episode could start at any time and run for any length without any major problems, because shows are not trimmed to fit slots; rather slots are arranged to fit shows. In the US however, TV worked on very rigid time slots; a show could not run, say, 138 minutes, it must run either 120 or 150 minutes to fit into the existing slot. Additionally, whereas the BBC included an intermission of five minutes roughly half way through each show, PBS had to have an intermission every sixty minutes. Several of the shows in the first season left 'gaps' in the US time slots of almost twenty minutes, which had to be filled with something. In seasons one and two, any significant time gaps at the end of a show were filled by Renaissance music performed by the Waverly Consort. When Jonathan Miller took over as producer at the end of the second season, WNET suggested something different; each episode should have a two minute introduction, followed by interviews with the director and a cast member at the end of the episode, which would be edited to run however long was necessary to plug the gaps.[56] However, moving into season five, WNET had no money left to record any more introductions or interviews, and the only alternative was to actually cut the episodes to fit the time slots, much to the BBC's chagrin. The productions that caused the most trouble were Jane Howell's Henry VI/Richard III series. Running a total of fourteen hours, WNET felt that airing the shows in four straight back-to-back segments would not work. First, they changed the schedule to air the episodes on Sunday afternoon as opposed to the usual Monday evening screening, then they divided the three Henry VI plays into two parts each. Finally, they cut a total of 77 minutes from the three productions (35 were taken from The Third Part of Henry the Sixt alone). In an effort to help trim The First Part of Henry the Sixt, much early dialogue was cut, and instead a voice over introduction recorded, ironically, by James Earl Jones was added, informing viewers of the necessary backstory. Strangely, however, The Tragedy of Richard III (the longest of the four) was aired as one piece, with only 3 minutes cut.[57]
Production[edit]
Early restrictions[edit]
Because the US investors had put up so much money for the project, the backers were able to write aesthetic guidelines into the contract. However, as most of these guidelines conformed to Messina's vision of the series anyway ("to make solid, basic televised versions of Shakespeare's plays to reach a wide television audience and to enhance the teaching of Shakespeare"[58]), they created no major problems. The most important of these stipulations was that the productions must be "traditional" interpretations of the plays set in either Shakespeare's time (1564 to 1616) or in the period of the events depicted (such as ancient Rome for Julius Caesar or c1400 for Richard II). A two and a half hour maximum running time was also mandated, although this was soon jettisoned when it became clear that the major tragedies in particular would suffer severely if truncated too heavily. The initial way around this was to split the longer plays into two sections, showing them on separate nights, but this idea was also discarded, and it was agreed that for the major plays, length was not an overly important issue.[59]
The restriction regarding conservative, traditional interpretations was non-negotiable, however. The financiers were primarily concerned with ratings, and the restrictions worked to this end, ensuring the plays had "maximum acceptability to the widest possible audience." However, as practical a stipulation as this way, such decisions "demonstrate that far more concern was spent on financial matters than on interpretative or aesthetic issues in planning the series."[60] Messina himself, however, had no problem with any of these restrictions, as they conformed to his initial vision of the series; "we've not done anything too sensational in the shooting of it - there's no arty-crafty shooting at all. All of them are, for want of a better word, straightforward productions."[61]
These restrictions had a practical origin, but they soon led to a degree of aesthetic fallout;

the underwriters simply proposed to disseminate the plays widely for cultural and educational benefit. Many people, they hoped, might see Shakespeare performed for the first time in the televised series, a point Messina emphasised repeatedly; others would doubtless recite the lines along with the actors [...] consequently, expectations and criteria for judgement would either be virtually non-existent or quite high [...] Did it matter how good the productions were so long as they were "acceptable" by some standards - audience share, critical reception, or overseas sales? Being acceptable is not always synonymous with being good, however, and initially the goal seems to have been the former, with a few forays into the latter.[62]
Partly because of this aesthetic credo, the series quickly developed a reputation for being overly conventional. As a result, when Miller would later try to persuade renowned directors such as Peter Brook, Ingmar Bergman, William Gaskill and John Dexter to direct adaptations, he would fail.[63] Reviewing the first two seasons of the series for Critical Quarterly, in an article entitled "BBC Television's Dull Shakespeares", Martin Banham quoted from a publicity extract written by Messina in which he stated "there has been no attempt at stylisation, there are no gimmicks; no embellishments to confuse the student." Banham opines that some of the best recent theatrical productions have been extremely "gimmicky" in the sense of "adventurous," whereas the opening two episodes of the series were simply "unimaginative" and more concerned with visual "prettiness" than dramatic quality.[64]
In light of such criticism about the conservative nature of the early productions, Jac Venza defended the strictures, pointing out that the BBC was aiming to make programs with a long life span; they were not a theatre company producing a single run of plays for an audience already familiar with those plays, who would value novelty and innovation. They were making TV adaptations of plays for an audience the vast majority of whom would be unfamiliar with most of the material. Venza pointed out that many of the critics who most vehemently attacked the show's traditional and conservative nature were those who were regular theatre goes and/or Shakespearean scholars, and who were essentially asking for something the BBC never intended to produce. They wanted to reach a wide audience and get more people interested in Shakespeare, and as such, novelty and experimentation was not part of the plan, a decision which Venza calls "very sensible."[65]
Seasons 1 and 2 (Cedric Messina, producer)[edit]
Unfortunately for everyone involved in the series, production got off to the worst possible start. The inaugural episode was set to be Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Donald McWhinnie, and starring Penelope Keith and Michael York.[66] The episode was shot (costing £250,000), edited and even publicly announced as the opening of the series, before it was suddenly pulled from the schedule and replaced with Romeo & Juliet (which was supposed to air as the second episode). No reasons were given by the BBC for this decision, although initial newspaper reports suggested that the episode had not been abandoned, it had simply been postponed for re-shoots, due to an unspecified actor's "very heavy accent," and concerns that US audiences would not be able to understand the dialogue.[67] However, as time wore on, and no reshoots materialised, the press began to speculate that the show had been cancelled entirely, and would be replaced at a later date by a completely new adaptation, which was in fact what happened.[68] The press also pointed out that the fact that the production was never shown in Britain rubbished any suggestion that the prevailing cause for the abandonment was to do with accents. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that BBC management simply regarded the production as a failure.[69] This issue, happening as it did at the very commencement of the series, would have lasting repercussions;

the actual cause of the problem apparently stemmed from internal politics, an internecine struggle focused on Messina rather than on the show, its director, or the performers, a struggle that left lasting scars. While Messina was the man to plan the series, it seemed he was not the man to produce it. He was part of too many power struggles; too many directors would not work for him; he proceeded with too many of the traditional production habits. The battle over Much Ado was actually a battle over power and the producership; once Messina lost and the show was cancelled, his tenure as producer was jeopardized.[70]
Another early problem for Messina was that the US publicity campaign for the show had touted the productions as "definitive" adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, prompting much criticism from theatre professionals, filmmakers and academics. Messina and Shallcross strenuously denied ever stating that the productions would be "definitive," claiming that the US publicity people had used that word on their own.[71] Nevertheless, the claim that the show would feature "definitive" productions was often raised and attacked by the US media during its seven year run, especially when an episode did not live up to expectations.[72]
From a practical point of view, during his tenure as producer, Messina was not overly involved in the actual taping of each episode. While he chose the director, assisted in the principal casting, attended some rehearsals, visited the set from time to time, and occasionally watched the editing, the director was responsible for the major aesthetic decisions – camera placement and movement, blocking, production design, costumes, music and editing.[73] Messina's legacy regarding the BBC Television Shakespeare can perhaps best be seen as something of a mixed bag; "what the initial Messina years cost the series in tensions, alienations, and lack of fresh thought or vigorous technical/aesthetic planning it would never recover. That we have the televised Shakespeare series at all is entirely due to Messina; that we have the Shakespeare series we have and not perhaps a better, more exciting one is also in large part due to Messina."[63]
Seasons 3 and 4 (Jonathan Miller, producer)[edit]
During Messina's tenure as producer, as per the financiers' restrictions, the adaptations tended to be conservative, but when Jonathan Miller took over at the start of season three, he completely revamped things. On a superficial level, for example, he instituted a new title sequence and replaced William Walton's theme music with a newly composed piece by Stephen Oliver. Miller's changes went much deeper, however. Whereas Messina had favoured a realism-based approach which worked to simplify the texts for audiences unfamiliar with Shakespeare, Miller was against any kind of aesthetic or intellectual dilution. Messina's theory was based on his many years of experience in television, and according to Martin Wiggins, it was exactly Miller's lack of such experience that led to his aesthetic overhaul of the show; Miller came from

outside the BBC's tradition of painstaking research and accurate historical verisimilitude [...] Messina's approach had treated the plays in realistic terms as events which had once taken place and which could be literally represented on screen. Miller saw them as products of a creative imagination, artefacts in their own right to be realised in production using the visual and conceptual materials of their period. This led to a major reappraisal of the original production guidelines.[38]
Susan Willis makes a similar point; "instead of doing what the BBC usually did, Miller saw the series as a means of examining the limits of televised drama, of seeing what the medium could do; it was an imaginative, creative venture."[63] Miller was in many ways the polar opposite of Messina;

if the Messina productions were predominantly set in the historical periods referred to, Miller's were insistently Renaissance in dress and attitude. If television was supposed to be based on realism, Miller took the productions straight into the visual arts of the period. If most earlier productions had been visually filmic, Miller emphasized the theatrical. If the previous interpretations were basically solid and straightforward, Miller encouraged stronger, sharper renditions, cutting across the grain, vivid and not always mainstream.[74]
Miller himself stated "I think it's very unwise to try to represent on the television screen something which Shakespeare did not have in his mind's eye when he wrote those lines. You have to find some counterpart of the unfurnished stage that Shakespeare wrote for without, in fact, necessarily reproducing a version of the Globe theatre. Because there's no way in which you can do that [...] What details you do introduce must remind the audience of the sixteenth century imagination."[75] For Miller, the best way to do this was by using the work of famous artists as visual inspiration and references points;

it's the director's job, quite apart from working with actors and getting subtle and energetic performances out of them, to act as the chairman of a history faculty and of an art-history faculty. Here was a writer who was immersed in the themes and notions of his time. The only way in which you can unlock that imagination is to immerse yourself in the themes in which he was immersed. And the only way you can do that is by looking at the pictures which reflect the visual world of which he was a part and to acquaint yourself with the political and social issues with which he was preoccupied - trying, in some way, to identify yourself with the world which was his.[76]
On this subject, Susan Willis writes

Miller had a vision of Shakespeare as an Elizabethan/Jacobean playwright, as a man of his time in social, historical, and philosophical outlook. The productions Miller himself directed reflect this belief most clearly of course, but he also evoked such an awareness in the other directors. If there was not to be a single stylistic "signature" to the plays under Miller's producership, there was more nearly an attitudinal one. Everything was reflexive for the Renaissance artist, Miller felt, most especially historical references, and so Antony of Rome, Cleopatra of Egypt and both Timon and Theseus of Athens take on a familiar late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century manner and look.[77]
As this indicates, Miller adopted a visual and design policy of sets and costumes inspired by great paintings of the era in which the play were written, though the style was dominated by the post-Shakespearean 17th century artists Vermeer and Rembrandt. In this sense, "art provides not just a look in Miller's productions; it provided a mode of being, a redolence of the air breathed in that world, an intellectual climate in addition to a physical space."[78] This policy allowed other directors to stamp more of their own aesthetic credo on the productions than had been possible under Messina. According to Miller himself,

when the BBC started to imagine [the] series, there was a notion of an 'authentic' Shakespeare: something that should be tampered with as little as possible, so that one could present to an innocent audience Shakespeare as it might have been before the over-imaginative director arrived on the scene. I think this was a misconception: the hypothetical version which they saw as being authentic was actually something remembered from thirty years before; and in itself presumably widely divergent from what was performed at the inaugural production four hundred years ago. I thought it was much better to acknowledge the open-ended creativity of any Shakespeare production, since there is no way of returning to an authentic Globe Theatre version [...] There are all sorts of unforeseeable meanings which might attach to the play, simply by virtue of the fact that it has survived into a period with which the author was not acquainted, and is therefore able to strike chords in the imagination of a modern audience which could not have been struck in an audience when it was first performed [...] the people who actually inaugurated the series seemed conspicuously unacquainted with what had happened to Shakespeare, didn't know the academic work, and actually had an old-fashioned show-biz hostility to the academic world [...] I was limited none the less by certain contractual requirements which had been established before I came on the scene with the American sponsors: there are however all sorts of ways of skinning that kind of cat, and even with the requirement that I had to set things in so-called traditional costume, there were liberties which they could not foresee, and which I was able to take.[79]
Speaking more directly, Elijah Moshinsky assessed Miller's contribution to the series by arguing that "it was only Miller's appointment that pulled the series out of its artistic nosedive."[80] Speaking of the US restrictions, Miller stated "the brief was "no monkey-tricks" - but I think monkey-tricks is at least 50 percent of what interesting directing is about [...] The fact is that monkey-tricks are only monkey-tricks when they don't work. A monkey-trick that comes off is a stroke of genius. If you start out with a quite comprehensive self-denying ordinance of "no monkey-tricks", then you really are very much shackled."[81] Similarly, speaking after he had stepped aside as producer at the end of the fourth season, Miller stated "I did what I wanted to do [...] The sponsors insisted that it was a traditional thing, that it didn't disturb people by bizarre setting. And I said, okay, fine, but, I'll disturb them with bizarre interpretations."[82] As this suggests, Miller was not interested in stage tradition; he did not create a heroic Antony, a farcical Shrew or a sluttish Cressida. His Othello had little to do with race and his Lear was more of a family man than a regal titan. Miller himself spoke of his dislike for "canonical performances", stating "I think there is a conspiracy in the theatre to perpetuate certain prototypes in the belief that they contain the secret truth of the characters in question. This collusion between actors and directors is broken only by successful innovation which interrupts the prevailing mode."[83]
The first episode shot under Miller's producership was Antony & Cleopatra (although the first to air would be The Taming of the Shrew), and it was in this episode, which he also directed, where he introduced his design policies, as he set about "permeating the design with the Renaissance view of the ancient world, for he observed that the Renaissance saw the classical world in terms of itself, with a contemporary rather than an archaeological awareness; they treated classical subjects but always dressed them anachronistically in Renaissance garments."[78]
However, although there was definitely a new sense of aesthetic freedom with Miller as producer, this freedom could not be pushed too far. For example, when Miller hired Michael Bogdanov to direct Timon of Athens, Bogdanov proposed an Oriental themed modern-dress production. The financers refused to sanction the idea, and Miller had to insist that Bogdanov remain within the aesthetic guidelines, leading Bogdanov to quit, and Miller himself to take over as director.[84] One aspect of Messina's producership which Miller did reproduce was the tendency not to get too involved in the actual shooting of the productions which he was not directing. After appointing a director and choosing a cast, he would make suggestions and be on hand to answer questions, but his belief was that "the job of the producer is to make conditions as favourable and friendly as they possibly can be, so that [the directors'] imagination is given the best possible chance to work."[81]
Seasons 5, 6 and 7 (Shaun Sutton, producer)[edit]
Whereas the BBC had looked for an outsider to inject fresh ideas into the project at the start of season three, they turned inwards once more in finding someone to bring the series to a conclusion; Shaun Sutton. Miller had rejuvenated the series aesthetically and his productions had saved its reputation with critics, but the show had fallen badly behind schedule, with Miller overseeing only nine episodes instead of twelve during his two year producership. Sutton was brought in to make sure the show was completed without going too far over schedule. Officially, Sutton produced seasons five, six and seven, but in actual fact, he took over producership half-way through the filming of the Henry VI/Richard III tetralogy, which filmed from September 1981 to April 1982, and aired during season five in early 1983. Miller produced The First Part of Henry the Sixt and The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, Sutton produced The Third Part of Henry the Sixt and The Tragedy of Richard III. Sutton also produced the Miller directed King Lear, which was shot in March and April 1982, and aired as the season five opener in October 1982. As such, unlike the transition from Messina to Miller, the transition from Miller to Sutton was virtually unnoticeable.
At the start of season six, Sutton followed in Miller's footsteps by altering the opening of the show. He kept Miller's title sequence, but he dropped Stephen Oliver's theme music, and instead the music composed specifically for each episode served as the opening title music for that episode (except for The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which had no original music, so Oliver's theme music from seasons 3-5 was used).
When asked how he felt about Messina's time as producer, Sutton responded simply "I thought the approach was a little ordinary, and that we could do better."[85] Sutton also continued with Messina's and Miller's tendency to let the directors get on with the job;

three things matter in all drama; there is the script, the director and the cast. If you've got those three right, it doesn't matter if you do it on cardboard sets, or moderately lit - it doesn't even matter in television sometimes if it is badly shot [...] scripts are the foundation of the whole thing, rather than the way you present them. Writers, directors, actors; if those three are good, you can do it on the back of a cart.[86]
The project was Sutton's retirement job after twelve years as the head of BBC Drama and he was under strict orders to bring the series to a close, something which he did successfully, with the broadcast of Titus Andronicus roughly twelve months later than the series had initially been set to wrap.
Reception[edit]
Messina's gamble in 1978 had proved successful as the series was a financial success, and by 1982 was turning a profit. According to Brian Wenham, controller of BBC 2, "Shakespeare is the only series of programmes whose sales have completely covered their costs."[87] This was primarily because of sales to foreign markets, with far more countries showing the series than was initially expected; as well as the UK and the US, the show was screened in Australia, Austria, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Belgium, Bhutan, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Columbia, Czechoslovakia, Dubai, Egypt, France, Greece, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Korea, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Venezuela, West Germany and Yugoslavia.[88]
Writing for the Los Angeles Times in 1985, Cecil Smith noted "the series has been the target of critical catcalls on both sides of the Atlantic, shabbily treated by many PBS stations, and often ignored or damned as dull, dull, dull."[89] The early episodes in particular came in for criticism. Speaking of Romeo & Juliet, Clive James wrote "Verona seemed to have been built on very level ground, like the floor of a television studio. The fact that this artificiality was half accepted, half denied, told you that you were not in Verona at all, but in that semi-abstract, semi-concrete, wholly uninteresting city which is known to students as Messina."[90] Also speaking of Romeo & Juliet, Richard Last predicted that "the BBC Television Shakespeare will be, above all else, stylistically safe. Tradition and consolidation, rather than adventure or experiment, are to be the touchstones."[91] In his review of both Romeo & Juliet and King Richard the Second, Christopher Nicholson sounded similar sentiments;

With two plays down and thirty-five still to go, is it churlish already to raise doubts? So awed, so reverential, so safe have these first two productions been that the BBC appears in danger of embalming, not offering Shakespeare for the delight of the wider public. Thus it must be more adventurous. They must be less stagey and more willing to let the camera get up to some of its tricks. The BBC has been munificent. They should also steel themselves to be bold and ever so slightly bloody.[92]
In his review of the first season, Sean Day-Lewis stated that Romeo & Juliet, As You Like It and Julius Caesar were unsuccessful, whilst King Richard the Second, Measure for Measure and The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight were successful. However, even in the failures, he found qualities and as such "it has not been a bad start, given some directors new to the problems of translating Shakespeare to television."[93]
Reviewing the second season production of The Tempest, Stanley Reynolds opined that although "there is very little for purists to find fault with [...] the most damning thing you could say about it [is] there is nothing to stir the blood to hot flashes of anger or to the electric joy of a new experience. What we got was some more of the BBC's ghastly middle taste."[94]
Much of the reception of the series as a whole was negative. For example, Andrew Rissik wrote "it must now be apparent as the BBC wind up their Shakespeare with Titus Andronicus - that the whole venture has been reckless and misguided [...] Messina's first productions were clumsy and unspecific, badly shot in the main and indifferently cast. Miller's productions were a clear improvement; their visual style was precise and distinctive and the casting, on the whole, intelligently done [...] But the series has not been a success."[95] Speaking more bluntly, Michael Bogdanov called the series "the greatest disservice to Shakespeare in the last 25 years."[96]
The 37 plays[edit]
Season one; Cedric Messina, producer[edit]
Romeo & Juliet[edit]
Directed by Alvin Rakoff
Taping dates: 31 January-5 February 1978
First transmitted in the UK: 3 December 1978
First transmitted in the US: 14 March 1979
Running Time (PAL DVD): 168 minutes
Patrick Ryecart as Romeo
Rebecca Saire as Juliet
Celia Johnson as Nurse
Michael Hordern as Capulet
John Gielgud as Chorus
Joseph O'Conor as Friar Laurence
Laurence Naismith as Prince Escalus
Anthony Andrews as Mercutio
Alan Rickman as Tybalt
Jacqueline Hill as Lady Capulet
Christopher Strauli as Benvolio
Christopher Northey as Paris
Peter Henry as Peter
Roger Davidson as Balthasar
John Paul as Montague
Zulema Dene as Lady Montague
Esmond Knight as Old Capulet
David Sibley as Sampson
Jack Carr as Gregory
Bunny Reed as Abraham
Vernon Dobtcheff as Apothecary
John Savident as Friar John
Danny Schiller as Musician
Jeremy Young as 1st Watch
Jeffrey Chiswick as 2nd Watch
Gary Taylor as Potpan
Mark Arden as Page
Robert Burbage as Page
Alan Bowerman as 1st Citizen
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Rebecca Saire was only fourteen when the production was filmed, an unusually young age for an actress playing Juliet (even though she is only thirteen in the play itself). During publicity for the production, Saire gave several interviews in which she criticised director Alvin Rakoff, stating that in his interpretation, Juliet is too childlike and asexual, much to the horror of the series producers, who cancelled several scheduled interviews with the actress in the lead up to broadcast.[97]
King Richard the Second[edit]
Directed by David Giles
Taping dates: 12–17 April 1978
First transmitted in the UK: 10 December 1978
First transmitted in the US: 28 March 1979
Running Time (PAL DVD): 158 minutes
Derek Jacobi as King Richard
John Gielgud as John of Gaunt
Jon Finch as Henry Bolingbroke
Wendy Hiller as the Duchess of York
Charles Gray as Duke of York
Mary Morris as the Duchess of Gloucester
David Swift as the Duke of Northumberland
Clifford Rose as the Bishop of Carlisle
Charles Keating as Duke of Aumerle
Richard Owens as Thomas Mowbray
Janet Maw as the Queen
Jeffrey Holland as the Duke of Surrey
Jeremy Bulloch as Henry Percy
Robin Sachs as Bushy
Damien Thomas as Bagot
Alan Dalton as Green
David Dodimead as Lord Ross
John Flint as Lord Willoughby
Carl Oatley as Earl Berkeley
William Whymper as Sir Stephen Scroop
John Barcroft as Earl of Salisbury
David Garfield as Welsh Captain
Desmond Adams as Sir Pierce of Exton
Joe Ritchie as Groom
Paddy Ward as Keeper
Bruno Barnabe as Abbot of Westminster
Jonathan Adams as Gardener
Alan Collins as Gardener's Man
John Curless as Lord Fitzwater
Terry Wright as Murderer
Ronald Fernee as Servant
Tom Brown as Herald
Mike Lewin as Herald
Phillida Sewell as Queen's Lady
Sandra Frieze as Queen's Lady
Behind the scenes[edit]
This episode was repeated on 12 December 1979 in the UK and on 19 March 1980 in the US, as a lead-in to the Henry IV/Henry V trilogy. The Shakespeare in Perspective episode which introduced this production was hosted by historian Paul Johnson, who argued that the Henriad very much advanced the Tudor myth. Graham Holderness also saw the four productions as advancing the myth, by "illustrating the violation of natural social 'order' by the deposition of a legitimate king."[98] Director David Giles shot the episode in such a way as to create a visual metaphor for Richard's position in relation to the court. Early in the production, he is constantly seen above the rest of the characters, especially at the top of stairs, but he always descends to the same level as everyone else, and often ends up below them. As the episode goes on, his positioning above characters becomes less and less frequent.[99] An interpretative move by Giles which was especially well received by critics was his division of Richard's lengthy prison cell soliloquy up into a number of sections, which fade from one to another, suggesting a passage of time, and an on-going slowly developing thought process.[100]
As You Like It[edit]
Directed by Basil Coleman
Taping dates: 30 May-16 June 1978
First transmitted in the UK: 17 December 1978
First transmitted in the US: 28 February 1979
Running Time (PAL DVD): 150 minutes
Helen Mirren as Rosalind
Brian Stirner as Orlando
Richard Pasco as Jaques
Angharad Rees as Celia
James Bolam as Touchstone
Clive Francis as Oliver
Richard Easton as Duke Frederick
Tony Church as Duke Senior
John Quentin as Le Beau
Maynard Williams as Silvius
Victoria Plucknett as Phebe
Marilyn Le Conte as Audrey
Tom McDonnell as Amiens
David Lloyd Meredith as Corin
Arthur Hewlett as Adam
Jeffrey Holland as William
Timothy Bateson as Sir Oliver Martext
David Prowse as Charles the Wrestler
John Moulder-Brown as Hyman
Paul Bentall as Jacques de Boys
Chris Sullivan as Dennis
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Filmed at Glamis Castle in Scotland, this was one of only two productions shot on location, the other being The Famous History of the Life of Henry the Eight. However, the location shooting received a lukewarm response from both critics and the BBC's own people, with the general consensus being that the natural world in the episode overwhelmed the actors and the story.[101] The idea to shoot the play in a real forest was Cedric Messina's own. Director Basil Coleman initially felt that the play should be filmed over the course of a year, with the change in seasons from winter to summer marking the ideological change in the characters, but he was forced to shoot entirely in May, even though the play begins in winter. This, in turn, meant that the harshness of the forest described in the text was replaced by lush greenery, which was distinctly unthreatening, with the characters' "time in the forest appear[ing] to be more an upscale camping expedition rather than exile."[101]
Julius Caesar[edit]
Directed by Herbert Wise
Taping dates: 26–31 July 1978
First transmitted in UK: 11 February 1979
First transmitted in the US: 14 February 1979
Running Time (PAL DVD): 150 minutes
Richard Pasco as Brutus
Charles Gray as Julius Caesar
Keith Michell as Marcus Antonius
David Collings as Cassius
Virginia McKenna as Portia
Elizabeth Spriggs as Calpurnia
Sam Dastor as Casca
Jon Laurimore as Flavius
John Sterland as Marullus
Garrick Hagon as Octavius Caesar
Brian Coburn as Messala
Leonard Preston as Titinius
Alexander Davion as Decius Brutus
Darien Angadi as Cinna
Andrew Hilton as Lucilius
Anthony Dawes as Ligarius
Roger Bizley as Metellus Cimber
Manning Wilson as Cicero
Ronald Forfar as The Soothsayer
Patrick Marley as Artemidorus
William Simons as Trebonius
John Tordoff as Cinna the Poet
Philip York as Young Cato
Christopher Good as Clitus
Robert Oates as Pindarus
Jonathan Scott-Taylor as Lucius
Maurice Thorogood as Strato
Michael Greatorex as Varro
Nicholas Gecks as Volumnius
Michael Jenkinson as Dardanius
Roy Spencer as Lepidus
Terence Conoley as Popilius
Noel Johnson as Publius
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Director Herbert Wise felt that Julius Caesar should be set in the Elizabethan era, but as per the emphasis on realism, he instead set it in a Roman milieu.[102] Wise argued that the play "is not really a Roman play. It's an Elizabethan play and it's a view of Rome from an Elizabethan standpoint." However, of setting the play in Shakespeare's day, Wise stated "I don't think that's right for the audience we will be getting. It's not a jaded theatre audience seeing the play for the umpteenth time: for them that would be an interesting approach and might throw new light on the play. But for an audience many of whom won't have seen the play before, I believe it would only be confusing."[103]
Measure for Measure[edit]
Directed by Desmond Davis
Taping dates: 17–22 May 1978
First transmitted in the UK: 18 February 1979
First transmitted in the US: 11 April 1979
Running Time (PAL DVD): 145 minutes
Kenneth Colley as the Duke
Kate Nelligan as Isabella
Tim Pigott-Smith as Angelo
Christopher Strauli as Claudio
John McEnery as Lucio
Jacqueline Pearce as Mariana
Frank Middlemass as Pompey
Alun Armstrong as Provost
Adrienne Corri as Mistress Overdone
Ellis Jones as Elbow
John Clegg as Froth
William Sleigh as Barnardine
Neil McCarthy as Abhorson
Yolanda Vazquez as Juliet
Eileen Page as Francesca
Kevin Stoney as Escalus
Godfrey Jackman as Friar Thomas
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Director Desmond Davis based the brothel in the play on a traditional Western saloon and the prison on a typical horror film dungeon.[104] The role of the Duke was originally offered to Alec Guinness. When he turned it down, the role was offered to a further thirty-one actors, before Kenneth Colley finally accepted the part.[105] The set for the episode was a 360-degree set backed by a cyclorama, which allowed actors to move from location to location without cutting - actors could walk through the streets of Vienna by circumnavigating the studio eight times.[106] For the interview scenes, Davis decided to link them aesthetically and shot both in the same manner; Angelo was shot upwards from waist level to make him look large, Isabella was shot from further away so more background was visible in her shots, making her appear smaller. Gradually, the shots then move towards each other's style so that, by the end of the scene, they are both shot in the same framing.[107]
The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight[edit]
Directed by Kevin Billington
Taping dates: 27 November 1978 – 7 January 1979
First transmitted in UK: 25 February 1979
First transmitted in the US: 25 April 1979
Running Time (PAL DVD): 165 minutes
John Stride as Henry VIII
Claire Bloom as Katharine
Ronald Pickup as Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury
Barbara Kellerman as Anne Bullen
Timothy West as Cardinal Wolsey
Julian Glover as the Duke of Buckingham
John Rowe as Cromwell
Lewis Fiander as the Duke of Suffolk
Alan Leith as Sergeant-at-Arms
Tony Church as Prologue
John Bailey as Griffith
David Troughton as Surveyor
John Nettleton as Lord Chamberlain
Charles Lloyd Pack as Lord Sandys
Nigel Lambert as Sir Thomas Lovell
Adam Bareham as Sir Henry Guildford
Jeremy Kemp as the Duke of Norfolk
Jack McKenzie as Sir Nicholas Vaux
Michael Poole as Cardinal Campeius
Peter Vaughan as Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester
David Rintoul as Lord Abergavenny
David Dodimead as the Bishop of Lincoln
Oliver Cotton as the Earl of Surrey
John Rhys-Davies as Capucius
John Rogan as Dr. Butts
Jack May as the Lord Chancellor
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
The second of only two episodes shot on location, after As You Like It. However, whereas the location shooting in that episode was heavily criticised as taking away from the play, here, the location work was celebrated.[101] The episode was shot at Leeds Castle, Penshurst Place and Hever Castle and in the actual rooms in which some of the real events took place. Director Kevin Billington felt that location shooting was essential to the production; "I wanted to get away from the idea that this is some kind of fancy pageant. I wanted to feel the reality. I wanted great stone walls [...] We shot at Hever Castle, where Anne Bullen lived; at Penhurst, which was Buckingham's place; and at Leeds Castle, where Henry was with Anne Bullen."[108] Shooting on location had several benefits; the camera could be set up in such a way as to show ceilings, something which cannot be done when shooting in a TV studio, as rooms are ceilingless to facilitate lighting. Also, the episode was shot in winter, and on several occasions, characters’ breath can be seen, something which was also impossible to achieve in the studio. However, because of the cost, logistics and planning required for shooting on location, Messina decided that all subsequent productions would be done in-studio, a decision which did not go down well with several of the directors lined up for work on the second season.[109] This episode was not originally supposed to be part of the first season, but was moved forward in the schedule to replace the abandoned production of Much Ado About Nothing.[36] It was repeated on 22 June 1981.
Season two; Cedric Messina, producer[edit]
The First Part of King Henry the Fourth, with the life and death of Henry surnamed Hotspur[edit]
Directed by David Giles
Taping dates: 7–12 March 1979
First transmitted in the UK: 9 December 1979
First transmitted in the US: 26 March 1980
Running Time (PAL DVD): 148 minutes
Jon Finch as King Henry the Fourth
David Gwillim as Henry, Prince of Wales
Rob Edwards as Prince John of Lancaster
David Buck as the Earl of Westmorland
Robert Brown as Sir Walter Blunt
Clive Swift as Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester
Bruce Purchase as the Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland
Tim Pigott-Smith as Henry 'Hotspur' Percy
Robert Morris as Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March
John Cairney as Archibald, Earl of Douglas
David Neal as Scroop, Archbishop of York
Norman Rutherford as Sir Michael
Richard Owens as Owen Glendower
Terence Wilton as Sir Richard Vernon
Anthony Quayle as Sir John Falstaff
Jack Galloway as Poins
Gordon Gostelow as Bardolph
Steven Beard as Peto
Michele Dotrice as Lady Percy
Sharon Morgan as Lady Mortimer
Brenda Bruce as Mistress Quickly
Mike Lewin as First Carrier
David Bailie as Second Carrier
Douglas Milvain as Chamberlain
Neville Barber as Sheriff
George Winter as Hotspur's Servant
Michael Heath as First Messenger
Malcolm Hughes as Second Messenger
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
The week prior to the screening of this episode in both the UK and the US, the first season episode King Richard the Second was repeated as a lead-in to the trilogy. The episode also began with Richard's death scene from the previous play.
The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth containing his Death: and the Coronation of King Henry the Fift[edit]
Directed by David Giles
Taping dates: 11–16 April 1979
First transmitted in the UK: 16 December 1979
First transmitted in the US: 9 April 1980
Running Time (PAL DVD): 150 minutes
Jon Finch as King Henry the Fourth
David Gwillim as Henry, Prince of Wales
Rob Edwards as Prince John of Lancaster
Martin Neil as Prince Humphrey of Gloucester
Roger Davenport as Thomas, Duke of Clarence
Bruce Purchase as the Earl of Northumberland
David Neal as Scroop, Archbishop of York
Michael Miller as Lord Mowbray
Richard Bebb as Lord Hastings
John Humphry as Lord Bardolph
Salvin Stewart as Sir John Colville
David Strong as Travers
Carl Oatley as Morton
Rod Beacham as the Earl of Warwick
David Buck as the Earl of Westmorland
Brian Poyser as Gower
Ralph Michael as the Lord Chief Justice
Anthony Quayle as Sir John Falstaff
Jack Galloway as Poins
Gordon Gostelow as Bardolph
Bryan Pringle as Pistol
Steven Beard as Peto
John Fowler as Falstaff's Page
Robert Eddison as Justice Robert Shallow
Leslie French as Justice Silence
Raymond Platt as Davy
Frederick Proud as Fang
Julian Battersby as Ralph Mouldy
Roy Herrick as Simon Shadow
Alan Collins as Thomas Wart
John Tordoff as Francis Feeble
Roger Elliott as Peter Bullcalf
Jenny Laird as Lady Northumberland
Michele Dotrice as Lady Percy
Brenda Bruce as Mistress Quickly
Frances Cuka as Doll Tearsheet
Tim Brown as Chief Justice's Servant
Colin Dunn as Messenger
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
This episode begins with the death of Richard, followed by a brief excerpt from the abdication scene, both from the first season episode King Richard the Second. Rumour's opening soliloquy is then heard in voice-over, played over scenes from the previous week's The First Part of King Henry the Fourth; Henry's lamentation that he has not been able to visit the Holy Land, and the death of Hotspur at the hands of Prince Hal. With over a quarter of the lines from the Folio text cut, this production had more material omitted than any other in the entire series.[110]
The Life of Henry the Fift[edit]
Directed by David Giles
Taping dates: 18–25 June 1979
First transmitted in the UK: 23 December 1979
First transmitted in the US: 23 April 1980
Running Time (PAL DVD): 166 minutes
Alec McCowen as Chorus
David Gwillim as King Henry the Fifth
Martin Smith as the Duke of Gloucester
Rob Edwards as the Duke of Bedford
Roger Davenport as the Duke of Clarence
Clifford Parrish as the Duke of Exeter
Derek Hollis as the Duke of York
Robert Ashby as the Earl of Salisbury
David Buck as the Earl of Westmoreland
Rob Beacham as the Earl of Warwick
Trevor Baxter as the Archbishop of Canterbury
John Abineri as the Bishop of Ely
William Whymper as the Earl of Cambridge
Ian Price as Lord Scroop
George Howe as Sir Thomas Erpingham
David Rowlands as Sir Thomas Grey
Brian Poyser as Gower
Tim Wylton as Fluellen
Paddy Ward as MacMorris
Michael McKevitt as Jamy
Ronald Forfar as Bates
Joe Ritchie as Court
David Pinner as Williams
Jeffrey Holland as Nym
Gordon Gostelow as Bardolph
Bryan Pringle as Pistol
John Fowler as Boy
Simon Broad as Herald
Thorley Walters as the Charles the Sixth, King of France
Keith Drinkel as Lewis, the Dauphin
Robert Harris as the Duke of Burgundy
John Saunders as the Duke of Orléans
John Bryans as the Duke of Bourbon
Julian Glover as the Constable of France
Carl Forgione as Rambures
Alan Brown as Governor of Harfleur
Garrick Hagon as Mountjoy
Pamela Ruddock as Queen Isabel of France
Jocelyne Boisseau as Katherine
Anna Quayle as Alice
Brenda Bruce as Mistress Quickly
Graham Pountney as French Soldier
Ronald Chenery as Messenger
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Director John Giles and production designer Don Homfray both felt that this episode should look demonstrably different than the two Henry IV plays. Whilst they had been focused on rooms and domestic interiors, Henry V was focused on large open spaces. As such, because they could not shoot on location, and because creating realistic reproductions of such spaces in a studio was impossible, they decided to take a more stylized approach to production design than had hitherto been seen in the series. Ironically however, the finished product ended up looking more realistic that either of them had anticipated, or desired.[111] Dennis Channon won Best Lighting at the 1980 BAFTAs for his work on this episode. The episode was repeated on Saint George's Day (23 April) in 1980.
Twelfth Night, Or What You Will[edit]
Directed by John Gorrie
Taping dates: 16–21 May 1979
First transmitted in the UK: 6 January 1980
First transmitted in the US: 27 February 1980
Running Time (PAL DVD): 128 minutes
Alec McCowen as Malvolio
Robert Hardy as Sir Toby Belch
Felicity Kendal as Viola
Annette Crosbie as Maria
Sinéad Cusack as Olivia
Trevor Peacock as Feste
Clive Arrindell as Orsino
Ronnie Stevens as Sir Andrew Aguecheek
Robert Lindsay as Fabian
Maurice Roëves as Antonio
Michael Thomas as Sebastian
Malcolm Reynolds as Valentine
Ryan Michael as Curio
Ric Morgan as the Sea Captain
Arthur Hewlett as the Priest
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Director John Gorrie interpreted the play as an English country house comedy, and incorporated influences ranging from Luigi Pirandello's Il Gioco delle Parti to ITV's Upstairs, Downstairs.[112] Gorrie also set the play during the English Civil War, hoping the use of cavaliers and roundheads would help focus the dramatisation of the conflict between festivity and Puritanism.[38] Gorrie wanted the episode to be as realistic as possible, and in designing Olivia's house, he made sure that the geography of the building was practical and made sense, and then shot the episode in such a way that the audience becomes aware of that geography, often shooting characters entering and existing doorways into rooms and corridors.[113] This episode was repeated on 29 June 1981.
The Tempest[edit]
Directed by John Gorrie
Taping dates: 23–28 July 1979
First transmitted in the UK: 27 February 1980
First transmitted in the US: 7 May 1980
Running Time (PAL DVD): 125 minutes
Michael Hordern as Prospero
Derek Godfrey as Antonio
David Waller as Alonso
Warren Clarke as Caliban
Nigel Hawthorne as Stephano
David Dixon as Ariel
Andrew Sachs as Trinculo
John Nettleton as Gonzalo
Alan Rowe as Sebastian
Pippa Guard as Miranda
Christopher Guard as Ferdinand
Kenneth Gilbert as Boatswain
Edwin Brown as Master
Paul Greenhalgh as Francisco
Christopher Bramwell as Adrian
Gwyneth Lloyd as Juno
Elizabeth Gardner as Ceres
Judith Rees as Iris
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
The visual effects seen in this episode were not developed especially for use here. They had been developed for Top of the Pops and Doctor Who.[112] The role of Prospero was originally taken by John Gielgud, but contractual conflicts delayed the production, and by the time Messina had sorted them out, Gielgud was unavailable.[114] This episode used a 360-degree set which allowed actors to move from the beach to the cliff to the orchard without cutting. The orchard was composed of real apple trees.[115]
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark[edit]
Directed by Rodney Bennett
Taping dates: 31 January-8 February 1980
First transmitted in the UK: 25 May 1980
First transmitted in the US: 10 November 1980
Running Time (PAL DVD): 212 minutes
Derek Jacobi as Hamlet
Claire Bloom as Gertrude
Patrick Stewart as Claudius
Eric Porter as Polonius
Lalla Ward as Ophelia
David Robb as Laertes
Patrick Allen as the Ghost of Hamlet's Father
Robert Swann as Horatio
Jonathan Hyde as Rosencrantz
Geoffrey Bateman as Guildenstern
Emrys James as Player King
Jason Kemp as Player Queen
Ian Charleson as Fortinbras
Tim Wylton as First Gravedigger
Peter Benson as Second Gravedigger
Paul Humpoletz as Marcellus
Niall Padden as Bernardo
Christopher Baines as Francisco
John Humphry as Voltimand
John Sterland as Cornelius
Peter Gale as Osric
Raymond Mason as Reynaldo
Dan Meaden as Norwegian Captain
David Henry as English Ambassador
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Originally, director Rodney Bennett had wanted to shoot the production on location, but after the first season, it was decreed that all productions were to be studio based. Bennett made a virtue of this 'restriction' and his Hamlet, Prince of Denmark "was the first fully stylized production of the series."[111] Bennett himself argued that "though on the face of it, Hamlet would seem to be a great naturalistic play, it isn't really [...] It has reality but it is essentially a theatrical reality. The way to do it is to start with nothing and gradually feed in only what's actually required."[116] As such, the production design was open, with ambiguous space, openings without architectural specificity and emptiness. Susan Willis argues of this episode that it "was the first to affirm a theatre-based style rather than aspiring half-heartedly to the nature of film."[74] This episode was repeated in the US on 31 May 1982. The first screening was the highest rated production of the entire series in the US, with viewing figures of 5.5 million.[117]
Season three; Jonathan Miller, producer[edit]
The Taming of the Shrew[edit]
Directed by Jonathan Miller
Taping dates: 18–24 June 1980
First transmitted in the UK: 23 October 1980
First transmitted in the US: 26 January 1981
Running Time (PAL DVD): 128 minutes
Simon Chandler as Lucentio
Anthony Pedley as Tranio
John Franklyn-Robbins as Baptista
Frank Thornton as Gremio
Sarah Badel as Katherine
Jonathan Cecil as Hortensio
Susan Penhaligon as Bianca
Harry Waters as Biondello
John Cleese as Petruchio
David Kincaid as Grumio
Bev Willis as Baptista's Servant
Angus Lennie as Curtis
Harry Webster as Nathaniel
Gil Morris as Philip
Leslie Sarony as Gregory
Derek Deadman as Nicholas
Denis Gilmore as Peter
John Bird as Pedant
Alan Hay as Tailor
David Kinsey as Haberdasher
John Barron as Vincentio
Joan Hickson as Widow
Tony Martell as Officer
Behind-the-scenes[edit]

 

 The interior of Baptista's house; the set design is taken almost verbatim from Vermeer's The Music Lesson
As with all of the episodes Jonathan Miller directed, he allowed the work of celebrated artisans to influence his design concepts. In the case of Shrew, the street set was based on the work of architect Sebastiano Serlio, as well as the Teatro Olimpico, designed by Andrea Palladio. Baptista's living room was modelled closely on Vermeer's The Music Lesson.[78] The casting of John Cleese as Petruchio was not without controversy at the time. Cleese had never performed Shakespeare before, and was not a fan of the first two seasons of the BBC Television Shakespeare, and he took some persuading from Miller that the BBC Shrew would not be, as Cleese feared "about a lot of furniture being knocked over, a lot of wine being spilled, a lot of thighs being slapped and a lot of unmotivated laughter."[118] As such, Miller told Cleese that the episode would interpret Petruchio as an early Puritan more concerned with attempting to show Kate how preposterous her behaviour is ("showing her an image of herself" as Miller put it[119]), rather than bullying her into submission, and as such, the part was not to be acted along the traditional lines of the swaggering braggart a la Richard Burton in Franco Zeffirelli's 1967 film adaptation. According to Cleese, who consulted a psychiatrist who specialised in treating "shrews", "Petruchio doesn't believe in his own antics, but in the craftiest and most sophisticated way he needs to show Kate certain things about her behaviour. He takes one look at her and realises that here is the woman for him, but he has to go through the process of 'reconditioning' her before anything else. So he behaves just as outrageously as she does in order to make her aware of the effect that her behaviour has on other people [...] Kate needs to be made happy - she is quite clearly unhappy at the beginning of the play, and then extremely happy at the end because of what she has achieved with Petruchio's help."[120] Miller also researched how troublesome children were treated at the Tavistock Clinic, where imitation was often used during therapy; "there are ways in which a skilful therapist will gently mock a child out of a tantrum by giving an amusing imitation of the tantrum immediately after it's happened. The child then has a mirror held up to it and is capable of seeing what it looks like to others."[121] In his review of the adaptation for the Financial Times, Chris Dunkley referred to this issue, calling Cleese's Petruchio "an eccentrically pragmatic social worker using the wayward client's own doubtful habits to calm her down."[122] Actress Sarah Badel had a similar conception of the psychology behind the production. She constructed an "imaginary biography" for Katherina, arguing "She's a woman of such passion [...] a woman of such enormous capacity for love that the only way she could be happy is to find a man of equal capacity. Therefore she's mad for lack of love [...] he feigns madness, she is teetering on the edge of it. Petruchio is the only man who shows her what she's like."[123] Miller was determined that the production not become a farce, and in that vein, two keys texts for him during production were Lawrence Stone's The Family, Sex and Marriage in England: 1500-1800 and Michael Walzer's The Revolution of the Saints, which he used to help ground his interpretation of the play in recognisably Renaissance-esque societal terms; Petruchio's actions are based on accepted economic, social and religious views of the time, as are Baptista's.[78] In tandem with this interpretation, the song sung at the end of the play is a musical version of Psalm 128 ("Blessed is everyone that feareth the Lord"), which was often sung in Puritan households at the end of a meal during Shakespeare's own day, and which praised a peaceful family life. Speaking of the addition of the psalm, Miller states "I had to give [the conclusion] an explicitly religious format, so people could see it as not just simply the high-jinks of an intolerantly selfish man who was simply destroying a woman to satisfy his own vanity, but a sacramental view of the nature of marriage, whereby this couple had come to love each other by reconciling themselves to the demands of a society which saw obedience as a religious requirement."[124] The production was at least partially based on Miller's own 1972 Chichester Festival stage production starring Joan Plowright and Anthony Hopkins.[125] This episode premiered the new opening title sequence, and the new theme music by Stephen Oliver.[126]
The Merchant of Venice[edit]
Directed by Jack Gold
Taping dates: 15–21 May 1980
First transmitted in the UK: 17 December 1980
First transmitted in the US: 23 February 1981
Running Time (PAL DVD): 157 minutes
John Franklyn-Robbins as Antonio
John Rhys-Davies as Salerio
Alan David as Solanio
John Nettles as Bassiano
Richard Morant as Lorenzo
Kenneth Cranham as Gratiano
Gemma Jones as Portia
Susan Jameson as Nerissa
Daniel Mitchell as Balthasar
Warren Mitchell as Shylock
Marc Zuber as the Prince of Morocco
Enn Reitel as Lancelot Gobbo
Joe Gladwin as Old Gobbo
Roger Martin as Leonardo
Leslee Udwin as Jessica
Peter Gale as the Prince of Arragon
Arnold Diamond as Tubal
Douglas Wilmer as the Duke of Venice
Shaun Scott as Stephano
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Although this episode screened to relatively no controversy in the UK, in the US, it created a huge furore. As soon as WNET announced the broadcast date, the Holocaust and Executive Committee (HEC) of the Committee to Bring Nazi War Criminals to Justice sent them a letter demanding the show be cancelled. WNET also received a protest letter from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and B'nai B'rith. Additionally, Morris Schappes, editor of Jewish Currents, wrote an open letter of protest to The New York Times. The HEC stated that Shylock can arouse "the deepest hate in the pathological and prejudiced mind," urging WNET "that reason and a reputable insight into the psychopathology of man will impel you to cancel [the play's] screening." They later stated "our objection is not to art but to the hate monger, whoever the target [...] This includes the singular and particular work of art which when televised is viewed by millions and alarmingly compounds the spread of hate." The ADL stated that screening the episode would be "providing a forum for a Shylock who would have warmed the heart of Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher." PBS and WNET issued a joint statement citing the protests of Saudi Arabians the previous year regarding the screening of Death of a Princess, and quoting PBS president Lawrence K. Grossman; "the healthy way to deal with such sensitivities is to air the concerns and criticism, not to bury or ban them." PBS and WNET also pointed out that both producer Jonathan Miller, and actor Warren Mitchell, are Jewish. For their part, Miller and director Jack Gold had anticipated the controversy, and prepared for it. In the Stone/Hallinan press material, Gold stated "Shylock's Jewishness in dramatic terms is a metaphor for the fact that he, more than any other character in Venice, is an alien." Miller stated "it's not about Jews versus Christians in the racial sense; it's the world of legislation versus the world of mercy."[127] Director Jack Gold chose an unusual presentational method in this episode; completely realistic and authentic costumes, but a highly stylized non-representational set against which the characters contrast; "if you imagine different planes, the thing closest to the camera was the reality of the actor in a real costume - the costumes were totally real and very beautiful - then beyond the actor is a semi-artificial column or piece of wall, and in the distance is the backcloth, which is impressionistic."[128] The backcloths were used to suggest locale without photographic representationalism; they imply air, water, sea, hills, a city etc., but never actually show anything specific. Geoff Feld won Best Cameraman at the 1981 BAFTAs for his work on this episode. Of the 37 plays presented as part of the BBC Television Shakespeare, this was the only one to have no lines removed or rearranged.
All's Well That Ends Well[edit]
Directed by Elijah Moshinsky
Taping dates: 23–29 July 1980
First transmitted in the UK: 4 January 1981
First transmitted in the US: 18 May 1981
Running Time (PAL DVD): 141 minutes
Celia Johnson as The Countess of Rousillion
Ian Charleson as Bertram
Michael Hordern as Lafeu
Angela Down as Helena
Peter Jeffrey as Parolles
Donald Sinden as the King of France
Paul Brooke as Lavache
Robert Lindsay as the first Lord Dumaine
Dominic Jephcott as the Second Lord Dumaine
Rosemary Leach as The Widow of Florence
Pippa Guard as Diana
Joolia Cappleman as Mariana
Nickolas Grace as the "Interpreter"
Terence McGinity as The First Gentleman
Max Arthur as The Second Gentleman
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
In line with producer Jonathan Miller's new aesthetic policy, director Elijah Moshinsky (All's Well was Moshinsky's TV directorial debut) used the work of artists as visual influence. Of particular importance to him was Georges de La Tour. Moshinsky showed some of de La Tour's work to lighting technician John Summers, as he wanted to capture the dark/light contrast of the work, as well as the prominence of silhouettes and chiaroscuro effects common in the paintings. Summers loved this idea and worked it into his lighting. For example, he lit the scene where the widow agrees to Helena's wager as if it was illuminated by a single candle. To achieve this, he used a projector bulb hidden by objects on the table to simulate the sense of a single bright light source.[129] Summers would go on to win Best Lighting at the 1981 BAFTAs for his work on this episode. Moshinsky was also very careful about his camera placement. The opening shot is a long shot of Helena, before eventually moving in to a close up. Of this opening, Moshinsky commented "I wanted to start with a long shot of Helena and not move immediately to close-up — I didn't want too much identification with her, I wanted a picture of a woman caught in an obsession, with the camera static when she speaks, clear, judging her words. I wanted to start with long shots because I felt they were needed to place people in their context and for the sake of atmosphere. I wanted the atmosphere to help carry the story."[130] With the exception of one shot, every shot in this episode is an interior. The only exterior shot is that of Parolles as he passes the women looking out the window in Florence. However, the shot is framed in such a way that none of the surroundings are seen.[131] The idea for the scenes between the King and Helena to be so sexually charged was actor Donald Sinden's own.[132] For the shot where the King and Helena dance into the great hall, the scene was shot through a pane of glass which had the ceiling and walls of the hall painted on it, to give the appearance of a much larger and grander room than was actually present.[133] Moshinsky has made contradictory statements about the end of the play. In the printed script, he indicated that he felt that Bertram kissing Helena is a happy ending, but in press material for the US broadcast, he said he found the end to be sombre because none of the young characters had learnt anything.[134]
The Winter's Tale[edit]
Directed by Jane Howell
Taping dates: 9–15 April 1980
First transmitted in the UK: 8 February 1981
First transmitted in the US: 8 June 1981
Running Time (PAL DVD): 173 minutes
John Welsh as Archidamus
David Burke as Camillo
Robert Stephens as Polixenes
Jeremy Kemp as Leontes
Anna Calder-Marshall as Hermione
Jeremy Dimmick as Mamillius
Merelina Kendall as Emilia
Cyril Luckham as Antigonus
Margaret Tyzack as Paulina
John Curless as Cleomenes
Colin McCormack as Dion
Arthur Hewlett as The Old Shepard
Paul Jesson as the Clown
Harold Goldblatt as Time
Rikki Fulton as Autolycus
Robin Kermode as Florizel
Debbie Farrington as Perdita
Janette Legge as Dorcas
Maggie Wells as Mopsa
Pat Gorman as The Bear
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
As with all of Jane Howell's productions, this episode was performed on a single set. The change of the seasons, so critical to the movement of the play, is indicated by a lone tree whose leaves change colour as the year moves on, with the background a monochromatic cycloramic curtain which changed colour in tune with the changing colour of the leaves.
Timon of Athens[edit]
Directed by Jonathan Miller
Taping dates: 28 January-3 February 1981
First transmitted in the UK: 16 April 1981
First transmitted in the US: 14 December 1981
Running Time (PAL DVD): 128 minutes
John Fortune as the Poet
John Bird as the Painter
Tony Jay as the Merchant
David Kinsey as the Jeweller
Jonathan Pryce as Timon
John Welsh as Flavius
Sebastian Shaw as Old Athenian
James Cossins as Lucullus
Norman Rodway as Apemantus
Geoffrey Collins as Flaminius
Terence McGinity as Servilius
John Shrapnel as Alcibades
Hugh Thomas as Lucius
Max Arthur as Lucillus
Donald Gee as Ventidius
John Bailey as Sempronius
Michael Anthony as Caphis
Elyane Sharling as Phryina
Diana Dors as Timandra
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Michael Bogdanov was originally hired to direct this episode, but he resigned after his Oriental modern-dress interpretation was considered too radical, and Jonathan Miller reluctantly took over directorial duties.[84] In the episode, Timon's seaside camp is littered with debris; half buried statues and roofs of old houses from times past. This design concept stemmed from an idea Miller had originally had for Troilus and Cressida, which he was prepping when he took over Timon. The concept was that the Greek camp had been built on the ruins of old Troy, but now the remnants of the once buried city were beginning to surface from under the earth.[135] For the scene when Timon loses his temper after the second banquet, actor Jonathan Pryce did not know how he wanted to play the scene, so Miller simply told him to improvise. This necessitated cameraman Jim Atkinson having to keep Pryce in shot without knowing beforehand where Pryce was going to go or what he was going to do. Only once, when Pryce seems as if he is about to bend over but then suddenly stops, did Atkinson lose Pryce from centre frame.[136]
Antony & Cleopatra[edit]
Directed by Jonathan Miller
Taping dates: 5–10 March 1980
First transmitted in the UK: 8 May 1981[137]
First transmitted in the US: 20 April 1981
Running Time (PAL DVD): 170 minutes
John Paul as Canidius
Jonathan Adams as Ventidius
Jane Lapotaire as Cleopatra
Colin Blakely as Antony
Darien Angadi as Alexas
Janet Key as Charmian
Howard Goorney as the Soothsayer
Cassie McFarlane as Iras
Emrys James as Enobarbus
Mohammad Shamsi as Mardian
Ian Charleson as Octavius Caesar
Esmond Knight as Lepidus
Harry Waters as Thidius
David Neal as Proculeius
Anthony Pedley as Agrippa
Geoffrey Collins as Dolabella
Donald Sumpter as Pompeius
George Innes as Menas
Desmond Stokes as Menecrates
Lynn Farleigh as Octavius
Simon Chandler as Eros
Christopher Ettridge as Scarus
George Howe as Euphronius
Alec Sabin as Dercetas
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Although this episode was the last episode of season three to air, it was actually the first episode shot under Jonathan Miller's producership, and he purposely interpreted it in a manner divergent from most theatrical productions of the play. Whereas the love between Antony and Cleopatra is usually seen in a very heightened manner, as a grand passion, Miller saw it as a love between two people well past their prime who are both on a downward spiral and trying to recapture something of their past. He compared Antony to a football player who had waited two seasons too long to retire, and Cleopatra to a once popular prostitute who could no longer attract clients As such, their relationship was all about the past, and what they had once been.[138] Miller used Paolo Veronese's The Family of Darius before Alexander as a major influence in his visual design of this episode, as it mixes both classical and Renaissance costumes in a single image.[78] This is one of only two episodes in which original Shakespearean text was substituted with additional material (the other was Love's Labour's Lost). Controversially, Miller and his script editor David Snodin cut Act 3, Scene 10 and replaced it with the description of the Battle of Actium from Plutarch's Parallel Lives, which is delivered as an onscreen legend overlaying a painting of the battle. During rehearsal of the scene with the snake, Jane Lapotaire, who suffers from ophidiophobia, was extremely nervous, but was assured that the snake was well trained. At that point, the snake crawled down the front of her dress towards her breast, before then moving around her back. During the actual shooting of the scene, Lapotaire kept her hands on the snake at all times.[139]
Season four; Jonathan Miller, producer[edit]
Othello[edit]
Directed by Jonathan Miller
Taping dates: 9–17 March 1981
First transmitted in the UK: 4 October 1981
First transmitted in the US: 12 October 1981
Running Time (PAL DVD): 205 minutes
Anthony Pedley as Roderigo
Bob Hoskins as Iago
Geoffrey Chater as Brabantio
Alexander Davion as Gratiano
Anthony Hopkins as Othello
David Yelland as Cassio
Joseph O'Conor as Lodovico
John Barron as Duke of Venice
Penelope Wilton as Desdemona
Rosemary Leach as Emilia
Tony Steedman as Montano
Wendy Morgan as Bianca
Daniel Buckingham as Gentleman Attendant
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Producer Cedric Messina had initially planned to screen Othello during season 2, and had attempted to cast James Earl Jones in the part. However, the British Actors' Equity Association had written into their contract with the BBC that only British actors could appear in the series, and if Messina cast Jones, Equity threatened to strike, thus crippling the show. Messina backed down and Othello was pushed back to a later season. By the time it was produced, Jonathan Miller had taken over as producer, and he decided that the play was not about race at all, casting a white actor in the role.[34] During production, Miller based the visual design on the work of El Greco.[139] The interior design of the production was based on the interiors of the Palazzo Ducale, Urbino, whilst the street set was based on a real street in Cyprus.[140] For the scene where Iago asks Cassio about Bianca, Othello stands behind the open door. Most of the scene is shot from behind him, so the audience sees what he sees. However, not all the dialogue between Iago and Cassio is audible. Although this led to criticism when the episode was screened in the US, where it was assumed that the sound people simply had not done their job very well, it was actually done on so as to increase subjectivity; if Othello is having difficulty hearing what they are saying, so too is the audience.[141] Bob Hoskins played Iago as a Rumpelstiltskin type - an impish, troublemaker who delights in petty mischief and mocks people behind their backs.[142]
Troilus and Cressida[edit]
Directed by Jonathan Miller
Taping dates: 28 July-5 August 1981
First transmitted in the UK: 7 November 1981
First transmitted in the US: 17 May 1982
Running Time (PAL DVD): 190 minutes
Charles Gray as Pandarus
Anton Lesser as Troilus
Tony Steedman as Aeneas
Suzanne Burden as Cressida
Max Harvey as Alexander
Vernon Dobtcheff as Agamemnon
Geoffrey Chater as Nestor
Benjamin Whitrow as Ulysses
Bernard Brown as Menelaus
Anthony Pedley as Ajax
The Incredible Orlando as Thersites
Kenneth Haigh as Achilles
Simon Cutter as Patroclus
Esmond Knight as Priam
John Shrapnel as Hector
Elayne Sharling as Cassandra
David Firth as Paris
Paul Moriarty as Diomedes
Ann Pennington as Helen
Peter Whitbread as Calchas
Merelina Kendall as Andromache
Cornelius Garrett as Margarelon
Tony Portacio as Helenus
Peter J. Cassell as Deiphobus
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Director Jonathan Miller used the work of gothic painter Lucas Cranach as primary visual influence during this production, and several of Cranach's sketches can be seen in Ajax's tent; most notably, Eve from his Adam and Eve woodcut, hung on the tent like a nude centrefold. Miller wanted Troy to be sharply differentiated from Greece; Troy was decadent, with clear abstract lines (based on some of Hans Vredeman de Vries' architectural experiments with perspective). Costumes were elegant and bright, based on the works of Cranach and Albrecht Dürer.[143] Troy, on the other hand, was based on a gypsy camp near the BBC Television Centre; cluttered, dirty and squalid. Miller envisioned it as built on the remains of an earlier Troy, with bits of roofs jutting out of the ground and bits and pieces of ancient statues lying around (although this idea originated for Troilus, Miller had first used it in his earlier Timon of Athens). Also, on one side of the camp, a huge wooden horse leg can be seen under construction - the Trojan Horse. In the command tent, a schematic for the horse is visible in several scenes, as is a scale model on the desk nearby. Miller wanted the camp to give the sense of "everything going downhill," with the men demoralised, fed up fighting, wanting only to get drunk and sleep (except Ulysses, who is depicted as still fully alert) The uniforms were all khaki coloured, and although Renaissance in style were based on the TV show M*A*S*H, with Thersites specifically based on Corporal Klinger.[143] Of the play, Miller stated "it's ironic, it's farcical, it's satirical: I think it's an entertaining, rather frothily ironic play. It's got a bitter-sweet quality, rather like black chocolate. It has a wonderfully light ironic touch and I think it should be played ironically, not with heavy-handed agonising on the dreadful futility of it all."[144] Miller chose to set the play in a Renaissance milieu rather than a classical one, as he felt that it was really about Elizabethan England rather than ancient Troy, and as such, he hoped the production would carry relevance for a contemporary TV audience; "I feel that Shakespeare's plays and all the works of the classic rank, of literary antiquity, must necessarily be Janus-faced. And one merely pretends that one is producing pure Renaissance drama; I think one has to see it in one's own terms. Because it is constantly making references, one might as well be a little more specific about it. Now that doesn't mean that I want to hijack them for the purposes of making the plays address themselves specifically to modern problems. I think what one wants to do is to have these little anachronistic overtones so that we're constantly aware of the fact that the play is, as it were, suspended in the twentieth-century imagination, halfway between the period in which it was written and the period in which we are witnessing it. And then there is of course a third period being referred to, which is the period of the Greek antiquity."[145][146] Jim Atkinson won Best Cameraman at the 1982 BAFTAs for his work on this episode.
A Midsummer Night's Dream[edit]
Directed by Elijah Moshinsky
Taping dates: 19–25 May 1981
First transmitted in the UK: 13 December 1981
First transmitted in the US: 19 April 1982
Running Time (PAL DVD): 116 minutes
Estelle Kohler as Hippolyta
Nigel Davenport as Theseus
Hugh Quarshie as Philostrate
Geoffrey Lumsden as Egeus
Pippa Guard as Hermia
Nicky Henson as Demetrius
Robert Lindsay as Lysander
Cherith Mellor as Helena
Geoffrey Palmer as Quince
Brian Glover as Bottom
John Fowler as Flute
Don Estelle as Starveling
Nat Jackley as Snout
Ray Mort as Snug
Phil Daniels as Puck
Helen Mirren as Titania
Peter McEnery as Oberon
Tania Bennett as Fairy
Alexandra Segal as Fairy
Louise Mason as Fairy
Lee Macdonald as Fairy
Bruce Savage as Peaseblossom
Massimo Mezzofanti as Cobweb
Dominic Martelli as Moth
Timothy Cross as Mustardseed
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Jonathan Miller originally planned on directing this episode, with fairies inspired by the work of Inigo Jones and Hieronymus Bosch, but he ultimately directed Timon of Athens instead after original director Michael Bogdanov quit the production.[135] Elijah Moshinsky based the fairies in the play on the baroque eroticism of Rembrandt and Peter Paul Rubens; in particular Rembrandt's Danaë was used as the inspiration for Titania's bed. A darker production than is usual for this play, Moshinsky referred to the style of the adaptation as "romantic realism."[77] He disliked productions which portrayed Puck as a mischievous but harmless and lovable sprite, so he had Phil Daniels play him as if he were an anti-establishment punk.[147] It has long been rumoured, but never confirmed, that in his portrayal of Peter Quince, actor Geoffrey Palmer was imitating the soon-to-retire Director General of the BBC, Ian Trethowan.[148]
Season Five; Shaun Sutton, producer[edit]
King Lear[edit]
Directed by Jonathan Miller
Taping dates: 26 March-2 April 1982
First transmitted in the UK: 19 September 1982
First transmitted in the US: 18 October 1982
Running Time (PAL DVD): 183 minutes
John Shrapnel as Kent
Norman Rodway as Gloucester
Michael Kitchen as Edmund
Michael Hordern as King Lear
Gillian Barge as Goneril
Brenda Blethyn as Cordelia
Penelope Wilton as Regan
John Bird as Albany
Julian Curry as Cornwall
David Weston as Burgundy
Harry Waters as The King of France
Anton Lesser as Edgar
John Grillo as Oswald
Frank Middlemass as Fool
Ken Stott as Curan
George Howe as Doctor
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Originally, Cedric Messina had cast Robert Shaw to play Lear, with an aim to do the show during the second season, but Shaw died suddenly in 1978 before production could begin, and the play was pushed back.[149] Jonathan Miller had previously directed a Nottingham Playhouse production of King Lear in 1969, starring Michael Hordern as Lear and Frank Middlemass as the Fool. In 1975, he remounted that same production for the BBC Play of the Month, a heavily truncated version, which happened to be the BBC's last Shakespeare production prior to the beginning of the Television Shakespeare. During his producership, Miller tried to persuade the BBC to use the Play of the Month production as their Lear, but they refused, saying a new production had to be done. At the end of the fourth season, Miller's last as producer, his contract stipulated that he still had one production to direct. In-coming producer Shaun Sutton offered him Love's Labour's Lost, but Miller wanted to do one of the three remaining tragedies; Lear, Macbeth or Coriolanus. He had never directed Macbeth or Coriolanus before, but he felt so comfortable with Lear that he went with it.[77] However, the production was basically a remounting of his 1969/1975 version, with the same two leading actors, the same costumes design, the same lighting, and the same design concept. The only significant difference is that more of the text is used in the latter production.[136] Miller utilised a "board and drapes" approach to the play; all interiors were shot on or near a plain wooden platform whilst all exteriors were shot against a cycloramic curtain with dark tarpaulins. As such, although exteriors and interiors were clearly distinguished from one another, both were nonrepresentational.[150] To enhance the starkness of the look of the production, Miller had lighting technician John Treays desaturate the colour by 30 per cent.[151] Miller also used colour to connect characters; the Fool wears white makeup which washes off during the storm, Edgar wears a white mask when he challenges Edmund to fight, and Cordelia wears white make-up after her death. Similarly, the Fool has red feathers in his hat, Edgar has a red tunic, and Cordelia's red welts on her neck stand out starkly against the white of her skin after her death.[152]
The Merry Wives of Windsor[edit]
Directed by David Jones
Taping dates: 1–8 November 1982
First transmitted in the UK: 28 December 1982
First transmitted in the US: 31 January 1983
Running Time (PAL DVD): 170 minutes
Alan Bennett as Justice Shallow
Richard O'Callaghan as Slender
Tenniel Evans as Sir Hugh Evans
Bryan Marshall as George Page
Richard Griffiths as Sir John Falstaff
Gordon Gostelow as Bardolph
Nigel Terry as Pistol
Michael Robbins as Nym
Miranda Foster as Anne Page
Judy Davis as Mistress Ford
Prunella Scales as Mistress Page
Ron Cook as Peter Simple
Michael Graham Cox as Host
Lee Whitlock as Robin
Elizabeth Spriggs as Mistress Quickly
John Joyce as John Rugby
Michael Bryant as Doctor Caius
Simon Chandler as Fenton
Ben Kingsley as Frank Ford
Ralph Brown as John
Peter Gordon as Robert
Crispin Mair as William Page
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Director David Jones originally wanted to shoot the episode in Stratford-upon-Avon but was restricted to a studio setting. Determined that the production be as realistic as possible, Jones got around this by having designer Dom Homfray base the rooms on real Tudor houses associated with Shakespeare; Falstaff's room is based on the home of Mary Arden (Shakespeare's mother) in Wilmcote, and the wives' houses are based on the house of Shakespeare's daughter Susanna, and her husband, John Hall. For the background of exterior shots, he used a miniature Tudor village built of plasticine.[153] Homfray won Best Production Designer at the 1983 BAFTAs for his work on this episode. Jones was also determined that the two wives not be clones of one another, so he had them appear as if Page was a well-established member of the bourgeoisie and Ford a member of the nouveau riche.[154]
The First Part of Henry the Sixt[edit]
Directed by Jane Howell
Produced by Jonathan Miller
Taping dates: 13–19 October 1981
First transmitted in the UK: 2 January 1983
First transmitted in the US: 27 March and 3 April 1983[155]
Running Time (PAL DVD): 188 minutes
John Alford as Master Gunner's Boy
John Benfield as Basset/French Sergeant/French Soldier (uncredited)/Scout (uncredited)
Peter Benson as Henry VI
Brenda Blethyn as Joan la Pucelle
Antony Brown as the Duke of Burgundy
David Burke as the Duke of Gloucester
Michael Byrne as the Duke of Alençon
Paul Chapman as the Earl of Suffolk/Sir William Glasdale (uncredited)
Ron Cook as Third Messenger to the King/Countess' Porter
Arthur Cox as Sir John Fastolfe/Mayor of London/Papal Legate (uncredited)
David Daker as Reigner, Duke of Anjou/Vernon
Brian Deacon as the Earl of Somerset
Tenniel Evans as the Duke of Bedford/ Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March/French General
Derek Farr as the Earl of Salisbury/Sir William Lucy
Julia Foster as Margaret
Derek Fuke as Talbot's Captain/Gloucester's Servant/Blue Coat (uncredited)
Alex Guard as Young Talbot
Bernard Hill as the Duke of York/Master Gunner
Paul Jesson as Second Messenger to the King
Joanna McCallum as the Countess d'Auvergne
Oengus MacNamara as Countess' Porter/Tawny Coat (uncredited)/York's Messenger (uncredited)
Frank Middlemass as Cardinal Beaufort
Joseph O'Conor as the Duke of Exeter/Shepherd
Trevor Peacock as Lord Talbot
Brian Protheroe as the Bastard of Orléans/First Messenger to the King (uncredited)
David Pugh as Watchman of Rouen/Mayor's Officer/English Soldier (uncredited)
Nick Reding as Keeper
Ian Saynor as the Dauphin Charles
Mark Wing-Davey as the Earl of Warwick
Peter Wyatt as Woodville/Sir Thomas Gargrave (uncredited)/French Sentinel (uncredited)/Lawyer (uncredited)/Blue Coat (uncredited)/Governor of Paris (uncredited)
Behind-the-scenes[edit]

 

 Joan faces off against Talbot during the Siege of Orléans. Note the brightly coloured "adventure playground" set which stands out against the obviously studio-bound parquet flooring
Inspired by the notion that the political intrigues behind the Wars of the Roses often seemed like playground squabbles, Howell and production designer Oliver Bayldon staged the four plays in a single set resembling a children's adventure playground. However, little attempt was made at realism. For example, Bayldon did not disguise the parquet flooring ("it stops the set from literally representing [...] it reminds us we are in a modern television studio"[156]), and in all four productions, the title of the play is displayed within the set itself (on banners in The First Part and The Second Part (where it is visible throughout the entire first scene), on a shroud in The Third Part, and written on a chalkboard by Richard himself in The Tragedy of Richard III). Many critics felt these set design choices lent the production an air of Brechtian verfremdungseffekt.[157][158] Stanley Wells wrote of the set that it was intended to invite the viewer to "accept the play's artificiality of language and action,"[159] Michael Hattaway describes it as "anti-illusionist,"[160] Susan Willis argues that it allows the productions "to reach theatrically toward the modern world,"[161] and Ronald Knowles writes "a major aspect of the set was the subliminal suggestion of childlike anarchy, role-playing, rivalry, game and vandalism, as if all culture were precariously balanced on the shaky foundations of atavistic aggression and power-mad possession."[162] Another element of verfremdungseffekt in this production is seen when Gloucester and Winchester encounter one another at the Tower, both are on horseback, but the horses they ride are hobby-horses, which actors David Burke and Frank Middlemass cause to pivot and prance as they speak. The ridiculousness of this situation works to "effectively undercut their characters' dignity and status."[163] The "anti-illusionist" set was also used as a means of political commentary; as the four plays progressed, the set decayed and became more and more dilapidated as social order becomes more fractious.[164] In the same vein, the costumes become more and more monotone as the four plays move on - The First Part of Henry the Sixt features brightly coloured costumes which clearly distinguish the various combatants from one another, but by The Tragedy of Richard III, everyone fights in similarly coloured dark costumes, with little to differentiate one army from another.[165] Graham Holderness saw Howell's non-naturalistic production as something of a reaction to the BBC's adaptation of the Henriad in seasons one and two, which had been directed by David Giles in a traditional and straightforward manner; "where Messina saw the history plays conventionally as orthodox Tudor historiography, and [David Giles] employed dramatic techniques which allow that ideology a free and unhampered passage to the spectator, Jane Howell takes a more complex view of the first tetralogy as, simultaneously, a serious attempt at historical interpretation, and as a drama with a peculiarly modern relevance and contemporary application. The plays, to this director, are not a dramatization of the Elizabethan World Picture but a sustained interrogation of residual and emergent ideologies in a changing society [...] This awareness of the multiplicity of potential meanings in the play required a decisive and scrupulous avoidance of television or theatrical naturalism: methods of production should operate to open the plays out, rather than close them into the immediately recognisable familiarity of conventional Shakespearean production."[98] Howell's presentation of the complete first historical tetralogy was one of the most lauded achievements of the entire BBC series, and prompted Stanley Wells to argue that the productions were "probably purer than any version given in the theatre since Shakespeare's time."[159] Michael Mannheim was similarly impressed, calling the tetralogy "a fascinating, fast paced and surprisingly tight-knit study in political and national deterioration."[166][167]
The Second Part of Henry the Sixt[edit]
Directed by Jane Howell
Produced by Jonathan Miller
Taping dates: 17–23 December 1981
First transmitted in the UK: 9 January 1983
First transmitted in the US: 10 and 17 April 1983[155]
Running Time (PAL DVD): 203 minutes
John Benfield as First Murderer/Ship's Master/Beadle of St. Albans (uncredited)/King's Messenger (uncredited)/1st Neighbour (uncredited)
Peter Benson as Henry VI
Antony Brown as Walter Whitmore/Alexander Iden/Governor of the Isle of Man (uncredited)
David Burke as the Duke of Gloucester/Dick the Butcher
Michael Byrne as John Hum/Ship's Lieutenant
Anne Carroll as the Duchess of Gloucester
Paul Chapman as the Duke of Suffolk
Ron Cook as Richard Plantaganet/Alderman of St. Albans (uncredited)
Arthur Cox as Thomas Horner/Lord Clifford/Master's Mate (uncredited)
David Daker as the Duke of Buckingham
Brian Deacon as the Duke of Somerset/Smith the Weaver
Tenniel Evans as the Earl of Salisbury/Clerk of Chartham
Derek Farr as Lord Saye/Roger Bolingbroke (uncredited)/1st Gentleman (uncredited)
Julia Foster as Queen Margaret
Derek Fuke as Sander Simpcox/George Bevis/Gloucester's Captain (uncredited)/1st Petitioner (uncredited)/2nd Neighbour (uncredited)
Alex Guard as 2nd Prentice/Cade's Messenger (uncredited)
Bernard Hill as the Duke of York
Paul Jesson as John Holland/George Plantagenet/John Southwell (uncredited)
Pat Keen as Margery Jourdain
Gabrielle Lloyd as Simpox's Wife
Oengus MacNamara as Young Clifford/Irish Post (uncredited)/Gloucester's Messenger (uncredited)/1st Prentice (uncredited)
Frank Middlemass as Cardinal Beaufort
Trevor Peacock as Sheriff/Jack Cade
Brian Protheroe as Edward Plantagenet
David Pugh as Peter Thump/Second Murderer/William Stafford (uncredited)/2nd Gentleman (uncredited)
Mark Wing-Davey as the Earl of Warwick
Peter Wyatt as Sir Humphrey Stafford/Mayor of St. Albans (uncredited)/Vaux (uncredited)/2nd Petitioner (uncredited)/3rd Neighbour (uncredited)
Behind-the-scenes[edit]

 

 Henry (Peter Benson) surveys the destruction in the wake of the Jack Cade rebellion. Note the charred and rubbish strewn set, which has darkened considerably since 1 Henry VI, where yellow, bright blue and red predominated
This episode was filmed on the same set as The First Part of Henry the Sixt. However, designer Oliver Bayldon altered the set so it would appear that the paint work was flaking and peeling, and the set falling into a state of disrepair, as England descended into an ever increasing state of chaos.[164] In the same vein, the costumes became more and more monotone as the four plays went on - The First Part of Henry the Sixt features brightly coloured costumes which clearly distinguish the various combatants from one another, but by The Tragedy of Richard III, everyone fights in similarly coloured dark costumes, with little to differentiate one army from another.[165] An element of verfremdungseffekt in this production is the use of doubling, particularly in relation to actors David Burke and Trevor Peacock. Burke plays both Henry's closest advisor and most loyal servant, Gloucester, and after Gloucester's death, he plays Jack Cade's right-hand man, Dick the Butcher. Peacock plays Cade himself, having previously appeared in The First Part of Henry the Sixt as Lord Talbot, representative of chivalry. Both actors play complete inversions of their previous characters, re-creating both an authentically Elizabethan theatrical practice and providing a Brechtian political commentary.[168][169] Howell's presentation of the complete first historical tetralogy was one of the most lauded achievements of the entire BBC series, and prompted Stanley Wells to argue that the productions were "probably purer than any version given in the theatre since Shakespeare's time."[159] Michael Mannheim was similarly impressed, calling the tetralogy "a fascinating, fast paced and surprisingly tight-knit study in political and national deterioration."[166][167]
The Third Part of Henry the Sixt[edit]
Directed by Jane Howell
Produced by Shaun Sutton
Taping dates: 10–17 February 1982
First transmitted in the UK: 16 January 1983
First transmitted in the US: 24 April and 1 May 1983[155]
Running Time (PAL DVD): 211 minutes
John Benfield as the Earl of Northumberland/Huntsman/Warwick's Messenger (uncredited)
Peter Benson as Henry VI
Gerald Blackmore as Warwick's Messenger
Antony Brown as Lewis, King of France/Sir John Montgomery/Lieutenant of the Tower (uncredited)
Michael Byrne as the Marquess of Montague/Father than Killed his Son
Paul Chapman as Earl Rivers
Ron Cook as Richard, Duke of Gloucester
Rowena Cooper as Lady Elizabeth Grey
Arthur Cox as the Duke of Somerset/Sir John Mortimer (uncredited)
David Daker as Lord Hastings
Mathew David as the Earl of Rutland
Brian Deacon as Earl of Oxford
Tenniel Evans as First Gamekeeper/First Watchman/York's Messenger/Sir William Stanley (uncredited)
Derek Farr as the Duke of Exeter/Mayor of York/Rutland's Tutor (uncredited)/Second Watchman (uncredited)/Nobleman (uncredited)
Julia Foster as Queen Margaret
Derek Fuke as the Earl of Westmorland/Post/Third Watchman (uncredited)/Clifford's Messenger (uncredited)
Tim Fuke as the Earl of Richmond
Alex Guard as the Marquess of Dorset/Son that Killed his Father
Bernard Hill as the Duke of York
Paul Jesson as George, Duke of Clarence
Merelina Kendall as Lady Bona
Oengus MacNamara as Young Clifford/Warwick's Messenger/Henry's Messenger (uncredited)
Brian Protheroe as Edward IV
Nick Reding as Edward, Prince of Wales
Mark Wing-Davey as the Earl of Warwick
Peter Wyatt as the Duke of Norfolk/Second Gamekeeper (uncredited)
Behind-the-scenes[edit]

 

 The Battle of Tewkesbury; note the similarity in the costumes of the two sets of combatants - it is virtually impossible to tell the Yorkists from the Lancastrians
This episode was filmed on the same set as The First Part of Henry the Sixt and The Second Part of Henry the Sixt. However, designer Oliver Bayldon altered the set so it would appear to be completely falling apart, as England descended into an even worse state of chaos.[164] In the same vein, the costumes became more and more monotone as the four plays went on - The First Part of Henry the Sixt features brightly coloured costumes which clearly distinguish the various combatants from one another, but by The Tragedy of Richard III, everyone fights in similarly coloured dark costumes, with little to differentiate one army from another.[165] The scene where Richard kills Henry has three biblical references carefully worked out by Howell; as Richard drags Henry away, his arms spread out into a crucified position; on the table at which he sat are seen bread and wine, and in the background, an iron crossbar is faintly illuminated against the black stone wall.[170] Howell's presentation of the complete first historical tetralogy was one of the most lauded achievements of the entire BBC series, and prompted Stanley Wells to argue that the productions were "probably purer than any version given in the theatre since Shakespeare's time."[159] Michael Mannheim was similarly impressed, calling the tetralogy "a fascinating, fast paced and surprisingly tight-knit study in political and national deterioration."[166][167]
The Tragedy of Richard III[edit]
Directed by Jane Howell
Produced by Shaun Sutton
Taping dates: 31 March-6 April 1982
First transmitted in the UK: 23 January 1983
First transmitted in the US: 2 May 1983
Running Time (PAL DVD): 239 minutes
Peter Benson as the Ghost of Henry VI/Priest (uncredited)
Antony Brown as Sir Richard Ratcliffe
David Burke as Sir William Catesby
Michael Byrne as the Duke of Buckingham
Anne Carroll as Jane Shore
Paul Chapman as Earl Rivers/Archbishop of Canterbury (uncredited)
Ron Cook as Richard III
Rowena Cooper as Queen Elizabeth
Arthur Cox as Lord Grey/Lord Mayor of London/Sir Christopher (uncredited)
Annette Crosbie as the Duchess of York
David Daker as Lord Hastings
Brian Deacon as Henry, Earl of Richmond/Second Citizen
Jeremy Dimmick as Young Duke of York
Tenniel Evans as Lord Stanley/Archbishop of York
Derek Farr as Sir Robert Brackenbury/Earl of Surrey/Scrivener (uncredited)/Third Citizen (uncredited)/Bishop of Ely (uncredited)
Dorian Ford as Edward, Prince of Wales
Julia Foster as Margaret
Derek Fuke as Sir Thomas Vaughan/Second Murderer/Richard's Fourth Messenger (uncredited)
Alex Guard as the Marquess of Dorset
Bernard Hill as First Murderer/Sir William Brandon (uncredited)/Sheriff of Wiltshire (uncredited)
Paul Jesson as George, Duke of Clarence/Pursuivant (uncredited)/Richard's Third Messenger (uncredited)
Patsy Kensit as Lady Margaret Plantagenet
Rusty Livingston as Richard's Page
Oengus MacNamara as Lord Lovell/Halberdier/Elizabeth's Messenger (uncredited)/Richard's First Messenger (uncredited)
Brian Protheroe as Edward IV/Sir Walter Herbert (uncredited)/Richard's Second Messenger (uncredited)
Nick Reding as the Ghost of the Prince of Wales
Stephen Rooney as Edward Plantagenet
Zoë Wanamaker as Lady Anne
Mark Wing-Davey as Sir James Tyrell/Sir James Blunt (uncredited)/First Citizen (uncredited)
Peter Wyatt as the Duke of Norfolk/Keeper (uncredited)/Stanley's Messenger (uncredited)
Behind-the-scenes[edit]

 

 The controversial final image of the episode - the "reverse pietà" - which divided critics, but which for director Jane Howell was a vital aspect of the thematic design of the production
This episode was filmed on the same set as the three Henry VI plays. However, designer Oliver Bayldon altered the set so it would appear to be a ruin, as England reached its lowest point of chaos.[164] In the same vein, the costumes became more and more monotone as the four plays went on - The First Part of Henry the Sixt features brightly coloured costumes which clearly distinguish the various combatants from one another, but by The Tragedy of Richard III, everyone fights in similarly coloured dark costumes, with little to differentiate one army from another.[165] Because this version of Richard III functioned as the fourth part of a series, it meant that much of the text usually cut in standalone productions could remain. The most obvious beneficiary of this was the character of Margaret, whose role, if not removed completely, is usually severely truncated. Textual editor David Snodin was especially pleased that a filmed version of Richard III was finally presenting Margaret's full role.[171] Director Jane Howell also saw the unedited nature of the tetralogy as important for Richard himself, arguing that without the three Henry VI plays "it is impossible to appreciate Richard except as some sort of diabolical megalomaniac," whereas in the full context of the tetralogy "you've seen why he is created, you know how such a man can be created: he was brought up in war, he saw and knew nothing else from his father but the struggle for the crown, and if you've been brought up to fight, if you've got a great deal of energy, and physical handicaps, what do you do? You take to intrigue and plotting."[172] The production is unusual amongst filmed Richards insofar as no one is killed on camera except Richard himself. This was very much a conscious choice on the part of Howell; "you see nobody killed; just people going away, being taken away - so much like today; they're just removed. There's a knock on the door and people are almost willing to go. There's no way out of it."[173] Somewhat controversially, the episode ended with Margaret sitting atop a pyramid of corpses (played by all of the major actors who had appeared throughout the tetralogy) cradling Richard's dead body and laughing manically, an image Edward Burns refers to as "a blasphemous pietà."[174] Howell herself referred to it as a "reverse pietà," and defended it by arguing that the tetralogy is bigger than Richard III, so to end by simply showing Richard's death and Richmond's coronation is to diminish the roles that have gone before; the vast amount of death that has preceded the end of Richard III cannot be ignored.[175] R. Chris Hassel Jr. remarks of this scene that "our last taste is not the restoration of order and good governance, but of chaos and arbitrary violence."[176] Hugh M. Richmond says the scene gives the production a "cynical conclusion," as "it leaves our impressions of the new King Henry VII's reign strongly coloured by Margaret's malevolent glee at the destruction of her enemies that Henry has accomplished for her."[177] Howell's presentation of the complete first historical tetralogy was one of the most lauded achievements of the entire BBC series, and prompted Stanley Wells to argue that the productions were "probably purer than any version given in the theatre since Shakespeare's time."[159] Michael Mannheim was similarly impressed, calling the tetralogy "a fascinating, fast paced and surprisingly tight-knit study in political and national deterioration."[166] At 239 minutes, this production was the longest episode in the entire series, and when the series was released on DVD in 2005, it was the only adaptation split over two disks. Of the 3,887 lines comprising the First Folio text of the play, Howell cut only 72; roughly 1.8% of the total.[178][179]
Season six; Shaun Sutton, producer[edit]
Cymbeline[edit]
Directed by Elijah Moshinsky
Taping dates: 29 July-5 August 1982
First transmitted in the UK: 10 July 1983[137]
First transmitted in the US: 20 December 1982
Running Time (PAL DVD): 175 minutes
Richard Johnson as Cymbeline
Hugh Thomas as Cornelius
Claire Bloom as Queen
Helen Mirren as Imogen
Michael Pennington as Posthumous
John Kane as Pisanio
Paul Jesson as Cloten
Robert Lindsay as Iachimo
Geoffrey Lumsden as Philario
Patsy Smart as Helen
Graham Crowden as Caius Lucius
Michael Gough as Belarius
Geoffrey Burridge as Guiderius
David Creedon as Arviragus
Patricia Hayes as Soothsayer
Marius Goring as Sicilius Leonatus
Michael Hordern as Jupiter
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
From this episode on, the show featured no unique theme music; the opening titles were scored with music composed specifically for the episode; although the new title sequence introduced by Miller at the start of season three continued to be used. During the episode, the battle between the Romans and the Britons is never shown on screen; all that is seen is a single burning building, intended to indicate the general strife; we never see the defeat of Iachimo, Posthumous sparing him or Iachimo's reaction. Moshinsky did not want to expunge the political context of the play, but he was not especially interested in the military theme, and so removed most of it, with an aim to focus instead on the personal.[180] Moshinsky shot the scene of Iachimo watching the sleeping Imogen in the same way as he shot the scene of Imogen finding Cloten in bed beside her; as Iachimo leaves the room, the camera is at the head of the bed, and as such, Imogen appears upside-down in frame. Later, when she awakes to find the headless Cloten, the scene begins with the camera in the same position, with Imogen once again upside-down; "the inverted images visually bind the perverse experiences, both nightmarish, both sleep related, both lit by one candle."[181] Moshinsky used Rembrandt's portrait of Agatha Bas as inspiration for Imogen's costume.[182]
Macbeth[edit]
Directed by Jack Gold
Taping dates: 22–28 June 1982
First transmitted in the UK: 5 November 1983[137]
First transmitted in the US: 17 October 1983
Running Time (PAL DVD): 146 minutes
Brenda Bruce as First Witch
Eileen Way as Second Witch
Anne Dyson as Third Witch
Mark Dignam as Duncan
James Hazeldine as Malcolm
John Rowe as Lennox
Gawn Grainger as Ross
Nicol Williamson as Macbeth
Ian Hogg as Banquo
David Lyon as Angus
Jane Lapotaire as Lady Macbeth
Alistair Henderson as Fleance
Tony Doyle as Macduff
Tom Bowles as Donalbain
Eamon Boland as Seyton
Jill Baker as Lady Macduff
Crispin Mair as Young Macduff
Matthew Long as Menteith
Peter Porteous as Caithness
William Abney as Old Siward
Nicholas Coppin as Young Siward
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
This episode was shot with a 360 degree cycloramic backcloth in the background which could be used as representative of a general environment, with much use made of open space.[183]
The Comedy of Errors[edit]
Directed by James Cellan Jones
Taping dates: 3–9 November 1983
First transmitted in the UK: 24 December 1983
First transmitted in the US: 20 February 1984
Running Time (PAL DVD): 108 minutes
Cyril Cusack as Aegeon
Charles Gray as Solinus, Duke of Ephesus
Nicolas Chagrin as Master of the Mime
Bunny Reed as Gaoler
Michael Kitchen as The Antipholi
Roger Daltrey as The Dromios
Noël Johnson as First Merchant
Suzanne Bertish as Adriana
Joanne Pearce as Luciana
Marsha Fitzalan as Luce
Sam Dastor as Angelo
David Kelly as Balthazar
Alfred Hoffman as Second Merchant
Frank Williams as Officer
Ingrid Pitt as Courtesan
Geoffrey Rose as Pinch
Wendy Hiller as Aemelia
Peter MacKriel as Messenger
Behind-the-scenes[edit]

 

 Opening shot of the episode showing the map of the region on the floor of the stylised market set; at the top of the shot is the abbey, top left is the Phoenix, bottom left is the Centaur, bottom right is the Porpentine, top right is a market stall. The entrance to the bay is opposite the abbey, out of shot
Director James Cellan Jones felt very strongly that the play was not a farce and that it included a serious side, specifically represented by the character of Aegeon, who has lost his family and is about to lose his life. In several productions Jones had seen, Aegeon was completely forgotten between the first and last scenes, and determined to avoid this, and hence to give the production a more seriousness air, Jones had Aegeon wandering around Ephesus throughout the episode.[184] This production used editing and special effects to have each set of twins played by the same actors. However, this was not especially well received by critics, who argued that not only was it confusing for the audience as to which character was which, but much of the comedy was lost when the characters look identical. The entire production takes place on a stylised set, the floor of which is a giant map of the region, shown in its entirety in the opening and closing aerial shots; all of the main locations (the Porpentine, the Abbey, the Phoenix, the market etc.) are located in a circular pattern around the centre map.[185]
The Two Gentlemen of Verona[edit]
Directed by Don Taylor
Taping dates: 25–31 July 1983
First transmitted in the UK: 27 December 1983
First transmitted in the US: 23 April 1984
Running Time (PAL DVD): 137 minutes
Frank Barrie as Eglamour
Tessa Peake-Jones as Julia
Hetta Charnley as Lucetta
Tyler Butterworth as Proteus
John Hudson as Valentine
Nicholas Kaby as Speed
Michael Byrne as Antonio
John Woodnutt as Panthino
Joanne Pearce as Sylvia
Tony Haygarth as Launce
Bella as Crab
David Collings as Thurio
Paul Daneman as Duke of Milan
Daniel Flynn as Servant
Charlotte Richardson as Cupid
Jonathan Taylor as Cupid
Bill Badley as Lutenist
Tom Finucane as Lutenist
Robin Jeffrey as Lutenist
Adam Kurakin as First Outlaw
John Baxter as Second Outlaw
Andrew Burt as Third Outlaw
Michael Graham Cox as Host
Behind-the-scenes[edit]

 

 An outlaw hides in the "Christmas at Selfridge's" set; note the stylised steel 'trees' and tinsel foilage
The music in this episode was created by Anthony Rooley, who wrote new arrangements of works from Shakespeare's own time, such as John Dowland's piece 'Lachrimae'. Performed by The Consort of Musicke, other musicians whose music was used include William Byrd, Thomas Campion, Anthony Holborne, John Johnson, Thomas Morley and Orazio Vecchi. As no original music was used, Stephen Oliver's theme from seasons 3-5 was used for the opening titles. Director Don Taylor initially planned a representational setting for the film; Verona, Milan and the forest were all to be realistic. However, he changed his mind early in preproduction and had production designer Barbara Gosnold go in the opposite direction – a stylised setting. To this end, the forest is composed of metal poles with bits of green tinsel and brown sticks stuck to them (the cast and crew referred to the set as "Christmas at Selfridges"). Whilst the set for Verona remained relatively realistic, that for Milan featured young actors dressed like cherubs as extras. This was to convey the idea that the characters lived in a 'Garden of Courtly Love', which was slightly divorced from everyday reality.[186] Working in tandem with this idea, upon Proteus' arrival in Milan, after meeting Silvia, he is left alone on stage, and the weather suddenly changes from calm and sunny to cloudy and windy, accompanied by a thunderclap. The implication being that Proteus has brought a darkness within him into the garden of courtly delights previously experienced by Silvia.[187] Although the production is edited in a fairly conventional manner, much of it was shot in extremely long takes, and then edited into sections, rather than actually shooting in sections. Taylor would shoot most of the scenes in single takes, as he felt this enhanced performances and allowed actors to discover aspects which they never would were everything broken up into pieces.[188][189]
The Tragedy of Coriolanus[edit]
Directed by Elijah Moshinsky
Taping dates: 18–26 April 1983
First transmitted in the UK: 21 April 1984[137]
First transmitted in the US: 26 March 1984
Running Time (PAL DVD): 145 minutes
Joss Ackland as Menenius
Alan Howard as Gaius Marcius Coriolanus
Patrick Godfrey as Cominius
Peter Sands as Titus Lartius
John Burgess as Sicinius
Anthony Pedley as Junius Brutus
Mike Gwilym as Aufidius
Valentine Dyall as Adrian
Irene Worth as Volumnia
Joanna McCallum as Virgilia
Heather Canning as Valeria
Damien Franklin as Marcus
Nicolas Amer as Aedile
Teddy Kempner as Nicanor
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
The production design of Rome in this episode was very specific; everywhere except the Senate was to be small and cramped. The idea behind this design choice was to reflect Coriolanus' mindset. He dislikes the notion of the people gathering together for anything, and on such a cramped set, because the alleys and streets are so small, it only takes a few people to make them look dangerously crowded.[181] When Caius Marcus fights Coriolian soldiers, he leaves his shirt on, but when he fights Aufidius in one-on-one combat, he takes it off. Moshinsky did this to give the scene an undercurrent of homoeroticism.[190] In the TV script for the episode, Coriolanus' death scene is played as a fight between himself and Aufidius in front of a large crowd who urge Aufidius to kill him. However, in shooting the scene, Moshinsky changed it so that it takes place in front of a few silent senators, and there is no real fight as such.[191]
Season seven; Shaun Sutton, producer[edit]
The Life and Death of King John[edit]
Directed by David Giles
Taping dates: 1–7 February 1984
First transmitted in the UK: 24 November 1984
First transmitted in the US: 11 January 1985
Running Time (PAL DVD): 155 minutes
Leonard Rossiter as King John
William Whymper as Chatillon
Mary Morris as Queen Elinor
Robert Brown as the Earl of Pembroke
John Castle as the Earl of Salisbury
John Flint as Lord Bigot
John Thaw as Hubert de Burgh
George Costigan as Philip the Bastard
Edward Hibbert as Robert Faulconbridge
Phyllida Law as Lady Faulconbridge
Mike Lewin as James Gurney
Charles Kay as King Philip of France
Jonathan Coy as Lewis, the Dauphin
Luc Owen as Arthur, Duke of Britaine
Gorden Kaye as Lymoges, Duke of Austria
Claire Bloom as Constance
John Moreno as Melun
Ian Barritt as French Herald
Janet Maw as Blanche
Carl Oatley as English Herald
Clifford Parrish as Citizen of Angiers
Richard Wordsworth as Cardinal Pandulph
Ian Brimble as First Executioner
Ronald Chenery as English Messenger
Alan Collins as Peter of Pomfret
Tim Brown as French Messenger
Rusty Livingstone as Prince Henry
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Leonard Rossiter died before this production aired. For this production, director David Giles chose to go with a semi-stylised setting which he referred to as both "emblematic" and "heraldic."[192] The music was written by Colin Sell.
Pericles, Prince of Tyre[edit]
Directed by David Jones
Taping dates: 21–28 June 1983
First transmitted in the UK: 8 December 1984[137]
First transmitted in the US: 11 June 1984
Running Time (PAL DVD): 178 minutes
Edward Petherbridge as Gower
John Woodvine as King Antiochus
Edita Brychta as Antiochus' daughter
Mike Gwilym as Pericles
Robert Ashby as Thaliard
Patrick Godfrey as Helicanus
Toby Salaman as Escanes
Norman Rodway as Cleon
Annette Crosbie as Dionyza
Christopher Saul as Lord of Tarsus
Patrick Allen as King Simonides
Juliet Stevenson as Thaisa
Edward Clayton as Philemon
Stephen Oxley as Lord of Pentapolis
Valerie Lush as Lychorida
Clive Swift as Lord Cerimon
Nick Brimble as Leonine
Amanda Redman as Marina
Trevor Peacock as Boult
Lila Kaye as Bawd
Patrick Ryecart as Lysimachus
Elayne Sharling as the Goddess Diana
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
Director David Jones used a lot of long shots in this episode to try to create the sense of a small person taking in a vast world.[193] Annette Crosbie thought of Dionyza as an early version of Alexis Colby, Joan Collins' character in Dynasty.[112]
Much Ado About Nothing[edit]
Directed by Stuart Burge
Taping dates: 15–21 August 1984
First transmitted in the UK: 22 December 1984[137]
First transmitted in the US: 30 October 1984
Running Time (PAL DVD): 148 minutes
Lee Montague as Leonato
Cherie Lunghi as Beatrice
Katharine Levy as Hero
Jon Finch as Don Pedro
Robert Lindsay as Benedick
Robert Reynolds as Claudio
Gordon Whiting as Antonio
Vernon Dobtcheff as Don John
Robert Gwilym as Conrade
Tony Rohr as Borachio
Pamela Moiseiwitsch as Margaret
Ishia Bennison as Ursula
Oz Clarke as Balthasar
Michael Elphick as Dogberry
Clive Dunn as Verges
Graham Crowden as Friar Francis
Behind-the-scenes[edit]
The inaugural episode of the entire series was originally set to be a production of Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Donald McWhinnie, and starring Penelope Keith and Michael York.[66] The episode was shot (for £250,000), edited and even publically announced as the opening of the series, before it was suddenly pulled from the schedule and replaced with Romeo & Juliet (which was supposed to air as the second episode). No reasons were given by the BBC for this decision, although initial newspaper reports suggested that the episode had not been abandoned, it had simply been postponed for re-shoots, due to an unspecified actor's "very heavy accent," and concerns that US audiences would not be able to understand the dialogue.[67] However, as time wore on, and no reshoots materialised, the press began to speculate that the show had been cancelled entirely, and would be replaced at a later date by a completely new adaptation, which was in fact what happened.[68] The press also pointed out that the fact that the production was never shown in Britain rubbished any suggestion that the prevailing cause for the abandonment was to do with accents. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that BBC management simply regarded the production as a failure.[69] During the reshoot for season seven, director Stuart Burge initially thought about shooting the entire episode against a blank tapestry background, with no set whatsoever, but it was felt that audiences may not respond well to this, and the idea was scrapped.[194] Ultimately the production had a style referred to as "stylized realism"; the environments are suggestive of their real life counterparts, the foregrounds are broadly realistic representations, but the backgrounds tended to be more artificial; "a representational context close to the actors, with a more stylized presentation of distance."[195] Jan Spoczynski won Designer of the Year at the 1985 Royal Television Society Awards for his work on this episode.
Love's Labour's Lost[edit]
Directed by Elijah Moshinsky
Taping dates: 30 June-6 July 1984
First transmitted in the UK: 5 January 1985
First transmitted in the US: 31 May 1985
Running Time (PAL DVD): 120 minutes
Jonathan Kent as the King of Navarre
Christopher Blake as Longaville
Geoffrey Burridge as Dumain
Mike Gwilym as Berowne
David Warner as Don Armado
John Kane as Moth
Paul Jesson as Costard
Frank Williams as Dull
Paddy Navin as Jaquenetta
Clifford Rose as Boyet
Maureen Lipman as the Princess of France
Katy Behean as Maria
Petra Markham as Katharine
Jenny Agutter as Rosaline
Jay Ruparelia as Adrian
John Burgess as Sir Nathaniel
John Wells as Holofernes
Valentine Dyall as Marcade
Linda Kitchen as Spring
Susanna Ross as Winter
Behind-the-scenes[edit]

 

 The Princess of France and her party await the arrival of the King of Navarre. Note the obvious influence of the fête galante style in everything from the blocking of the characters, to the costumes, to the hairstyles, to the background
Director Elijah Moshinsky used the paintings of Jean-Antoine Watteau, especially his use of fête galante in pictures such as L'Embarquement pour Cythère, the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the writing of Pierre de Marivaux as inspiration during the making of this episode, which is the only play of the thirty-seven to be set in the eighteenth century. Of the play, Moshinsky said, "it has the atmosphere of Marivaux - which is rather delicious, and yet full of formalised rules between men and women, sense against sensibility; there's a distinction between enlightenment and feeling. I think the atmosphere of Watteau's paintings suits this enormously well and gives it a lightness of touch. And also it abstracts it; we don't want anything too realistic because the whole thing is a kind of mathematical equation - four men for four women - and the play is testing certain propositions about love."[196] To ensure that the image match the fête galante style, Moshinsky had lighting technician John Summers use floor lighting as opposed to the usual method of ceiling lighting for some of the exterior scenes, also shooting through a very light gauze to create a softness in line and colour.[197] For Moshinsky, the central episode of the production is the play-within-the-play in the final scene which is interrupted by the arrival of Marcade, an episode to which Moshinsky refers as "an astonishing sleight of hand about reality and the reflection of experiencing reality."[198] He argues that the audience is so wrapped up in watching the characters watch the pageant, that they have forgotten reality, and the arrival of Marcade with news of the death of the King of France jolts the audience back to reality in the same way it jolts the eight main characters. In this sense, Moshinsky sees the play more as about artifice and reality than romantic relationships.[199] This was one of only two productions which replaced original dialogue with material from outside the play (the other was Jonathan Miller's Anthony & Cleopatra). Here, in an invented scene set between Act 2 Scene 1 and Act 3, Scene 1, Berowne is shown drafting the poem to Rosaline which will later be read by Nathaniel to Jacquenetta. The lines in this invented scene (delivered in voice-over) are taken from the fifth poem of the William Jaggard publication The Passionate Pilgrim; a variant of Berowne's final version of his own poem. This was the only production which John Wilders, the series literary advisor, openly criticised; specifically, he objected to the character of Moth being portrayed by an adult actor.[200] For the scene where the lords run to Boyet to ask the ladies' names, the actors had to take off their shoes and play the scene barefoot, as when they moved, it was apparent on the soundtrack that the stone steps were actually wooden steps painted to look stone. The sounds of the shoes on stone were added in postproduction.[201][202]
Titus Andronicus[edit]
Directed by Jane Howell
Taping dates: 10–17 February 1985
First transmitted in the UK: 27 April 1985[137]
First transmitted in the US: 19 April 1985
Running Time (PAL DVD): 168 minutes
Paul Davies Prowles as Young Lucius
Edward Hardwicke as Marcus
Walter Brown as Aemilius
Brian Protheroe as Saturninus
Nicholas Gecks as Bassianus
Derek Fuke as Captain/3rd Goth/Sempronius
Eileen Atkins as Tamora
Peter Searles as Alarbus/ 4th Goth/Valentine
Neil McCaul as Demetrius
Michael Crompton as Chiron
Hugh Quarshie as Aaron
Gavin Richards as Lucius
Crispin Redman as Quintus
Tom Hunsinger as Martius
Michael Packer as Mutius
Trevor Peacock as Titus
Anna Calder-Marshall as Lavinia
Paul Kelly as Publius/2nd Goth
John Benfield as Messenger/1st Goth/Caius
Deddie Davies as Nurse
Tim Potter as Clown
Behind-the-scenes[edit]

 

 Young Lucius stares at the body of Aaron's baby, with his father in the background, out of focus, being inaugurated as the new emperor
Because Titus was broadcast several months after the rest of the seventh season, it was rumoured that the BBC were worried about the violence in the play and that disagreements had arisen about censorship. This was inaccurate however, with the delay caused by a BBC strike in 1984. The episode had been booked into the studio in February and March 1984, but the strike meant it could not shoot. When the strike ended, the studio could not be used as it was being used by another production, and then when the studio became available, the RSC was using Trevor Peacock, and filming did not take place until February 1985, a year later than planned.[203] Initially, director Jane Howell toyed with the idea of setting the play in present day Northern Ireland, but she ultimately settled on a more conventional approach. All the body parts seen throughout were based upon real autopsy photographs, and were authenticated by the Royal College of Surgeons. The costumes of the Goths were based on punk outfits, with Chiron and Demetrius specifically based on the band KISS. For the scene when Chiron and Demetrius are killed, a large carcass is seen hanging nearby; this was a genuine lamb carcass purchased from a kosher butcher and smeared with Vaseline to make it gleam under the studio lighting.[204] In an unusual design choice, Howell had the Roman populace all wear identical generic masks without mouths, so as to convey the idea that the Roman people were faceless and voiceless, as she felt the play depicted a society which "seemed like a society where everyone was faceless except for those in power."[205] In the opening scene, as the former emperor's body is carried out, only Saturninus and Bassianus take their masks away from their faces, no one else, and they do so only to glare at one another. In a significant departure from the text, Howell set Young Lucius as the centre of the production so as to prompt the question "What are we doing to the children?"[206] At the end of the play, as Lucius delivers his final speech, the camera stays on Young Lucius rather than his father, who is in the far background and out of focus, as he stares in horror at the coffin of Aaron's child (which has been killed off-screen). Thus the production became "in part about a boy's reaction to murder and mutilation. We see him losing his innocence and being drawn into this adventure of revenge; yet, at the end we perceive that he retains the capacity for compassion and sympathy."[207][208]
Omissions and changes[edit]
With the exception of Titus Andronicus and Pericles, Prince of Tyre, all of the productions were based on the texts of the First Folio (1623),[209] however, numerous changes were made throughout the series.
All line references are taken from the individual Oxford Shakespeare editions of each play.
The Taming of the Shrew The Induction and the interjection of Christopher Sly at the end of 1.1 are absent.
Several lines are omitted from the conversation between Grumio and Curtis in 4.1
The brief conversation between Biondello and Lucentio which opens 5.1 is absent.
5.2 ends differently to the play. The last line spoken is Petruchio's "We three are married, but you two are sped;" thus omitting Petruchio's comment to Lucentio "'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white,/And being a winner, God give you good night", as well as Hortensio's line, "Now go thy ways, thou has tamed a curst shrew", and Lucentio's closing statement, "'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so." Additionally, Petruchio and Katherina do not leave the banquet prior to the end of the play, but remain, and engage in a song with all present.
The First Part of Henry the Sixt Lines are omitted from almost every scene. Some of the more notable omissions include, in 1.1, Bedford's references to children crying and England becoming a marsh since Henry V died (ll.48-51). In 1.2, Alençon's praise of the resoluteness of the English army is absent (ll.29-34). In 1.5, Talbot's complaint about the French wanting to ransom him for a prisoner of less worth is absent (ll.8-11). In 1.7, some of Charles' praise of Joan is absent (ll.21-27). In 4.6, some of the dialogue between Talbot and John is absent (ll.6-25). In 4.7, twelve of Joan's sixteen lines are cut; the entire seven line speech where she says John Talbot refused to fight her because she is a woman (ll.37-43), the first three lines of her five line mockery of Lucy's listing of Talbot's titles (ll.72-75), and the first two lines of her four line speech where she mocks Lucy as he is about to take over Talbot's position (ll.86-88).
The adaptation opens differently to the text, as we see Henry VI singing a lament for his father.
Fastolf's escape from Rouen is seen rather than merely mentioned.
5.1 and 5.2 are reversed so that 4.7 and 5.2 now form one continuous piece.
The Duke of Burgundy is seen to be killed prior to Joan's capture; in the text, his fate is unknown.
The character of Warwick as portrayed by Mark Wing-Davey is Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick. In the play however, the character is Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick, Neville's father-in-law.
The Second Part of Henry the Sixt Lines are omitted from almost every scene. Some of the more notable omissions include, in 1.1, both of Humphrey's references to Bedford are absent (ll. 82-83, 95-96), as is the reference to Suffolk's demands that he be paid for escorting Margaret from France (ll. 131-133), and York's allusion to Althaea and Calydon in his closing soliloquy (ll.231-235). York's outline of Edward III's seven sons is absent from 2.2 (ll.10-17), as is Salisbury's reference to Owen Glendower (l.41). Suffolk's accusation that Humphrey was involved in necromancy with Eleanor is omitted from 3.1 (ll.47-53), as is Humphrey's outline of how he dealt with criminals during his time as Lord Protector (ll.128-132). Also absent from 3.1 is York's reference to how he fought alongside Cade in Ireland (ll.360-370). In 4.1, all references to Walter Whitmore's name as Gualtier are absent. The entirety of 4.5 (a brief scene showing Lord Scales and Matthew Gough on patrol at the Tower of London) is absent. In 5.1, some of the dialogue between Clifford and Warwick is absent (ll.200-210).
Some lines have also been added to the play. In 1.1, two lines are added to Salisbury's vow to support York if he can prove he is a legitimate heir to the crown; "The reverence of mine age and the Neville's name/Is of no little force if I command" (added between ll.197 and 198). In 1.3, two lines are added to the conversation between Margaret and Thump, where Thump mistakes the word 'usurper' for 'usurer' and is corrected by Margaret (between ll.31 and 32). In 2.1, the conversation between Humphrey and Beaufort is extended, wherein Humphrey says that Beaufort was born "in bastardy". All of these additional lines are taken from the 1594 quarto of the play, The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster.
Several lines are spoken by characters other than who speak in the Folio text. In 1.3, Humphrey's line "This is the law and this Duke Humphrey's doom" is given to Henry. In 1.4, during the conjuration, there is no separate spirit in the scene; all the spirit's dialogue is spoken 'through' Magarey Jourdayne. Also, later in this scene, it is Buckingham who reads the prophecies, not York. In 4.1, the second half of line 139 ("Pompey the Great and Suffolk dies by pirates") is given to the Lieutenant.
The character of George Plantagenet is introduced towards the end of the play, just prior to the Battle of St Albans, with which the play closes. In the text however, George is not introduced until 3 Henry VI, 2.2.
The character of Buckingham is killed onscreen. In the play, his fate is unknown, and it is only revealed in the opening lines of 3 Henry VI that he had been killed by Edward.
The play ends slightly differently to how it is indicated in the text. After the battle, the victorious House of York leave the stage, all except Salisbury, who sadly looks around the field of battle at the many dead bodies.
The Third Part of Henry the Sixt Lines are omitted from almost every scene. Some of the more notable omissions include the opening twenty-four lines of the first scene. Instead the play begins with Warwick proclaiming, "This is the palace of the fearful king". Also in 1.1, all references to Margaret chairing a session of parliament are absent (ll.35-42), as are her references to the pains of child birth, and Henry's shameful behaviour in disinheriting his son (ll.221-226). Absent from 1.3 is Rutland's appeal to Clifford's paternal instincts (ll.41-43). In 2.1, all references to Clarence's entry into the conflict are absent, as he had already been introduced as a combatant at the end of The Second Part of Henry VI. During the debate between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians in 2.2, Richard's "Northumberland, I hold thee reverentially" is absent (l.109). In 3.3, Warwick's reference to Salisbury's death and the incident with his niece are both absent (ll.186-188). In 4.4, the first twelve lines are absent (where Elizabeth reports to Rivers that Edward has been captured).
Some lines are also added to the play. In 1.1, four lines are added at the beginning of Henry's declaration that he would rather see civil war than yield the throne; "Ah Plantagenet, why seekest thou to depose me?/Are we not both Plantagenets by birth?/And from two brothers lineally descent?/Suppose by right and equity thou be king." Also in 1.1, a line is inserted when York asks Henry if he agrees to the truce and Henry replies "Convey the soldiers hence, and then I will." Most significant is in Act 5, Scene 1, where the incident involving Clarence's return to the Lancastrian side is completely different to the text found in the Folio, and is taken entirely from the octavo text of The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York (1595).
Several lines are spoken by characters other than who speak in the Folio text, particularly in relation to Clarence. For example, in 2.1, it is Clarence who says Edward's "I wonder how our princely father scaped,/Or whether he be scaped away or no/From Clifford and Northumberland's pursuit." Clarence also speaks Richard's "Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun,/Not separated with the racking clouds/But severed in a pale clear-shining sky," Edward's "Sweet Duke of York, our prop to lean upon/Now thou art gone, we have no staff, no stay," and Richard's "Great lord of Warwick, if we should recount/Our baleful news, and at each word's deliverance/Stab poniards in our flesh till all were told,/The words would add more anguish than the wounds."
The presentation of the character of Montague also differs from the Folio text. Montague is not present in 1.1, and as such, his lines are either spoken by Clarence or omitted. He is introduced in 1.2, but with some notable changes to the text; when York is giving his men instructions, his order to Montague, "Brother, thou shalt to London presently" (l.36) is changed to "Cousin, thou shalt to London presently," York's reiteration of the order "My brother Montague shall post to London" (l.54) is changed to "Hast you to London my cousin Montague," and Montague's "Brother, I go, I'll win them, fear it not" (l.60) is changed to "Cousin, I go, I'll win them, fear it not." Additionally, the report of the death of Warwick and Montague's brother Thomas Neville in 2.3 is different from the text; "son" in line 15 is replaced with "father", "brother" in line 19 is replaced with "son", and "gentleman" in line 23 is replaced with "Salisbury".
The character of Elizabeth's son, the Marquess of Dorset, is introduced just after the marriage of Elizabeth and Edward (4.1). In the text, Dorset does not appear until Richard III.
The Tragedy of Richard III Of the 3,887 lines comprising the First Folio text of the play, Howell cut only 72; roughly 1.8% of the total.[178] Some of these lines include Richard's reference in 1.3 to Queen Elizabeth's family fighting for the House of Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses (ll.127-130). Also absent is Margaret warning Dorset that he is only recently made a noble and doesn't yet fully understand the value of his role, Richard telling Dorset that this is good council, and the subsequent discussion between Richard and Margaret about eyries (ll.254-272). In 2.1, Edward's reference to "the precious image of our dear Redeemer" is absent (l.122). In 3.1, Richard's comparison of himself to "the formal Vice Iniquity" is absent (ll.82-83), as is his instruction to Buckingham in 3.5 to tell the people that Edward once put someone to death for saying he would make his son "heir to the Crown, meaning, indeed, his house" (ll.74-77). Absent from 4.4 is Elizabeth's accusation that Richard is using the crown to hide his murder of her two sons (ll.134-137) and Richard's subsequent references to "Humphrey Hower" (ll.166-168). Sir Christopher's list of nobles fighting for Richard is absent from 4.5 (ll.11-15), as is Stanley's list of the nobles who have died during the battle from 5.7 (ll.12-15)
The character of Lord Grey is not portrayed as Queen Elizabeth's son, but simply as a kinsman; only Dorset is her son. In the text, although there is some confusion and overlapping regarding the two characters in the early scenes, in the latter half of the play, they are both depicted as her sons.
After the murder of Clarence, Sir Richard Ratcliffe is revealed to have been watching the entire time from a balcony overlooking the room. As the murderer disposes of the body, Ratcliffe quietly leaves.
Jane Shore is present in 3.2; when Catesby comes to see Hastings, Shore comes out of Hastings' house as he prepares himself to meet with Stanley. In the play, Shore is mentioned as the mistress of Edward IV and Hastings, but never appears on-stage.
Lovell and Ratcliffe are present throughout 4.1; listening to Lady Anne, the Duchess of Gloucester and Queen Elizabeth lamenting the fact that Richard has been made king.
Dorset is present as a member of Richmond's council from 5.2 onwards; in the text, Dorset is not seen after he leaves England. In 5.2, Dorset speaks the lines assigned to the Earl of Oxford/Second Lord.
Just prior to the appearance of the ghosts in 5.4, the Duchess of Gloucester's lines where she promises to pray for Richard's enemies and hopes that the spirits of those he has murdered haunts him (4.4.180-185) are repeated in voiceover.
The play ends differently to the text. After Richmond is finished speaking, the camera moves away and begins to pan across a huge pyramid of bodies. Off-camera, a woman can be heard laughing. Eventually, the camera moves up the pyramid, and sitting atop, cradling Richard's body, is Margaret.
The Comedy of Errors Some minor lines are omitted from various scenes; most of the discussion between Antipholus (S) and Dromio (S) regarding Father Time and baldness (2.2.75-109); Luciana's report of what Dromio (E) told her as to why Antipholus (E) would not come home to dinner (2.2.-160-162); Dromio (S)'s "Your cake here is warm within; you stand here in the cold./It would make a man mad as a buck to be so bought and sold" (3.1.72-73); the argument between Dromio (S), Dromio (E) and Antipholus (E) about birds without feathers and fish without fins (3.1.79-84); Antipholus (E)'s denial that he is having an affair with the Courtesan (3.1.112-114); the reference to "America, the Indies" during the discussion regarding Nell (3.2.136-140); several lines are omitted from Adriana's appeal to the Duke in 5.1 (ll.146-147, ll.150-152 and l.158); Antipholus (E)'s description of Pinch (5.1.238-240); Aegeon's "Though now this grain'd face of mine be hid/In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow" (5.1.312-313)
At various points in the production, Aegeon wanders listlessly around the set, unlike the play, where he appears in the opening and closing scene only. In the production, he appears at the start of 3.1, 4.1, 4.3 and 5.1.
A small scene is added between 3.2 and 4.1 where Antipholus (S) is standing on his balcony and sees Antipholus (E) wandering in the market place. However, he rubs his eyes, looks at his glass of wine and dismisses what he has seen.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona 1.1 begins with Mercatio and Eglamour attempting to formally woo Julia; Mercatio by showing her a coffer overflowing with gold coins, Eglamour by displaying a parchment detailing his family history (there is no dialogue in this scene).
The capture of Silvia and the flight of Eglamour is seen, as opposed to merely being described.
Eglamour is also present at the end of 5.4 (once again without any dialogue).
Love's Labour's Lost A large number of lines are cut from every scene in the play. Some of the more notable omissions include, from 1.1, Longaville's "Fat paunches have lean pats, and dainty bits/Make rich the ribs but bankrupt quite the wits" (ll.26-27); Berowne's "study is like the heaven's glorious sun,/That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks;/Small have continual plodders ever won,/Save base authority from others' books" (ll.84-87); the discussion between the Berowne and the others regarding corn, geese and Spring (ll.96-109); Berowne's condemnation of study, "while it doth study to have what it would,/It doth forget to do the thing it should;/And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,/'Tis won as towns with fire – so won, so lost" (ll.142-145); some of the dialogue discussing Armado and the initial dialogue upon the arrival of Costard and Dull (ll.176-188); and the dialogue between Berowne and Costard which ends the scene (ll.293-302). Absent from 1.2 is most of the discussion between Moth and Armado as to how Armado may get three years' worth of study into an hour (ll.33-55); the discussion between Moth and Armado regarding the four complexions (ll.83-111); and Armado's references to duelling in his soliloquy (ll.169-171). Absent from 2.1 is the second set of word play between Berowne and Rosaline (ll.178-191); and most of the conversation between Boyet and Longaville (ll.198-206). Absent from 3.1 is most of the opening conversation between Moth and Armado regarding love (ll.6-49). Absent from 4.1 is most of the conversation between the Princess and the Forester regarding the deer (ll.11-41); the concluding lines of Armado's letter to Jaquenetta, "Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar/'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey./Submissive fall his princely feet before,/And he from forage will incline to play./But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then?/Food for his rage, repasture for his den" (ll.87-92); the discussion between Boyet, Maria and Costard about aiming (ll.128-140); and most of Costard's closing soliloquy (ll.143-148). Absent from 4.2 is some of the dialogue between Costard and Holofernes (ll.80-88). 4.3 is especially heavily cut, with some of the absences including the opening few lines from Berowne's soliloquy (ll.1-7), his initial aside upon the arrival of the King, "Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid. Thou hast thumped him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets" (ll.21-23); most of the King's sonnet (ll.31-41); most of Berowne and the King's asides upon the arrival of Longaville (ll.45-53); most of Berowne, the King and Longaville's asides upon the arrival of Dumaine (ll.77-89); most of Berowne's argument that Rosaline is the most beautiful of the ladies (ll.231-242); and Berowne's closing lines after the others have left (ll.356-361). Absent from 5.1 is the conversation where Moth gets the intellectual and linguistic better of Holofernes (ll.37-76). Also absent from 5.1 is most of Costard’s speech in which he uses the word "honorificabilitudinitatibus" (ll.39-42). Absent from 5.2 is Boyet's report of Moth's rehearsing for the masque (ll.97-118); some of the mockery of Moth when he tries to recite his lines (ll.166-174); most of the dialogue between the King and Rosaline disguised as the Princess (ll.219-226); some of Berowne's explanation as to how the ladies knew what the men were up to (ll.462-467 and ll.474-481); the conversation regarding how many Worthies there are supposed to be (ll.485-505); and some of the insults shouted at Holofernes (ll.607-611).
1.1 and 1.2 are intercut. 1.1. runs to line 175, and then cuts to 1.2, which runs to line 118. At that point, 1.1 picks up at line 189, running to the end, where 1.2 picks up at line 121. The intercutting is structured so as Costard and Dull's exist from the King in 1.1. is followed immediately by their arrival at Armado's in 1.2.
An 'invented' scene is added between 2.1 and 3.1. In this scene, we see Berowne drafting the poem which is later read by Nathaniel. The lines he writes in the scene (which are heard in voiceover) are taken from the fifth poem of the William Jaggard publication The Passionate Pilgrim; itself a variant of the final version of Berowne's own poem.
Moth is portrayed by an adult actor in the production, whereas in the play, there are multiple references to him being a child.
Titus Andronicus Some minor lines are omitted from various scenes, such as Lavinia's "Ay, for these slips have made him noted long" (2.3.87), Titus' "Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands,/To bid Aeneas tell the tale twice o’er,/How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?" (3.2.26-28), Marcus' "What, what! The lustful sons of Tamora/Performers of this heinous, bloody deed" (4.1.78-79), and Titus and Marcus' brief conversation about Taurus and Aries (4.3.68-75).
Several lines from the Q1 text which were removed in subsequent editions are used; at 1.1.35 Titus' "bearing his valiant sons/in coffins from the field" continues with "and at this day,/To the Monument of that Andronicy/Done sacrifice of expiation,/And slaine the Noblest prisoner of the Gothes." These lines work in tandem with a rearrangement of the opening scenes to avoid a continuity problem. The lines concern the sacrifice of Alarbus, which has not yet happened in the text. However, Howell got around this problem by beginning the play at 1.1.64 – the entrance of Titus. Then, at 1.1.168, after the sacrifice of Alarbus, lines 1.1.1 to 1.1.63 (the introductions of Bassianus and Saturninus) take place, thus Titus' reference to Alarbus' sacrifice makes chronological sense.
The character of Young Lucius is a much more important figure in the adaptation than in the play; he is present throughout Act 1, he retrieves the murder weapon after the death of Mutius; it is his knife which Titus uses to kill the fly; he aids in the capture of Chiron and Demetrius; he is present throughout the final scene.
Also changed is the fate of Aaron's baby, who is seen dead in a coffin in the final scene. In the play, and most productions, it is implied that the child lives.

Footnotes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Susan Willis The BBC Shakespeare Plays: Making the Televised Canon (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 3
2.Jump up ^ At the time, Shakespeare's complete canon was considered to be thirty-seven plays; seventeen comedies, ten tragedies, and ten histories. These comprised the thirty-six plays from the First Folio (1623), plus Pericles, Prince of Tyre from the Third Folio (1664). As The Two Noble Kinsmen was considered primarily the work of John Fletcher, Shakespeare's authorship of Edward III was still in doubt, his involvement with Sir Thomas More open to question, and the situation involving Cardenio/Double Falshood far from certain, these four plays were not included.
3.Jump up ^ Willis, 4
4.^ Jump up to: a b Willis, 5
5.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (24 September 1978), "Transatlantic Row Breaks over the BBC's Most Ambitious Drama Series", The Daily Telegraph, 25
6.^ Jump up to: a b Willis, 8
7.Jump up ^ Kenneth S. Rothwell, A History of Shakespeare on Screen: A Century of Film and Television (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999; 2nd ed. 2004), 91
8.Jump up ^ Kenneth S. Rothwell and Annabelle Henkin Melzer, Shakespeare on Screen: An International Filmography and Videography (New York: Neal-Schuman, 1990), 11
9.Jump up ^ Susanne Greenhalgh, ""True to you in my fashion": Shakespeare on British Broadcast Television", in Richard Burt (ed.) Shakespeares After Shakespeare: an Encyclopedia of the Bard in Mass Media and Popular Culture, Volume Two (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2006), 690
10.Jump up ^ Graham Holderness and Christopher McCullough, "Shakespeare on the Screen: A Selective Filmography", in Anthony Davies and Stanley Wells (eds.), Shakespeare and the Moving Image: The Plays on Film and Television (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 38
11.Jump up ^ Kenneth S. Rothwell and Annabelle Henkin Melzer, Shakespeare on Screen: An International Filmography and Videography (New York:Neal-Schuman, 1990), 152
12.Jump up ^ Michael Troyan, A Rose for Mrs. Miniver: The Life of Greer Garson (Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1999), 381
13.^ Jump up to: a b Kenneth S. Rothwell, A History of Shakespeare on Screen: A Century of Film and Television (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999; 2nd ed. 2004), 94
14.^ Jump up to: a b Susanne Greenhalgh, ""True to you in my fashion": Shakespeare on British Broadcast Television", in Richard Burt (ed.) Shakespeares After Shakespeare: an Encyclopaedia of the Bard in Mass Media and Popular Culture, Volume Two (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2006), 703
15.Jump up ^ Willis, 322
16.^ Jump up to: a b Kenneth S. Rothwell, A History of Shakespeare on Screen: A Century of Film and Television (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999; 2nd ed. 2004), 92
17.Jump up ^ Graham Holderness, "Bard on the Box", in Graham Holderness (ed.), Visual Shakespeare: Essays in Film and Television (Hertfordshire: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2002), 8
18.Jump up ^ Margaret Shewring, Shakespeare in Performance: Richard II (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), 142
19.^ Jump up to: a b Emma Smith (ed.), Shakespeare in Production: Henry V (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 70
20.Jump up ^ Elizabeth Schafer (ed.), Shakespeare in Production: The Taming of the Shrew (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 69
21.Jump up ^ José Ramón Díaz Fernández, "The Henriad: Annotated Filmo-Bibliography", in Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin (ed.) Shakespeare on Screen: The Henriad (Rouen: Université de Rouen, 2008), 336
22.Jump up ^ Graham Holderness and Christopher McCullough, "Shakespeare on the Screen: A Selective Filmography", Shakespeare Survey, 39 (1986), 14
23.Jump up ^ Emma Smith, "Shakespeare Serialized: An Age of Kings", in Robert Shaughnessy (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Popular Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 136
24.Jump up ^ Patricia Lennox, "Henry VI: A Television History in Four Parts", in Thomas A. Pendleton (ed.) Henry VI: Critical Essays (London: Routledge, 2001), 235-241
25.Jump up ^ Emma Smith, "Shakespeare Serialized: An Age of Kings", in Robert Shaughnessy (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Popular Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 134-149
26.Jump up ^ Sarah Hatchuel, Shakespeare and the Cleopatra/Caesar Intertext: Sequel, Conflation, Remake (Plymouth: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2011), 33-34
27.Jump up ^ Willis, 328
28.Jump up ^ Patricia Lennox, "Henry VI: A Television History in Four Parts", in Thomas A. Pendleton (ed.) Henry VI: Critical Essays (London: Routledge, 2001), 241-245
29.Jump up ^ Michael Brooke. "The Spread of the Eagle". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 22 November 2012.
30.Jump up ^ Michael Billington, "Comedy of Errors at Stratford: Williams Production, 1962/1972", in Robert S. Miola (ed.), The Comedy of Errors: Critical Essays (New York: Routledge, 2001), 487-488
31.Jump up ^ Kenneth S. Rothwell, A History of Shakespeare on Screen: A Century of Film and Television (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999; 2nd ed. 2004), 103
32.Jump up ^ Margaret Shewring, Shakespeare in Performance: Richard II (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), 81
33.^ Jump up to: a b Willis, 9
34.^ Jump up to: a b c d Willis, 14
35.Jump up ^ Quoted in Willis, 10
36.^ Jump up to: a b c d Willis, 13
37.Jump up ^ See Graham Holderness, "Radical potentiality and institutional closure: Shakespeare in film and television", in Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield (eds.), Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism, 2nd edition (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 220
38.^ Jump up to: a b c Martin Wiggins, The (BBC DVD) Shakespeare Collection: Viewing Notes (booklet included with the DVD box-set), 6
39.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: Romeo & Juliet (London: BBC Books, 1978), 20-21
40.^ Jump up to: a b Willis, 88
41.Jump up ^ John Wilders (10 July 1981), "Adjusting the Sets", The Times Literary Supplement, 13
42.Jump up ^ Willis, 35
43.Jump up ^ Willis, 35-36
44.Jump up ^ Willis, 36
45.Jump up ^ Willis, 37
46.Jump up ^ A complete list of the Prefaces to Shakespeare episodes, with details on each presenter and content, can be found here
47.Jump up ^ A complete list of the Shakespeare in Perspective episodes, with details on each presenter and content, can be found here
48.Jump up ^ Quoted in Willis, 42
49.Jump up ^ Willis, 43
50.Jump up ^ Julian Barnes (17 July 1983), "The BBC's Shakespeare in Perspective", The Observer
51.Jump up ^ Willis, 45
52.Jump up ^ Willis, 45-46
53.^ Jump up to: a b Willis, 46
54.Jump up ^ Willis, 334n68
55.Jump up ^ Willis, 32
56.Jump up ^ See Willis, 60-61
57.Jump up ^ Willis, 62-63
58.Jump up ^ Willis, 10-11
59.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: Romeo & Juliet (London: BBC Books, 1978), 21
60.Jump up ^ Willis, 11
61.Jump up ^ John F. Andrews, "Cedric Messina discusses The Shakespeare Plays", Shakespeare Quarterly, 30:2 (Summer, 1979), 137
62.Jump up ^ Willis, 12-13
63.^ Jump up to: a b c Willis, 24
64.Jump up ^ Martin Banham, "BBC Television's Dull Shakespeares", Critical Quarterly, 22:1 (Spring, 1980), 32-35
65.Jump up ^ Willis, 53
66.^ Jump up to: a b See here for details
67.^ Jump up to: a b Randy Sue Coburn (25 January 1979), "Shakespeare Comes to the Colonies", The Washington Star, B2
68.^ Jump up to: a b "BBC scrap £1/4m Much Ado", The Daily Telegraph, 29 March 1979, 15
69.^ Jump up to: a b Mark Lawson (29 June 2012). "The Hollow Crown: as good as TV Shakespeare can get?". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 November 2012.
70.Jump up ^ Willis, 15-16
71.Jump up ^ Ken Irwin (2 December 1978), "A Date with Bard's Birds", Daily Mail, 11
72.Jump up ^ Willis, 16-17
73.Jump up ^ Willis, 17-18
74.^ Jump up to: a b Willis, 101
75.Jump up ^ Tim Hallinan, "Jonathan Miller on the Shakespeare Plays", Shakespeare Quarterly, 32:2 (Summer, 1981), 136
76.Jump up ^ Tim Hallinan, "Jonathan Miller on the Shakespeare Plays", Shakespeare Quarterly, 32:2 (Summer, 1981), 137
77.^ Jump up to: a b c Willis, 27
78.^ Jump up to: a b c d e Willis, 111
79.Jump up ^ Graham Holderness, "Jonathan Miller Interviewed by Graham Holderness" in Graham Holderness (ed.), The Shakespeare Myth (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), 195-196
80.Jump up ^ Elijah Moshinsky (26 July 1984), "A Medium Fit for the Bard", Manchester Guardian, 10
81.^ Jump up to: a b Quoted in Henry Fenwick, "To Be Or Not To Be A Producer, Radio Times, 18–24 October 1980, 90
82.Jump up ^ Quoted in Willis, 114-115
83.Jump up ^ Jonathan Miller, Subsequent Performances (London: Faber, 1986), 109
84.^ Jump up to: a b Willis, 26
85.Jump up ^ Quoted in Christopher Griffin-Beale (8 February 1982), "All's Well That Ends Well for BBC Bardathon", Broadcast, 10
86.Jump up ^ Quoted in Mary Z. Maher, "Shaun Sutton at the end of the series: The Shakespeare Plays", Literature/Film Quarterly, 14:4 (Winter, 1986), 190
87.Jump up ^ Quoted in Paul Donovan (18 September 1982), "The Bard's in the Black", Daily Mail, 17
88.Jump up ^ Willis, 333n60
89.Jump up ^ Cecil Smith (26 May 1985), "Good Night, Sweet Series, Parting is Such...Or Is It?", Los Angeles Times, 38
90.Jump up ^ Clive James (10 December 1978), "The Fantastic Voyage", The Observer, 20
91.Jump up ^ Richard Last (11 December 1978), "Shakespeare Creates Boxed-In Feeling", The Daily Telegraph, 11
92.Jump up ^ Christopher Nicholson (11 December 1978), "A Precious Stone Called Culture", Daily Mail, 23
93.Jump up ^ Sean Day-Lewis (5 March 1979), "Years of the Bard", The Daily Telegraph, 11
94.Jump up ^ Stanley Reynolds (28 February 1980), "Review of The Tempest", The Times Literary Supplement, 29
95.Jump up ^ Andrew Rissik, "BBC Shakespeare: Much to be Desired", Literary Review (February, 1985), 28
96.Jump up ^ Sean Day-Lewis (24 January 1983), "History in an Adventure Playground", London Daily Telegraph, 11
97.Jump up ^ Willis, 16
98.^ Jump up to: a b Graham Holderness, "Radical potentiality and institutional closure: Shakespeare in film and television", in Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield (eds.), Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism 2nd edition (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 221
99.Jump up ^ Willis, 201-202
100.Jump up ^ Willis, 202
101.^ Jump up to: a b c Willis, 190
102.Jump up ^ Willis, 93
103.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: Julius Caesar (London: BBC Books, 1979), 20
104.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: Measure for Measure (London: BBC Books, 1978), 19
105.Jump up ^ Bernice W. Kliman, "Wilders Interview at MLA", Shakespeare on Film Newsletter, 4:1 (December, 1979), 3
106.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: Measure for Measure (London: BBC Books, 1978), 25
107.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: Measure for Measure (London: BBC Books, 1978), 24
108.Jump up ^ Quoted in Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight (London: BBC Books, 1979), 22
109.Jump up ^ Willis, 189
110.Jump up ^ Michael Brooke. "Henry IV, Part II (1979)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 22 November 2012.
111.^ Jump up to: a b Willis, 19
112.^ Jump up to: a b c Wiggins, 4
113.Jump up ^ Willis, 191
114.Jump up ^ Willis, 20
115.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: The Tempest (London: BBC Books, 1979), 19
116.Jump up ^ Quoted in Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (London: BBC Books, 1980), 18
117.Jump up ^ Willis, 39
118.Jump up ^ Michael Brooke. "The Taming of the Shrew (1980)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 22 November 2012.
119.Jump up ^ Quoted in Diana E. Henderson, "A Shrew for the Times, Revisited" in Lynda E. Boose and Richard Burt (eds.), Shakespeare, the Movie II: Popularizing the Plays on Film, TV, Video, and DVD (London: Routledge, 2003), 123
120.Jump up ^ Quoted in Michael Romain, A Profile of Jonathan Miller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 134
121.Jump up ^ Ann Pasternak Slater, "An Interview with Jonathan Miller", Quarto, 10 (September, 1980), 11
122.Jump up ^ Chris Dunkley (24 October 1980), "Review", Financial Times
123.Jump up ^ Quoted in Graham Holderness, Shakespeare in Performance: The Taming of the Shrew (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 107
124.Jump up ^ Graham Holderness, "Jonathan Miller Interviewed by Graham Holderness" in Graham Holderness (ed.), The Shakespeare Myth (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), 201
125.Jump up ^ Elizabeth Schafer (ed.), Shakespeare in Production: The Taming of the Shrew (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 72-73
126.Jump up ^ For more information on this production, see Graham Holderness, "Jonathan Miller Interviewed by Graham Holderness" in Graham Holderness (ed.), The Shakespeare Myth (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), 195-202 and Graham Holderness, Shakespeare in Performance: The Taming of the Shrew (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 95-120
127.Jump up ^ All information in this section is taken from Willis, 37-38
128.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice (London: BBC Books, 1981), 20
129.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: All's Well That Ends Well (London: BBC Books, 1981), 26
130.Jump up ^ Quoted in Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: All's Well That Ends Well (London: BBC Books, 1981), 25
131.Jump up ^ Willis, 137
132.Jump up ^ Willis, 149
133.Jump up ^ Willis, 144
134.Jump up ^ Willis, 150
135.^ Jump up to: a b Willis, 125
136.^ Jump up to: a b Willis, 127
137.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g The first transmission date in the United States is earlier than that in the United Kingdom.
138.Jump up ^ Willis, 110-111
139.^ Jump up to: a b Wiggins, 7
140.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: Othello (London: BBC Books, 1982), 20
141.Jump up ^ Willis 67-68
142.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: Othello (London: BBC Books, 1982), 26
143.^ Jump up to: a b Willis, 230
144.Jump up ^ Quoted in Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida (London: BBC Books, 1982), 28
145.Jump up ^ Quoted in Willis, 229
146.Jump up ^ For a detailed overview of the production of this episode, see Willis 229-259
147.Jump up ^ Willis, 69
148.Jump up ^ Willis, 72
149.Jump up ^ Willis, 17
150.Jump up ^ Willis, 128
151.Jump up ^ Willis, 129
152.Jump up ^ Willis, 130
153.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor (London: BBC Books, 1983), 18-20
154.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor (London: BBC Books, 1983), 25-26
155.^ Jump up to: a b c This episode was reedited for US broadcast, split in two and shown on different days; beginning at twelve noon on successive Sundays; see Willis, 62-63 for more information
156.Jump up ^ Quoted in Graham Holderness, "Radical potentiality and institutional closure: Shakespeare in film and television", in Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield (eds.), Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism, 2nd edition (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 222
157.Jump up ^ Neil Taylor, "Two Types of Television Shakespeare", Shakespeare Survey, 39 (1986), 106-107
158.Jump up ^ Dennis Bingham, "Jane Howell's First Tetralogy: Brechtian Break-out or Just Good Television?", in J.C. Bulman and H.R. Coursen (eds.), Shakespeare on Television: An Anthology of Essays and Reviews (New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1988), 221-229
159.^ Jump up to: a b c d e Stanley Wells (4 February 1983), "The History of the Whole Contention", The Times Literary Supplement
160.Jump up ^ Michael Hattaway (ed.) The First Part of King Henry VI (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 51
161.Jump up ^ Willis, 28
162.Jump up ^ Ronald Knowles (ed.) King Henry VI, Part 2 (London: Arden, 1999), 22. See also Edward Burns (ed.) King Henry VI, Part 1 (London: Arden, 2000), 306
163.Jump up ^ Jane Kingsley-Smith (ed.) Henry VI, Part One (London: Penguin, 2005), lxvii
164.^ Jump up to: a b c d Roger Warren, (ed.) Henry VI, Part Two (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 15
165.^ Jump up to: a b c d Michèle Willems, "Verbal-Visual, Verbal-Pictorial, or Textual-Televisual? Reflections on the BBC Shakespeare Series", Shakespeare Survey, 39 (1986), 101
166.^ Jump up to: a b c d Michael Manheim, "The English History Play on screen", Shakespeare on Film Newsletter, 11:1 (December, 1986), 12
167.^ Jump up to: a b c An analysis of the entire tetralogy can be found in Willis, 175-185
168.Jump up ^ Ronald Knowles (ed.) King Henry VI, Part 2 (London: Arden, 1999), 24
169.Jump up ^ John D. Cox and Eric Rasmussen (eds.) King Henry VI, Part 3 (London: Arden, 2001), 37
170.Jump up ^ Willis, 181
171.Jump up ^ See Neil Taylor, "Two Types of Television Shakespeare", Shakespeare Survey, 39 (1986), 105
172.Jump up ^ Quoted in Hugh M. Richmond, Shakespeare in Performance: Richard III (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 90-91
173.Jump up ^ Quoted in Mark Eccles (ed.) The Tragedy of King Richard III (New York: Signet, 1964; revised edition, 1988; 2nd revised edition 1998), 244
174.Jump up ^ Edward Burns (ed.) King Henry VI, Part 1 (London: Arden, 2000), 306
175.Jump up ^ Willis, 179
176.Jump up ^ R. Chris Hassel Jr., Songs of Death: Performance, Interpretation and the Text of Richard III (Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), 28
177.Jump up ^ Hugh M. Richmond, Shakespeare in Performance: Richard III (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 12
178.^ Jump up to: a b Saskia Kossak, "Frame My Face to All Occasions": Shakespeare's Richard III on Screen (Berlin: Braumüller, 2005), 188
179.Jump up ^ An analysis of this production can be found in Hugh M. Richmond, Shakespeare in Performance: Richard III (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 89-10. An analysis of the entire tetralogy can be found in Willis, 175-185
180.Jump up ^ Well, 154-155
181.^ Jump up to: a b Willis, 156
182.Jump up ^ Miriam Gilbert, Shakespeare in Performance: Love's Labour's Lost (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), 57
183.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: Macbeth (London: BBC Books, 1984), 21
184.Jump up ^ Willis, 260-261
185.Jump up ^ An analysis of this production can be found in H.R. Coursen, "The Comedy of Errors on Television", in Robert S. Miola (ed.), The Comedy of Errors: Critical Essays (New York: Routledge, 2001), 533-538. For a detailed overview of the production process itself, see Willis, 260-291
186.Jump up ^ Willis, 212
187.Jump up ^ Roger Warren (ed.) The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 11-13
188.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona (London: BBC Books, 1984), 26
189.Jump up ^ See also Harry Keyishian, "The Shakespeare Plays on TV: Two Gentlemen of Verona", Shakespeare on Film Newsletter, 9:1 (December, 1984), 6-7 and Patty S. Derrick, "Two Gents: A Crucial Moment", Shakespeare on Film Newsletter, 16:1 (December, 1991), 1-4. Both essays are reprinted in June Schlueter (ed.) The Two Gentlemen of Verona: Critical Essays (New York: Routledge, 1996), 257-262
190.Jump up ^ Willis, 157
191.Jump up ^ Willis, 159-160
192.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: The Life and Death of King John (London: BBC Books, 1984), 20
193.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: Pericles, Prince of Tyre (London: BBC Books, 1984), 21
194.Jump up ^ Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing (London: BBC Books, 1985), 20
195.Jump up ^ Willis, 209
196.Jump up ^ Quoted in Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: Love's Labour's Lost (London: BBC Books, 1985), 18
197.Jump up ^ Mary Z. Maher, "Moshinsky's Love's Labour's Lost", Shakespeare on Film Newsletter, 10:1 (December, 1985), 2. The essay is reprinted in Felicia Hardison Londré (ed.) Love's Labour's Lost: Critical Essays (New York: Routledge, 1997), 415-417
198.Jump up ^ Quoted in Henry Fenwick (ed.), BBC-TV Shakespeare: Love's Labour's Lost (London: BBC Books, 1985), 25
199.Jump up ^ See Miriam Gilbert, Shakespeare in Performance: Love's Labour's Lost (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), 67-72
200.Jump up ^ Willis, 162
201.Jump up ^ Willis, 67
202.Jump up ^ An analysis of the production can be found in Miriam Gilbert, Shakespeare in Performance: Love's Labour's Lost (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), 56-76
203.Jump up ^ Willis, 30
204.Jump up ^ For much factual information on this production, see Mary Z. Maher, "Production Design in the BBC's Titus Andronicus" in J.C. Bulman and H.R. Coursen (eds.), Shakespeare on Television: An Anthology of Essays and Reviews (New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1988), 144-150
205.Jump up ^ Quoted in Sylvan Barnet (ed.) The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus (New York: Signet, 1963; revised edition, 1989; 2nd revised edition 2005), 159
206.Jump up ^ Quoted in Alan C. Dessen, Shakespeare in Performance: Titus Andronicus (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 44
207.Jump up ^ Mary Z. Maher, "Production Design in the BBC's Titus Andronicus" in J.C. Bulman and H.R. Coursen (eds.), Shakespeare on Television: An Anthology of Essays and Reviews (New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1988), 146
208.Jump up ^ For more information on this production, see Alan C. Dessen, Shakespeare in Performance: Titus Andronicus (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 44-48. For a detailed overview of the production process itself, see Willis, 292-314
209.Jump up ^ The control text for Titus is considered the First Quarto of 1594, not the First Folio text (except for 3.2, which only appears in the Folio); Pericles was not included in the First Folio, and was not published under Shakespeare's name until the Third Folio of 1664
See also[edit]
An Age of Kings
The Wars of the Roses
Shakespeare: The Animated Tales
ShakespeaRe-Told
The Hollow Crown
External links[edit]
Screenonline: The BBC Television Shakespeare, by Michael Brooke
'The Television Revolution'; Chapter 4 of Shakespeare on Screen: A Chronicle History by Kenneth S. Rothwell; taken from the book Shakespeare on Screen: An International Filmography and Videography by Rothwell and Annabelle Henkin Melzer (New York: Neal-Schuman, 1990)
British Universities Film and Video Council

[hide]
­v·
 ­t·
 ­e
 
William Shakespeare

 
­Attribution studies·
 ­Authorship question·
 ­Biography·
 ­Influence·
 ­Performances·
 ­Portraits·
 ­Religion·
 ­Reputation·
 ­Sexuality·
 ­Style·
 ­List of works·
 ­Early editions·
 ­Quarto publications·
 ­Play chronology·
 ­Problem plays·
 ­Late romances·
 ­Complete Works
 
 
Plays

Tragedies
­Antony and Cleopatra·
 ­Coriolanus·
 ­Hamlet·
 ­Julius Caesar·
 ­King Lear·
 ­Macbeth·
 ­Othello·
 ­Romeo and Juliet·
 ­Timon of Athens·
 ­Titus Andronicus·
 ­Troilus and Cressida
 
 
Comedies
­All's Well That Ends Well·
 ­As You Like It·
 ­The Comedy of Errors·
 ­Cymbeline·
 ­Love's Labour's Lost·
 ­Measure for Measure·
 ­The Merchant of Venice·
 ­The Merry Wives of Windsor·
 ­A Midsummer Night's Dream·
 ­Much Ado About Nothing·
 ­Pericles, Prince of Tyre·
 ­The Taming of the Shrew·
 ­The Tempest·
 ­Twelfth Night·
 ­The Two Gentlemen of Verona·
 ­The Two Noble Kinsmen·
 ­The Winter's Tale
 
 
Histories
­King John·
 ­Edward III·
 ­Richard II·
 ­1 Henry IV·
 ­2 Henry IV·
 ­Henry V·
 ­1 Henry VI·
 ­2 Henry VI·
 ­3 Henry VI·
 ­Richard III·
 ­Henry VIII
 

Shakespeare (oval-cropped).png

 
Poems
­Sonnets·
 ­Venus and Adonis·
 ­The Rape of Lucrece·
 ­The Phoenix and the Turtle·
 ­The Passionate Pilgrim·
 ­The Lover's Complaint
 
 
Apocrypha

Plays
­Sir Thomas More·
 ­Cardenio (lost)·
 ­Love's Labour's Won (lost)·
 ­The Birth of Merlin·
 ­Locrine·
 ­The London Prodigal·
 ­The Puritan·
 ­The Second Maiden's Tragedy·
 ­Double Falsehood·
 ­Thomas of Woodstock·
 ­Sir John Oldcastle·
 ­Thomas Lord Cromwell·
 ­A Yorkshire Tragedy·
 ­Fair Em·
 ­Mucedorus·
 ­The Merry Devil of Edmonton·
 ­Arden of Faversham·
 ­Edmund Ironside·
 ­Vortigern and Rowena·
 ­Ireland Shakespeare forgeries
 
 
Poetry
­To the Queen·
 ­A Funeral Elegy
 

 
Miscellaneous
­Shakespeare garden·
 ­Titles taken from Shakespeare·
 ­Adaptations·
 ­Shakespearean theatre companies·
 ­Globe Theatre  (reconstruction)
  ·
 ­Stratford-upon-Avon·
 ­Memorials  (Funerary monument)
  ·
 ­Shakespeare on screen·
 ­An Age of Kings·
 ­The Wars of the Roses·
 ­BBC Television Shakespeare·
 ­Shakespeare: The Animated Tales·
 ­ShakespeaRe-Told·
 ­The Hollow Crown·
 ­Shakespearean characters (A–K; L–Z)·
 ­Spelling of his name·
 ­Handwriting·
 ­Programming language
 
 
­Category·
 ­Portal·
 ­WikiProject
 

 

Categories: BBC Television programmes
Films based on works by William Shakespeare
1978 British television programme debuts
1985 British television programme endings



Navigation menu


Create account
Log in


Article
Talk



 

Read
Edit
View history




 Search 



Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Toolbox





Print/export



Languages
Italiano
Edit links
This page was last modified on 10 September 2013 at 01:51.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
 Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
   


 

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Jump to: navigation, search

Crystal Clear app kedit.svg
 This article may need to be rewritten entirely to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. You can help. The discussion page may contain suggestions. (May 2009) 
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is a 1982 film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, starring Alex Hyde-White as Romeo and Blanche Baker as Juliet.
Plot[edit]
Romeo and Juliet's families have been in a feud that causes these two lovers to make decisions that change lives forever. The story ends with the two lovers committing suicide.
External links[edit]
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet at the Internet Movie Database
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet at Google Video

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

Romeo-and-Juliet-toy-theatre-cut-outs.png

 

·
·
·
·

 


·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·

 
Wikipedia book


 

Categories: 1982 films
American drama films
1980s drama films
English-language films
Films based on Romeo and Juliet


Navigation menu


Create account
Log in


Article
Talk



 

Read
Edit
View history




 Search 



Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Toolbox





Print/export



Languages
Edit links
This page was last modified on 15 November 2011 at 22:22.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
 Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
   


 

Romeo.Juliet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Jump to: navigation, search

Romeo.Juliet

Directed by
Armando Acosta, also credited as Armondo Linus Acosta and Armand Acosta
Produced by
Paul Hespiel (exec. prod.), Andree Castagnee (ass.), Paul Celis (ass.), Greet Ooms (ass.)
Written by
Armando Acosta, Koen Van Brabant,
Starring
John Hurt, Robert Powell, Francesca Annis, Vanessa Redgrave, Ben Kingsley, Quentin Crisp, Dame Maggie Smith, Victor Spinetti, John Haggart
Music by
Armando Acosta, Emanuel Verdi
Cinematography
Armando Acosta
Editing by
Jan Reniers, Armando Acosta
Distributed by
Loeb & Loeb
Running time
130 minutes
Country
Belgium
Language
English
Romeo.Juliet is the title of a 1990 film version of William Shakespeare's classic play Romeo and Juliet. It was made by American producer, director and cinematographer, Armando Acosta (also credited as Armondo Linus Acosta and Armand Acosta) using the feral cats of Venice, New York, and Ghent as actors, with the voices dubbed by some of the greats of the English theatre including Ben Kingsley, Maggie Smith, Vanessa Redgrave, Robert Powell, Francesca Annis, Victor Spinetti, Quentin Crisp, and John Hurt. The score of the film features Serge Prokofiev's 'Romeo and Juliet Ballet' as performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, Andre Previn conducting and an original theme composed by Armando Acosta and Emanuel Verdi, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth.
The story of this film revolves around an eccentric bag lady (played by John Hurt), the only human being in the film, who takes the cats of Venice and puts them on a boat, which sails to the New World.
The world premiere was held at the 1990 Venice Film Festival. Former festival director, Guglielmo Biraghi invited the film to be screened out of competition. Romeo.Juliet was later screened at the Flanders Film Festival and Cologne Film Festival. In January 1992, the film was screened in Los Angeles at the Directors Guild Theatre, Writers Guild Theatre, and at Warner Brothers studio.
The motion picture was conceived and created as a film-in-concert with a live orchestra performing the soundtrack with the projection of the movie. The World Premiere of the Romeo.Juliet Film-in-Concert was held at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels in June 1992. British born conductor, Nicholas Cleobury, led the National Orchestra of Belgium in three performances. John Hurt attended the premiere along with Oleg Prokofiev, son of composer, Serge Prokofiev. Oleg Prokovfiev stated in an interview, "...it's not simply a film, it's a poem. It's a higher art than cinema, it's super cinema. A special cinema which does not follow a classical story line, but harmoniously blends my father's ballet music, Shakespeare's text and the magical images of the film." A second series of film concerts was held in Japan in February 1993 at the NHK Hall with Yoko Matsuo conducting the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra.
The film is described as having been difficult to produce, requiring over 400 hours of footage of the feline cast to assemble the images for the final film. The movie was shot entirely on video and then successfully transferred to 35mm. It is also remarkable for being one of the few major releases in which several members of the production team gave up their salaries to produce the film. [1] It has not been re-released for the home video market. This lack of availability, which has been described as making it "more rare than the dinosaur" [2] has made it a sought-after item in some circles.
References[edit]
Andrew, Geoff. "John Hurt interviewed by Geoff Andrew", The Guardian Unlimited
Jacobs, Patricia A. Amazon.com review of video Incredible World of Cats
Romeo.Juliet on Yahoo! Movies
Flanders Image page on Romeo.Juliet
External links[edit]

Portal icon Belgium portal
Portal icon Film portal
Portal icon 1990s portal
Romeo.Juliet at the Internet Movie Database
Romeo.Juliet at AllRovi
 

Categories: English-language films
1990 films
Belgian films
Films about cats
Films based on Romeo and Juliet

Navigation menu


Create account
Log in


Article
Talk



 

Read
Edit
View history




 Search 



Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Toolbox





Print/export



Languages
Suomi
Edit links
This page was last modified on 29 May 2013 at 18:42.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
 Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
   


 

Shakespeare: The Animated Tales

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Jump to: navigation, search

Shakespeare: The Animated Tales
Shakespeare - The Animated Tales.jpg
UK DVD Box-Set
 
Also known as
The Animated Shakespeare (US)
Genre
Drama, Comedy, Tragedy, History
Format
Animation
Developed by
Leon Garfield
Written by
William Shakespeare
Country of origin
UK/Russia
Original language(s)
English
No. of seasons
2
No. of episodes
12
Production company(s)
BBC Wales
Christmas Films
Dave Edwards Studio
Distributor
Metrodome (UK DVD)
Ambrose (US DVD)
Broadcast

Original channel
BBC2 (UK)
HBO (US)
Picture format
4:3
Audio format
Monaural
Original run
9 November 1992 – 14 December 1994
Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (also known as The Animated Shakespeare) is a series of twelve half-hour animated television episodes, broadcast on BBC 2 between 1992 and 1994, with each episode based on a play by William Shakespeare.
The series was commissioned by BBC Wales for the Welsh language channel S4C (although it was commissioned in English). Production was co-ordinated by the Dave Edwards Studio in Cardiff, although the animation was done entirely in Moscow, at the Christmas Films Studio. A variety of animation techniques were used. The scripts were written by children's author Leon Garfield, using primarily Shakespearean language. The academic consultant for the series was Professor Stanley Wells.
The show aired in the US on HBO, where it was hosted by Robin Williams.
In 2000, Chris Grace, Director of Animation at S4C and executive producer of The Animated Tales, launched the Shakespeare Schools Festival (SSF) using Leon Garfield's twelve abridged scripts. The festival takes place annually, with hundreds of school children performing half-hour shows in professional theatres across the UK.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Series 1 1.1 A Midsummer Night's Dream
1.2 The Tempest
1.3 Macbeth
1.4 Romeo and Juliet
1.5 Hamlet
1.6 Twelfth Night
2 Series 2 2.1 King Richard III
2.2 The Taming of the Shrew
2.3 As You Like It
2.4 Julius Caesar
2.5 The Winter's Tale
2.6 Othello
3 See also
4 External links
Series 1[edit]
A Midsummer Night's Dream[edit]
Directed, designed and animated by Robert Saakiants
Originally aired: 9 November 1992
Animation type: Cel animation
Menna Trussler as Narrator
Daniel Massey as Oberon
Suzanne Bertish as Titania
Anthony Jackson as Puck
Abigail McKern as Hermia
Kathryn Pogson as Helena
Charles Millham as Demetrius
Kim Wall as Lysander
Bernard Hill as Bottom
Peter Postlethwaite as Quince
Anna Linstrum as Fairy
Lorraine Cole as Fairy
The Tempest[edit]
Directed by Stanislav Sokolov
Designed by Elena Livanova
Originally aired: 16 November 1992
Animation type: Stop motion puppet animation
Martin Jarvis as Narrator
Timothy West as Prospero
Alun Armstrong as Caliban
Ella Mood as Ariel
Katy Behean as Miranda
Jonathan Tafler as Ferdinand
John Moffatt as Alonzo
James Greene as Gonzalo
Sion Probert as Sebastian
Peter Guinness as Antonio
Stephen Thorne as Stephano
Ric Jerrom as Trinculo
Macbeth[edit]
Directed by Nikolai Serebryakov
Designed by Vladimir Morozov and Ildar Urmanche
Originally aired: 23 November 1992
Animation type: Cel animation
Alec McCowen as Narrator
Brian Cox as Macbeth
Zoë Wanamaker as Lady Macbeth
Laurence Payne as Duncan
Patrick Brennan as Banquo
Clive Merrison as Macduff
Mary Wimbush as Witch
Val Lorraine as Witch
Emma Gregory as Witch
Richard Pearce as Donalbain
David Acton as Malcolm
John Baddeley as Lennox
Romeo and Juliet[edit]
Directed by Efim Gamburg
Designed by Igor Makarov
Originally aired: 30 November 1992
Animation type: Cel animation
Felicity Kendal as Narrator
Linus Roache as Romeo
Clare Holman as Juliet
Jonathan Cullen as Benvolio
Greg Hicks as Mercutio
Brenda Bruce as Nurse
Garard Green as Friar Laurence
Brendan Charlson as Tybalt
Charles Kay as Capulet
Maggie Steed as Lady Capulet
Hamlet[edit]
Directed by Natalia Orlova
Designed by Peter Kotov and Natalia Demidova
Originally aired: 7 December 1992
Animation type: Paint on glass
Michael Kitchen as Narrator
Nicholas Farrell as Hamlet
John Shrapnel as Claudius
John Shrapnel as The Ghost
Susan Fleetwood as Gertrude
Tilda Swinton as Ophelia
John Warner as Polonius
Dorien Thomas as Horatio
Andrew Wincott as Laertes
Twelfth Night[edit]
Directed by Maria Muat
Designed by Ksenia Prytkova
Originally aired: 14 December 1992
Animation type: Stop motion puppet animation
Rosemary Leach as Narrator
Fiona Shaw as Viola
Roger Allam as Duke Orsino
Suzanne Burden as Olivia
Gerald James as Malvolio
William Rushton as Toby Belch
Stephen Tompkinson as Sir Andrew
Alice Arnold as Maria
Stefan Bednarczyk as Feste
Hugh Grant as Sebastian
Series 2[edit]
King Richard III[edit]
Directed by Natasha Orlova
Designed by Peter Kotov
Originally aired: 2 November 1994
Animation type: Paint on glass
Antony Sher as Richard
Alec McCowen as Narrator
Eleanor Bron as Duchess of York
Tom Wilkinson as Buckingham
James Grout as Catesby/Ely
Sorcha Cusack as Queen Elizabeth
Suzanne Burden as Anne
Stephen Thorne as Hastings/Cardinal
Michael Maloney as Clarence/Norfolk
Spike Hood as Prince Edward
Hywel Nelson as Duke of York
Patrick Brennan as Richmond/2nd Murderer
Philip Bond as Tyrrel
Brendan Charleson as 1st Murderer/Messenger
The Taming of the Shrew[edit]
Directed by Aida Ziablikova
Designed by Olga Titova
Originally aired: 9 November 1994
Animation type: Stop motion puppet animation
Amanda Root as Kate
Nigel Le Vaillant as Petruchio
Malcolm Storry as Sly/Nathaniel
Manon Edwards as Bianca
John Warner as Gremio/Servant/Tailor
Gerald James as Baptista
Lawmary Champion as Hostess/Widow
Hilton McRae as Hortensio/Peter
Richard Pearce as Lucentio
Big Mick as Narrator
As You Like It[edit]
Directed by Alexei Karayev
Designed by Valentin Olshvang
Originally aired: 16 November 1994
Animation type: Oil painting
Sylvestra Le Touzel as Rosalind
Maria Miles as Celia/Audrey
James McAndrew as Orlando
Peter Gunn as Touchstone/Messenger
David Holt as Silvius/Hymen
Nathaniel Parker as Jacques/Oliver
Stefan Bernarczyk as Amiens/Lord
Christopher Benjamin as Duke Frederick/Corin
Garard Green as Duke Senior/Adam
Eiry Thomas as Phoebe
David Burke as Narrator
Julius Caesar[edit]
Directed by Yuri Kulakov
Designed by Galina Melko and Victor Chuguyevsky
Originally aired: 30 November 1994
Animation type: Cel animation
Joss Ackland as Caesar
Frances Tomelty as Calphurnia
David Robb as Brutus
Hugh Quarshie as Cassius
Jim Carter as Mark Antony
Judith Sharp as Portia
Peter Woodthorpe as Casca
Andrew Wincott as Narrator/Octavius
Dillwyn Owen as Soothsayer/Trebonius
Tony Leader as Cinna/Decius
John Miers as Lucius
The Winter's Tale[edit]
Directed by Stanislav Sokolov
Designed by Helena Livanova
Originally aired: 7 December 1994
Animation type: Stop motion puppet animation
Anton Lesser as Leontes
Jenny Agutter as Hermione
Sally Dexter as Paulina
Michael Kitchen as Polixenes
Adrienne O'Sullivan as Perdita
Stephen Tompkinson as Autolycus
Philip Voss as Shepherd/Judge
Simon Harris as Shepherd's Son/Servant
Jonathan Tafler as Camillo
Timothy Bateson as Antigonus
Jonathan Firth as Florizel
Spike Hood as Shepherd's Young Son
Hywel Nelson as Mamillius
Roger Allam as Narrator
Othello[edit]
Directed and designed by Nikolai Serebryakov
Originally aired: 14 December 1994
Animation type: Cel animation
Colin McFarlane as Othello
Gerard McSorley as Iago
Philip Franks as Cassio
Sian Thomas as Desdemona
Dinah Stabb as Emilia/Bianca
Terry Dauncey as Brabantio
Ivor Roberts as Duke/Lodovico
Simon Ludders as Roderigo
Philip Bond as Narrator
See also[edit]
An Age of Kings
BBC Television Shakespeare
ShakespeaRe-Told
The Hollow Crown
External links[edit]
Shakespeare: The Animated Tales at the Internet Movie Database
Shakespeare: The Animated Tales at the Big Cartoon DataBase

[show]
­v·
 ­t·
 ­e
 
William Shakespeare

 
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­

 



­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­

 

­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­

 

­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­


Shakespeare (oval-cropped).png

 

­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­

 



­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­

 

­·
­


 

­·
­·
­·
­·
­()
·
­·
­()
·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­·
­

 
­·
­·
­

 

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

 



·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·


 

·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·

 

·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·

 

·

 

·
·

 

·

 

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's The Tempest

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·

Prospero and miranda.jpg

 

·
·
·
·
·

 




·
·
·

 


·
·
·
·

 


·

 


·

 


·

 


·
·
·
·

 


·
·
·
·


 

·

 

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's Macbeth

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 


·
·

 


·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 


·
·
·

 


·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 


·
·

 

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

Romeo-and-Juliet-toy-theatre-cut-outs.png

 

·
·
·
·

 


·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·

 
Wikipedia book

 

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's Hamlet

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

David Garrick in Hamlet, I, 4

 

()
·
·

 

·

 

·

·
·
·
·

 

·
·

 

·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
()
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·

 



 

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's first historical tetralogy

 




·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 


·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 


·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 


·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·


 




·
·

 


·
·

 


·
·

 


·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·


 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew

 

·
·
·
·

Tameing a Shrew; or, Petruchio's Patent Family Bedstead, Gags & Thumscrews.png

 



 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's As You Like It (1603)

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·

 



 

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (1599)

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·

 

·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·

 

·
·

 

[show]
v·
 t·
 e
 
William Shakespeare's Othello

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

Thomas Keene in Othello 1884 Poster.JPG

 



 


·
·
·
·

 

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

 

·

 




 

Categories: Films based on works by William Shakespeare
Russian animated films
Films based on Romeo and Juliet

Navigation menu


Create account
Log in


Article
Talk



 

Read
Edit
View history




 Search 



Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Toolbox





Print/export



Languages
Français
Svenska
Edit links
This page was last modified on 30 August 2013 at 17:18.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
 Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki