187-442: The BBC Television Shakespeare is a series of British television adaptations of the plays of William Shakespeare , created by Cedric Messina and broadcast by BBC Television . Transmitted in the UK from 3 December 1978 to 27 April 1985, the series spanned seven seasons and thirty-seven episodes. Development began in 1975 when Messina saw that the grounds of Glamis Castle would make
374-501: A Prologue (by a figure otherwise unidentified), who stresses that the audience will see a serious play, and appeals to the audience members: "The first and happiest hearers of the town," to "Be sad, as we would make ye." Act I opens with a conversation between the Dukes of Norfolk and Buckingham and Lord Abergavenny. Their speeches express their mutual resentment over the ruthless power and overweening pride of Cardinal Wolsey. Wolsey passes over
561-405: 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 show when recording his commentary. He was correct; Potter's Perspective had been recorded before Cymbeline had even been shot. According to Barnes, Potter
748-468: A comedic mode capable of dramatising more serious events than had his earlier comedies. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, "drama became the ideal means to capture and convey the diverse interests of the time." Stories of various genres were enacted for audiences consisting of both the wealthy and educated and the poor and illiterate. Later on, he retired at the height of the Jacobean period, not long before
935-534: A deep shift in popular tastes, both in subject matter and approach. At the turn of the decade, he responded to the vogue for dramatic satire initiated by the boy players at Blackfriars and St. Paul's . At the end of the decade, he seems to have attempted to capitalise on the new fashion for tragicomedy , even collaborating with John Fletcher , the writer who had popularised the genre in England. The influence of younger dramatists such as John Marston and Ben Jonson
1122-558: A glossary, and annotations on textual alterations by Shallcross, and subsequently Snodin, with explanations as to why certain cuts had been made. As well as the published annotated scripts, the BBC also produced two complementary shows designed to help viewers engage with the plays on a more scholarly level; the radio series Prefaces to Shakespeare and the TV series Shakespeare in Perspective . Prefaces
1309-548: A heavily truncated version of Othello , starring Baliol Holloway as Othello , Celia Johnson as Desdemona and D.A. Clarke-Smith as Iago (14 December). Other 1937 productions included two different screenings of scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream ; one directed by Dallas Bower , starring Patricia Hilliard as Titania and Hay Petrie as Nick Bottom (18 February), the other an extract from Stephen Thomas ' Regent's Park production, starring Alexander Knox as Oberon and Thea Holme as Titania, aired as part of
1496-507: A live performance of Clifford Williams ' Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production of The Comedy of Errors from the Aldwych Theatre , starring Ian Richardson as Antipholus of Ephesus and Alec McCowen as Antipholus of Syracuse. 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 and June Tobin as Gertrude,
1683-491: 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
1870-559: A long term basis in 1599. The Blackfriars was small in comparison to the earlier theatres, and roofed rather than open to the sky; it resembled a modern theatre in ways that its predecessors did not. For Shakespeare, as he began to write, both traditions were alive; they were, moreover, filtered through the recent success of the University Wits on the London stage. By the late 16th century, the popularity of morality and academic plays waned as
2057-452: 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. Indeed, two of the first-season episodes were recorded on location; As You Like It in and around Glamis Castle, and The Famous History of the Life of King Henry
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#17328559961962244-454: A major reappraisal of the original production guidelines. 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." Miller was in many ways the polar opposite of Messina; if the Messina productions were predominantly set in
2431-591: A new and distinctively Elizabethan synthesis. Previously, the most common forms of popular English theatre were the Tudor morality plays . These plays, generally celebrating piety , use personified moral attributes to urge or instruct the protagonist to choose the virtuous life over Evil. The characters and plot situations are largely symbolic rather than realistic. As a child, Shakespeare would likely have seen this type of play (along with, perhaps, mystery plays and miracle plays ). The other strand of dramatic tradition
2618-435: A number of his plays were collaborative, although the exact number is open to debate. Some of the following attributions, such as for The Two Noble Kinsmen , have well-attested contemporary documentation; others, such as for Titus Andronicus , remain more controversial and are dependent on linguistic analysis by modern scholars. Note: For a comprehensive account of plays possibly by Shakespeare or in part by Shakespeare, see
2805-492: A perfect location for an adaptation of Shakespeare's As You Like It for the Play of the Month series. Upon returning to London, however, he had come to envision an entire series devoted exclusively to the dramatic works of Shakespeare. When he encountered a less than enthusiastic response from the BBC's departmental heads, Messina bypassed the usual channels and took his idea directly to
2992-456: A performance during his reign but that the extended glorification of Elizabeth implies that it was intended for her ears. James "hated her memory", so such praise was not likely to have been written under him. Malone mistook the 12 Feb 1604 Stationer's Register entry of "the Enterlude of K. Henry VIII" ( Samuel Rowley 's When You See Me You Know Me , 1605) as Shakespeare's play, and he argued that
3179-481: A policy continued under Shaun Sutton , who took over as executive producer for seasons five, six and seven. By the end of its run, the series had proved both a ratings and a financial success. Initially, the adaptations received generally negative reviews, although the reception improved somewhat as the series went on, and directors were allowed more freedom, leading to interpretations becoming more daring. Several episodes are now held in high esteem, particularly some of
3366-637: A position for a character to harangue a crowd, as in Julius Caesar . Usually built of timber, lath and plaster and with thatched roofs, the early theatres were vulnerable to fire, and gradually were replaced (when necessary) with stronger structures. When the Globe burned down in June 1613, it was rebuilt with a tile roof. A different model was developed with the Blackfriars Theatre , which came into regular use on
3553-473: 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. Messina's legacy regarding
3740-586: A range of distinctive features in Fletcher's style and language preferences, which they saw in the Shakespearean play. For the next century the question of dual authorship was controversial, with more evidence accumulating in favour of the collaborative hypothesis. In 1966, Erdman and Fogel could write that "today a majority of scholars accept the theory of Fletcher's partial authorship, though a sturdy minority deny it." An influential stylistic or stylometric study
3927-450: 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
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#17328559961964114-595: A rumour that he himself is responsible for the King's action. Katherine also challenges the arrest of Buckingham, but Wolsey defends the arrest by producing the Duke's Surveyor, the primary accuser. After hearing the Surveyor, the King orders Buckingham's trial to occur. At a banquet thrown by Wolsey, the King and his attendants enter in disguise as masquers . The King dances with Anne Bullen. Two anonymous Gentlemen open Act II, one giving
4301-549: 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
4488-563: 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. 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
4675-479: 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 theatregoers and/or Shakespearean scholars, and who were essentially asking for something
4862-541: A two-part adaptation of Hamlet , starring John Byron as Hamlet , Sebastian Shaw as Claudius and Margaret Rawlings as Gertrude (5 & 15 December). Other post war productions included Richard II , directed by Royston Morley , and starring Alan Wheatley as Richard and Clement McCallin as Bolingbroke (29 October 1950); Henry V , again directed by Morley, and starring Clement McCallin as Henry and Olaf Pooley as The Dauphin (22 April 1951); an original Sunday Night Theatre production of The Taming of
5049-427: A wide television audience and to enhance the teaching of Shakespeare"), 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 c. 1400 for Richard II ). A two-and-a-half-hour maximum running time
5236-493: Is also in large part due to Messina." 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
5423-454: Is also somewhat characteristic of the late romances in its structure. It is noted for having more stage directions than any of Shakespeare's other plays. During a performance of Henry VIII at the Globe Theatre in 1613, a cannon shot employed for special effects ignited the theatre's thatched roof (and the beams), burning the original Globe building to the ground. The play opens with
5610-452: Is carefully avoided, and no indication of the succeeding four wives of Henry VIII can be found in the play. Most modern scholars date Henry VIII to 1613, the year in which the Globe Theatre burned down during one of the play's earliest known performances. One contemporary report states that the play was new at the time of the fire, having "been acted not passing 2 or 3 times before". Despite this evidence, there has been much debate about
5797-421: Is evidence to suggest that BBC management simply regarded the production as a failure. 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
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5984-423: Is exactly the impression it had created and was why later episodes featured far more elaborate sets, and why realism had been jettisoned as the over-riding stylistic approach by the time of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark at the end of the second season. When Jonathan Miller took over as producer at the start of season three, realism ceased to be a priority. Prior to the screening of the first episode, UK publicity for
6171-425: Is generally accepted, although subsequent studies have questioned some of its details. The most common delineation of the two poets' shares in the play is this: Henry VIII is believed to have been first performed as part of the ceremonies celebrating the marriage of Princess Elizabeth in 1612–1613, although the first recorded performance was on 29 June 1613. The performance is especially noteworthy because of
6358-589: 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
6545-541: Is introduced specifically to ridicule the practice as antiquated and amateurish.'" As was common in the period, Shakespeare based many of his plays on the work of other playwrights and recycled older stories and historical material. His dependence on earlier sources was a natural consequence of the speed at which playwrights of his era wrote; in addition, plays based on already popular stories appear to have been seen as more likely to draw large crowds. There were also aesthetic reasons: Renaissance aesthetic theory took seriously
6732-550: Is markedly influenced by the techniques of the new, satiric dramatists. One play, Troilus and Cressida , may even have been inspired by the War of the Theatres . Shakespeare's final plays hark back to his Elizabethan comedies in their use of romantic situation and incident. In these plays, however, the sombre elements that are largely glossed over in the earlier plays are brought to the fore and often rendered dramatically vivid. This change
6919-539: Is more nuanced, and sometimes more sceptical, than Marlowe's. By the turn of the century, the bombast of Titus Andronicus had vanished, replaced by the subtlety of Hamlet . In comedy, Shakespeare strayed even further from classical models. The Comedy of Errors , an adaptation of Menaechmi , follows the model of new comedy closely. Shakespeare's other Elizabethan comedies are more romantic. Like Lyly, he often makes romantic intrigue (a secondary feature in Latin new comedy)
7106-500: Is much dispute about the exact chronology of Shakespeare's plays , there is a general consensus that stylistic groupings largely reflect a chronology of three-phases: Except where noted, the plays below are listed, for the thirty-six plays included in the First Folio of 1623, according to the order in which they appear there, with two plays that were not included ( Pericles, Prince of Tyre and The Two Noble Kinsmen ) being added at
7293-421: Is no contemporary evidence of it for this play; the evidence lies in the style of the verse, which in some scenes appears closer to Fletcher's typical style than Shakespeare's. It is also not known whether Fletcher's involvement can be characterised as collaboration or revision, though the apparent division of scenes between the writers strongly suggests the former. Spedding and other early commentators relied on
7480-453: 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. 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 celebrated directors such as Peter Brook , Ingmar Bergman , William Gaskill and John Dexter to direct adaptations, he would fail. Reviewing
7667-637: Is playing a double game, opposing Henry's planned divorce from Katherine to the Pope while supporting it to the King. The King shows Wolsey his displeasure, and Wolsey for the first time realises that he has lost Henry's favour. The noblemen mock Wolsey, and the Cardinal sends his follower Cromwell away so that Cromwell will not be brought down in Wolsey's fall from grace. The two Gentlemen return in Act IV to observe and comment upon
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7854-466: 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
8041-481: Is related to the success of tragicomedies such as Philaster , although the uncertainty of dates makes the nature and direction of the influence unclear. From the evidence of the title-page to The Two Noble Kinsmen and from textual analysis it is believed by some editors that Shakespeare ended his career in collaboration with Fletcher, who succeeded him as house playwright for the King's Men. These last plays resemble Fletcher's tragicomedies in their attempt to find
8228-504: Is seen not only in the problem plays, which dramatise intractable human problems of greed and lust, but also in the darker tone of the Jacobean tragedies. The Marlovian, heroic mode of the Elizabethan tragedies is gone, replaced by a darker vision of heroic natures caught in environments of pervasive corruption. As a sharer in both the Globe and in the King's Men, Shakespeare never wrote for the boys' companies; however, his early Jacobean work
8415-455: The Complete Works as the series "bible." 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
8602-542: 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
8789-674: The English Renaissance took hold, and playwrights like Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe revolutionised theatre. Their plays blended the old morality drama with classical theory to produce a new secular form. The new drama combined the rhetorical complexity of the academic play with the bawdy energy of the moralities. However, it was more ambiguous and complex in its meanings, and less concerned with simple allegory. Inspired by this new style, Shakespeare continued these artistic strategies, creating plays that not only resonated on an emotional level with audiences but also explored and debated
8976-603: The Shakespeare Series . Exclusively made-for-television Shakespearean productions had commenced on 5 February 1937 with the live broadcast of Act 3, Scene 2 from As You Like It , directed by Robert Atkins , and starring Margaretta Scott as Rosalind and Ion Swinley as Orlando . Later that evening, the wooing scene from Henry V was broadcast, directed by George More O'Ferrall , and starring Henry Oscar as Henry and Yvonne Arnaud as Katherine . O'Ferrall would oversee numerous broadcasts of Shakespearean extracts over
9163-507: The 1613 date is consistent with other such collaborations. The play was published as the work of Shakespeare, and was accepted as such by scholars until 1850, when the possibility of collaboration with John Fletcher was first raised by James Spedding , an expert on Francis Bacon . Fletcher was the writer who replaced Shakespeare as the principal playwright of the King's Men . He is known to have collaborated with Shakespeare on other plays, but there
9350-412: The 1613 fire, which was first published by the 18th century scholar Thomas Tyrwhitt and seemed to confirm his view. However, several 18th- and 19th-century scholars, including Samuel Johnson , Lewis Theobald , George Steevens , Edmond Malone , and James Halliwell-Phillipps , dated the play's composition to before 1603. Malone suggested that the brief passage in praise of James was probably added for
9537-520: The 1720s. A revival produced by Charles Calvert , who also played Wolsey, at the Theatre Royal in Manchester, opening on 29 August 1877, premiered music for the fifth act composed by Arthur Sullivan . Other Victorian stagings of the play were by David Garrick , Charles Kean , Henry Irving (who chose to play Wolsey, the villain and perhaps the showier role of the play, in 1888, with Ellen Terry as
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#17328559961969724-483: 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 were not part of the plan, a decision Venza calls "very sensible." 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 . The episode
9911-421: 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
10098-409: 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 greenlighted, with its daunting scope championed as part of its appeal; "it was a grand project, no one else could do it, no one else would do it, but it ought to be done." Writing several months into production, journalist Henry Fenwick wrote the project
10285-531: The Eight in three different castles in Kent. 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." The scathing reviews of
10472-476: The Fift ). However, the schedule then began to run into problems. The fourth episode, Twelfth Night 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,
10659-579: The Fifth , the inaugural programme of BBC's new World Theatre series, directed by Peter Dews , and starring John Neville as Henry and John Wood as The Dauphin (29 December 1957). 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 ,
10846-498: The Fourth opened with the murder of Richard from the previous play. The second set of four plays were then directed by Jane Howell as one unit, with a common set and linked casting, airing 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, however, were not especially pleased with this idea, as it saw itself as
11033-524: 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. Ultimately, during the first season, King Richard
11220-494: The History of Soliloquies , James Hirsh defines the convention of a Shakespearean soliloquy in early modern drama. He argues that when a person on the stage speaks to himself or herself, they are characters in a fiction speaking in character; this is an occasion of self-address. Furthermore, Hirsh points out that Shakespearean soliloquies and " asides " are audible in the fiction of the play, bound to be overheard by any other character in
11407-511: The King's Council and told that he is to be taken to the Tower as a prisoner; Cranmer defends himself vigorously and then shows the King's ring (Act V Scene 2). The King enters, declaring Cranmer to be a "good man", a title that few of the Council deserve. The plot has collapsed. Queen Anne Bullen gives birth to a daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth . The King asks Cranmer to baptise and be a godfather to
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#173285599619611594-417: The King's favour. A lavishly-staged trial scene (Act II Scene 4) portrays Katherine's hearing before the King and his courtiers. Katherine reproaches Wolsey for his machinations against her, and refuses to stay for the proceedings. But the King defends Wolsey, and states that it was his own doubts about the legitimacy of their marriage that led to the trial. Campeius protests that the hearing cannot continue in
11781-412: The King, despite the divorce, and wishes the new queen well. Act V is the climax of the play. The King summons a nervous Cranmer to his presence and expresses his friendship, telling Cranmer that "Thy truth and thy integrity is rooted in us, thy friend" (Act V Scene 1). The King confirms this friendship with the gift of a ring. Later, as a result of a carefully hatched plot, Cranmer is accused of heresy in
11968-571: The King; Campeius has come to serve as a judge in the trial Wolsey is arranging for Katherine. Anne Bullen is shown conversing with the Old Lady who is her attendant. Anne expresses her sympathy at the Queen's troubles; but then the Lord Chamberlain enters to inform her that the King has made her Marchioness of Pembroke. Once the Lord Chamberlain leaves, the Old Lady jokes about Anne's sudden advancement in
12155-507: The Legatine Court. Shakespeare not only telescoped events that occurred over a span of two decades, but jumbled their actual order. The play implies, without stating it directly, that the treason charges against the Duke of Buckingham were false and trumped up; and it maintains a comparable ambiguity about other sensitive issues. The disgrace and beheading of Anne Boleyn (here spelled Bullen )
12342-415: 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
12529-568: The Life of King Henry the Eighth , often shortened to Henry VIII , is a collaborative history play , written by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher , based on the life of Henry VIII . An alternative title, All Is True , is recorded in contemporary documents, with the title Henry VIII not appearing until the play's publication in the First Folio of 1623. Stylistic evidence indicates that individual scenes were written by either Shakespeare or his collaborator and successor, John Fletcher. It
12716-416: The Queen's absence, and the King grudgingly adjourns the proceeding. (Act III) Wolsey and Campeius confront Katherine among her ladies-in-waiting; Katherine makes an emotional protest about her treatment. Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey, and the Lord Chamberlain are shown (Act III Scene 2) plotting against Wolsey. A packet of Wolsey's letters to the Pope have been re-directed to the King; the letters show that Wolsey
12903-477: The Second , although still directed by Giles, was treated as a stand-alone piece, while 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. Additionally, in an attempt to establish a connection with the first season's Richard , Jon Finch returned as Henry IV, and The First Part of King Henry
13090-644: The Shrew , directed by Desmond Davis , and starring Margaret Johnston as Katherina and Stanley Baker as Petruchio (20 April 1952); a TV version of John Barton 's Elizabethan Theatre Company production of Henry V , starring Colin George as Henry and Michael David as The Dauphin (19 May 1953); a Sunday Night Theatre live performance of Lionel Harris ' musical production of The Comedy of Errors , starring David Pool as Antipholus of Ephesus and Paul Hansard as Antipholus of Syracuse (16 May 1954); and The Life of Henry
13277-441: The US, WNET planned a 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. Ultimately, however, they abandoned the idea and simply aired the BBC's Shakespeare in Perspective episodes. In terms of radio publicity, in 1979, National Public Radio (NPR) aired Shakespeare Festival ;
13464-512: 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 halfway 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
13651-480: 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. 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
13838-542: 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 CPB not to invest in the series. Joseph Papp , director of the New York Shakespeare Festival ,
14025-480: The audience was outmoded by the time Shakespeare was alive, he "acknowledges few occasions when a Shakespearean speech might involve the audience in recognising the simultaneous reality of the stage and the world the stage is representing". Other than 29 speeches delivered by choruses or characters who revert to that condition as epilogues "Hirsh recognizes only three instances of audience address in Shakespeare's plays, 'all in very early comedies, in which audience address
14212-400: The audience's attention, you've got to do it as realistically as possible," 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
14399-523: The basic elements of what it means to be human. What Marlowe and Kyd did for tragedy, John Lyly and George Peele , among others, did for comedy: they offered models of witty dialogue, romantic action, and exotic, often pastoral location that formed the basis of Shakespeare's comedic mode throughout his career. Shakespeare's Elizabethan tragedies (including the history plays with tragic designs, such as Richard II ) demonstrate his relative independence from classical models. He takes from Aristotle and Horace
14586-522: The case of Macbeth for example, scholars believe that someone (probably Thomas Middleton ) adapted and shortened the original to produce the extant text published in the First Folio, but that remains the only known text of the play. In others the text may have become manifestly corrupt or unreliable ( Pericles or Timon of Athens ) but no competing version exists. The modern editor can only regularise and correct erroneous readings that have survived into
14773-500: The categories used in the First Folio. However, modern criticism has labelled some of these plays " problem plays " that elude easy categorisation, or perhaps purposely break generic conventions, and has introduced the term romances for what scholars believe to be his later comedies. When Shakespeare first arrived in London in the late 1580s or early 1590s, dramatists writing for London's new commercial playhouses (such as The Curtain ) were combining two strands of dramatic tradition into
14960-592: The celebrations for Shakespeare's birthday (23 April). 1937 also saw the broadcast of the wooing scene from Richard III , directed by Stephen Thomas, and starring Ernest Milton as Richard and Beatrix Lehmann as Lady Anne (9 April). In 1938, the first full-length broadcast of a Shakespearean play took place; Dallas Bower's modern dress production of Julius Caesar at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre , starring D.A. Clark-Smith as Mark Antony and Ernest Milton as Caesar (24 July). The following year saw
15147-480: The center. Usually polygonal in plan to give an overall rounded effect, three levels of inward-facing galleries overlooked the open center into which jutted the stage—essentially a platform surrounded on three sides by the audience, only the rear being restricted for the entrances and exits of the actors and seating for the musicians. The upper level behind the stage could be used as a balcony , as in Romeo and Juliet , or as
15334-465: The child, "a suit you must not deny me". The Chamberlain, the Porter and his Man have difficulties controlling the enthusiastic crowds that attend the infant Elizabeth's christening. Cranmer delivers a peroration on the glories of the new-born princess's future reign, "Upon this land, a thousand thousand blessings" (Act V Scene 4). The King responds, "O lord Archbishop, thou hast made me now a man," and declares
15521-474: 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. Another major aspect of
15708-407: The course of 1937, including Mark Antony 's funeral speech from Julius Caesar , with Henry Oscar as Antony (11 February), several scenes between Benedick and Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing , featuring Henry Oscar and Margaretta Scott (also 11 February), several scenes between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth from Macbeth , starring Laurence Olivier and Judith Anderson (25 March), and
15895-494: The curriculum and were taught in editions with lengthy theoretical introductions. Archaeological excavations on the foundations of the Rose and the Globe in the late twentieth century suggested that all London English Renaissance theatres were built around similar general plans. Despite individual differences, the public theatres were three stories high and built around an open space at
16082-502: The date of the work. Nicholas Rowe in 1709 wrote that the play must date from after the death of Elizabeth in 1603 because its "E[u]logy upon Q. Elizabeth, and her Successor K. James, in the latter end of his Henry VIII, is a Proof of that Play's being written after the Accession of the latter of those two Princes to the Crown of England". Rowe was writing before the discovery of the document on
16269-494: The day to be a holiday. The Epilogue acknowledges that the play is unlikely to please everyone, but asks nonetheless for the audience's approval. As usual in his history plays, Shakespeare relied primarily on Raphael Holinshed 's Chronicles to achieve his dramatic ends and to accommodate official sensitivities over the materials involved. Other material was sourced or adapted from the 1570 edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs , for example Catherine of Aragon's plea to Henry before
16456-485: The dialogue. 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. The press also pointed out the fact that the production was never shown in Britain rubbished any suggestion that the prevailing cause for the abandonment was because of accents. Indeed, there
16643-569: The dictum that tragic plots should be grounded in history. For example, King Lear is probably an adaptation of an older play, King Leir , and the Henriad probably derived from The Famous Victories of Henry V . There is speculation that Hamlet (c. 1601) may be a reworking of an older, lost play (the so-called Ur-Hamlet ), but the number of lost plays from this time period makes it impossible to determine that relationship with certainty. (The Ur-Hamlet may in fact have been Shakespeare's, and
16830-628: The dramatic work of Shakespeare; a series which would adapt all thirty-seven Shakespearean plays. Almost immediately upon pitching the idea to his colleagues, however, Messina began to encounter 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 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 thought that there
17017-404: The early sets led to the series adopting an even more realistic approach in future adaptations, especially in productions such as Twelfth Night , 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." However, not everyone was a fan of
17204-572: 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 the length necessary to plug the gaps. However, moving into season five, WNET had no money left to record any more introductions or interviews, and
17391-408: The end of the 19th century, William Poel led a reaction against this heavy style. In a series of "Elizabethan" productions on a thrust stage , he paid fresh attention to the structure of the drama. In the early twentieth century, Harley Granville-Barker directed quarto and folio texts with few cuts, while Edward Gordon Craig and others called for abstract staging. Both approaches have influenced
17578-418: The end of the list of comedies and another ( Edward III ) at the end of the list of histories. Note : Plays marked with are now commonly referred to as the " late romances ". Plays marked with are sometimes referred to as the " problem plays ". The three plays marked with were not included in the First Folio. Like most playwrights of his period, Shakespeare did not always write alone, and
17765-464: The end of these iambic pentameter lines to make the rhythm even stronger. He and many dramatists of this period used the form of blank verse extensively in character dialogue, thus heightening poetic effects. To end many scenes in his plays he used a rhyming couplet to give a sense of conclusion, or completion. A typical example is provided in Macbeth : as Macbeth leaves the stage to murder Duncan (to
17952-742: The entire play was shot on-location in Helsingør at the real Elsinore Castle . In 1970, they screened The Tragedy of Richard II , sourced from Richard Cottrell 's touring production, and starring Ian McKellen as Richard and Timothy West as Bolingbroke. 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), King Lear (1975) and Love's Labour's Lost (1975). The BBC Television Shakespeare project
18139-610: 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
18326-512: The fire that destroyed the Globe Theatre during the performance, as described in several contemporary documents. These confirm that the fire took place on that date. The King's Men were able to continue performances at the Blackfriars Theatre , their indoor playhouse, a venue having particular significance for contemporary audiences as it was the real location of the powerful trial scene in the play. One often reported tradition associated with
18513-516: The first feature length made-for-TV production; The Tempest , also directed by Bower, and starring John Abbott as Prospero and Peggy Ashcroft as Miranda (5 February). 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' specifically made-for-TV productions. In 1947, for example, O'Ferrall directed
18700-467: 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 opined that some of the best recent theatrical productions have been extremely "gimmicky" in
18887-495: The future. That was in itself a kind of extraordinary feat." 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
19074-458: The grain, vivid and not always mainstream. Shakespeare%27s plays Shakespeare's plays are a canon of approximately 39 dramatic works written by the English poet, playwright, and actor William Shakespeare . The exact number of plays as well as their classifications as tragedy , history , comedy , or otherwise is a matter of scholarly debate. Shakespeare's plays are widely regarded as among
19261-414: The greatest in the English language and are continually performed around the world. The plays have been translated into every major living language . Many of his plays appeared in print as a series of quartos , but approximately half of them remained unpublished until 1623, when the posthumous First Folio was published. The traditional division of his plays into tragedies, comedies, and histories follows
19448-399: The historical octology ran into trouble. Messina had wanted to shoot the eight sequential history plays in chronological order of the events they depicted, with linked casting and the same director for all eight adaptations ( David Giles ), with the sequence spread out over the entire six-season run. During the early planning stages for King Richard the Second and The First Part of King Henry
19635-449: 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
19822-543: 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. Instead, Messina, Wilders and 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
20009-511: The lavish procession for Anne Bullen's coronation as Queen, which passes over the stage in their presence. Afterward they are joined by a third Gentleman, who updates them on more court gossip – the rise of Thomas Cromwell in royal favour, and plots against Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury. (Scene 2) Katherine is shown ill; is told of Wolsey's death; has a vision of dancing spirits. Caputius visits her. Katherine expresses her continuing loyalty to
20196-415: The main plot element; even this romantic plot is sometimes given less attention than witty dialogue, deceit, and jests. The "reform of manners", which Horace considered the main function of comedy, survives in such episodes as the gulling of Malvolio . Shakespeare reached maturity as a dramatist at the end of Elizabeth's reign, and in the first years of the reign of James . In these years, he responded to
20383-416: The more extreme realistic aesthetic. John Wilders, for example, preferred the "fake realism" of the first plays, 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." This
20570-461: The most entertaining scenes and characters are found in tragedies such as Hamlet and histories such as Henry IV, Part 1 . Shakespeare's humour was largely influenced by Plautus . Shakespeare's plays are also notable for their use of soliloquies , in which a character, apparently alone within the context of the play, makes a speech so that the audience may understand the character's inner motivations and conflict. In his book Shakespeare and
20757-461: The national repertory. 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. They also wrote into their contract with the BBC that only British and Irish actors could be cast. During the planning for season two, when it came to their attention that Messina
20944-439: The necessary backstory. However, The Tragedy of Richard III (the longest of the four) was aired as one piece, with only 3 minutes cut. 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
21131-427: The noble Katherine of Aragon). The longest Broadway run the play has had is Herbert Beerbohm Tree 's 1916 production in which Lyn Harding played Henry and Tree played Wolsey, running 63 performances. Tree's production was notable for its elaborate exploitation of the play's pageantry, typical of the expensive and spectacular staging of the era. The production subsequently toured, with Sydney Greenstreet taking over
21318-615: The notion of decorum; with few exceptions, he focuses on high-born characters and national affairs as the subject of tragedy. In most other respects, though, the early tragedies are far closer to the spirit and style of moralities. They are episodic, packed with character and incident; they are loosely unified by a theme or character. In this respect, they reflect clearly the influence of Marlowe, particularly of Tamburlaine . Even in his early work, however, Shakespeare generally shows more restraint than Marlowe; he resorts to grandiloquent rhetoric less frequently, and his attitude towards his heroes
21505-400: The only alternative was to 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
21692-451: The other an account of Buckingham's treason trial. Buckingham himself enters in custody after his conviction, and makes his farewells to his followers and to the public. After his exit, the two Gentlemen talk about court gossip, especially Wolsey's hostility toward Katherine. The next scene shows Wolsey beginning to move against the Queen, while the nobles Norfolk and Suffolk look on critically. Wolsey introduces Cardinal Campeius and Gardiner to
21879-412: The play involves John Downes , prompter of the Duke of York's Company from 1662 to 1706. In his Roscius Anglicanus (1708), Downes claims that the role of Henry VIII in this play was originally performed by John Lowin , who "had his instructions from Mr. Shakespeare himself." Fifteen years to the day after the fire, on 29 June 1628, The King's Men performed the play again at the Globe. The performance
22066-448: The play, each with respectable authority. The problem exists with at least four other Shakespearean plays ( Henry IV, Part 1 ; Hamlet ; Troilus and Cressida ; and Othello ). During Shakespeare's lifetime, many of his greatest plays were staged at the Globe Theatre and the Blackfriars Theatre . Shakespeare's fellow members of the Lord Chamberlain's Men acted in his plays. Among these actors were Richard Burbage (who played
22253-414: 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." 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
22440-587: The plays of Shakespeare's First Folio (1623). Shakespeare's plays continued to be staged after his death until the Interregnum (1649–1660), when all public stage performances were banned by the Puritan rulers. After the English Restoration , Shakespeare's plays were performed in playhouses with elaborate scenery and staged with music, dancing, thunder, lightning, wave machines, and fireworks . During this time
22627-408: The presenter of each episode had not seen the production about which he/she was speaking, and often, 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
22814-452: The printed versions. The textual problem can, however, become rather complicated. Modern scholarship now believes Shakespeare to have modified his plays through the years, sometimes leading to two existing versions of one play. To provide a modern text in such cases, editors must face the choice between the original first version and the later, revised, usually more theatrical version. In the past editors have resolved this problem by conflating
23001-428: 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 John Wilders. Each publication included a general introduction by Wilders, an essay on the production itself by Henry Fenwick, interviews with the cast and crew, photographs,
23188-416: The reference to the newness of the play in 1613 derived from the fact that it had been expanded with a new prologue and epilogue, perhaps written by Ben Jonson . In fact, Shakespeare's play was first registered on 8 November 1623, along with 15 other previously unpublished works, in preparation for the publication of the 1623 First Folio . Halliwell-Phillipps also took the view that the play performed in 1613
23375-464: The rest of the necessary funding took the BBC considerably longer – almost three years. Exxon were the next to invest, offering another third of the budget in 1976. 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
23562-431: The scene unless certain elements confirm that the speech is protected. Therefore, a Renaissance playgoer who was familiar with this dramatic convention would have been alert to Hamlet 's expectation that his soliloquy be overheard by the other characters in the scene. Moreover, Hirsh asserts that in soliloquies in other Shakespearean plays, the speaker is entirely in character within the play's fiction. Saying that addressing
23749-517: The scheduling, as was commented upon 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 (the show's fourth season)
23936-537: 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. US scheduling was even more complex. 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
24123-408: The sense of "adventurous," whereas the opening two episodes of the series were simply "unimaginative" and more concerned with visual "prettiness" than dramatic quality. 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
24310-465: The separate entry on the Shakespeare apocrypha . Unlike his contemporary Ben Jonson , Shakespeare did not have direct involvement in publishing his plays and produced no overall authoritative version of his plays before he died. As a result, the problem of identifying what Shakespeare actually wrote is a major concern for most modern editions. One of the reasons there are textual problems is that there
24497-402: 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 this could be accomplished, the BBC were (at first) rigorous about the show's schedule. Each of the six seasons was to be broadcast in two sections; three weekly broadcasts in late winter, followed by
24684-589: The series took all of the Falstaff scenes from the Henriad and adapted them into seven thirty-minute episodes. The second was An Age of Kings (1960). Produced by Peter Dews and directed by Michael Hayes , the show comprised fifteen episodes between sixty and eighty minutes each, 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 ). The third
24871-486: The series was again screened in 1966, but the three plays were divided up into ten episodes of fifty minutes each. Although An Age of Kings , which was the most expensive and ambitious 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. In 1964, for example, they screened
25058-414: The series was extensive, with virtually every department at the BBC involved. Once the series had begun, a major aspect of the publicity campaign involved previews of each episode for the press prior to its public broadcast, 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
25245-415: The shooting of it – there's no arty-crafty shooting at all. All of them are, for want of a better word, straightforward productions." 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
25432-399: 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 . The biggest problem with Shakespeare in Perspective , however, and the one most frequently commented upon in reviews, was that
25619-410: 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
25806-415: The sound of a chiming clock), he says, Hear it not Duncan, for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell. Shakespeare's writing (especially his plays) also feature extensive wordplay in which double entendres and rhetorical flourishes are repeatedly used. Humour is a key element in all of Shakespeare's plays. Although a large amount of his comical talent is evident in his comedies, some of
25993-492: The source material litter the Quartos and the First Folio . Additionally, in an age before standardised spelling, Shakespeare often wrote a word several times in a different spelling, and this may have contributed to some of the transcribers' confusion. Modern editors have the task of reconstructing Shakespeare's original words and expurgating errors as far as possible. In some cases the textual solution presents few difficulties. In
26180-437: The stage with his attendants, and expresses his own hostility toward Buckingham. Later Buckingham is arrested on treason charges—Wolsey's doing. The play's second scene introduces King Henry VIII, and shows his reliance on Wolsey as his favourite . Queen Katherine enters to protest about Wolsey's abuse of the tax system for his own purposes; Wolsey defends himself, but when the King revokes the Cardinal's measures, Wolsey spreads
26367-586: The start of the Thirty Years' War . His verse style, his choice of subjects, and his stagecraft all bear the marks of both periods. His style changed not only in accordance with his own tastes and developing mastery, but also in accord with the tastes of the audiences for whom he wrote. While many passages in Shakespeare's plays are written in prose , he almost always wrote a large proportion of his plays and poems in iambic pentameter . In some of his early works (like Romeo and Juliet ), he even added punctuation at
26554-411: 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
26741-648: The texts to provide what they believe to be a superior Ur-text , but critics now argue that to provide a conflated text would run contrary to Shakespeare's intentions. In King Lear for example, two independent versions, each with their own textual integrity, exist in the Quarto and the Folio versions. Shakespeare's changes here extend from the merely local to the structural. Hence the Oxford Shakespeare , published in 1986 (second edition 2005), provides two different versions of
26928-453: The texts were "reformed" and "improved" for the stage, an undertaking which has seemed shockingly disrespectful to posterity. Victorian productions of Shakespeare often sought pictorial effects in "authentic" historical costumes and sets. The staging of the reported sea fights and barge scene in Antony and Cleopatra was one spectacular example. Too often, the result was a loss of pace. Towards
27115-482: The title role in the first performances of many of Shakespeare's plays, including Hamlet , Othello , Richard III and King Lear ), Richard Cowley (who played Verges in Much Ado About Nothing ), William Kempe , (who played Peter in Romeo and Juliet and, possibly, Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream ) and Henry Condell and John Heminges , who are most famous now for collecting and editing
27302-485: The title role. The play's popularity has waned since the mid-twentieth century, although Charles Laughton played Henry at Sadler's Wells Theatre in 1933 and Margaret Webster directed it as the inaugural production of her American Repertory Company on Broadway in 1946 with Walter Hampden as Wolsey and Eva Le Gallienne as Katherine. John Gielgud played Wolsey, Harry Andrews the king and Edith Evans Katharine at Stratford in 1959. Another notable production
27489-418: The top of the BBC hierarchy, who greenlighted the show. Experiencing financial, logistical and creative problems in the early days of production, Messina persevered and served as executive producer for two years. When he was replaced by Jonathan Miller at the start of season three, the show experienced something of a creative renaissance as strictures on the directors' interpretations of the plays were loosened,
27676-535: The traditionally lesser-known and less frequently staged plays. The complete set is a popular collection, and several episodes represent the only non-theatrical production of the particular play currently available on DVD. Beginning May 26, 2020, all 37 plays are available to stream in North America via BritBox . The concept for the series originated in 1975 with Cedric Messina , a BBC producer who specialised in television productions of theatrical classics, while he
27863-468: 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). 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
28050-718: The variety of Shakespearean production styles seen today. In 1642 England's Parliament banned plays, including Shakespeare's, accusing the theatre of promoting "lascivious mirth and levity." In 1660, after the Commonwealth of England ended with the death of Oliver Cromwell , theatre resumed in a limited way. In August 2023, restrictions were placed on the teaching of Shakespearean plays and literature , in their textual completeness, by school-district officials in Hillsborough County, Florida, in order to comply with state law. Henry VIII (play) The Famous History of
28237-509: 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. The Folger Shakespeare Library's Shakespeare: The Globe and
28424-500: 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 . The fourth series was not an original TV production, but a made-for-TV "reimagining" of a stage production; The Wars of the Roses , which
28611-692: Was classical aesthetic theory. This theory was derived ultimately from Aristotle ; in Renaissance England , however, the theory was better known through its Roman interpreters and practitioners. At the universities, plays were staged in a more academic form as Roman closet dramas. These plays, usually performed in Latin , adhered to classical ideas of unity and decorum , but they were also more static, valuing lengthy speeches over physical action. Shakespeare would have learned this theory at grammar school, where Plautus and especially Terence were key parts of
28798-402: Was "gloriously British, gloriously BBC." 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 Henry VIII , Pericles , Timon of Athens , Titus Andronicus and The Two Gentlemen of Verona . However, despite this level of experience, they had never produced anything on the scale of
28985-413: 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 . 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
29172-436: 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. The actor 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 . The TV supplement, Shakespeare in Perspective ,
29359-451: Was also mandated, although this was soon jettisoned when it became clear that the major tragedies in particular would suffer 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. The restriction regarding conservative, traditional interpretations
29546-479: 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 , All's Well That Ends Well , Measure for Measure and King Lear . However, the show achieved very poor ratings and
29733-526: Was an altogether different work. These views are no longer held by most modern scholars. Plays offering positive portrayals of major Tudor figures like Henry VIII ( When You See Me You Know Me ) and Queen Elizabeth ( If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody by Thomas Heywood , 1605) were in fact performed, published, and re-published throughout the Stuart era. Since the play is now generally believed to be one of Shakespeare's collaborations with John Fletcher ,
29920-407: 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 ). The scope of
30107-407: 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 . 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. To launch the show in the US, a reception
30294-467: Was even more erratic, with only three episodes appearing during the entire season; Othello on Sunday, 4 October 1981, Troilus & Cressida on Saturday, 7 November and A Midsummer Night's Dream on Sunday, 13 December. The next group of episodes did not air until the fifth season in September 1982, under Shaun Sutton 's producership. Sutton's scheduling, if anything, was even more random than Miller's;
30481-459: 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
30668-434: 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; to make students familiar with more plays (most schools taught only Romeo and Juliet , Julius Caesar and Macbeth ), to encourage students to enjoy Shakespeare, and to have Shakespeare taught more frequently. Tel-Ed's aim
30855-586: 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
31042-439: 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. In the weeks leading up to the premier, Stone/Hallinan sent out press kits for each episode, while Exxon produced TV and radio commercials, MetLife held Shakespearean open days in its head office, and sent out posters and viewer guides for each episode. In
31229-638: Was just an earlier and subsequently discarded version.) For plays on historical subjects, Shakespeare relied heavily on two principal texts. Most of the Roman and Greek plays are based on Plutarch 's Parallel Lives (from the 1579 English translation by Sir Thomas North ), and the English history plays are indebted to Raphael Holinshed 's 1587 Chronicles . This structure did not apply to comedy, and those of Shakespeare's plays for which no clear source has been established, such as Love's Labour's Lost and The Tempest , are comedies. Even these plays, however, rely heavily on generic commonplaces. While there
31416-447: Was no copyright of writings at the time. As a result, Shakespeare and the playing companies he worked with did not distribute scripts of his plays, for fear that the plays would be stolen. This led to bootleg copies of his plays, which were often based on people trying to remember what Shakespeare had actually written. Textual corruptions also stemming from printers' errors, misreadings by compositors, or simply wrongly scanned lines from
31603-559: 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 was, such decisions "demonstrate that far more concern was spent on financial matters than on interpretative or aesthetic issues in planning the series." Messina himself, however, had no problem with any of these restrictions, as they conformed to his initial vision; "we've not done anything too sensational in
31790-506: Was on location at Glamis Castle in Angus , Scotland, shooting an adaptation of J.M. Barrie's The Little Minister for the BBC's Play of the Month series. During his time on set, Messina realised that the castle grounds would make a perfect location for an adaptation of Shakespeare's As You Like It . By the time he had returned to London, however, his idea had grown considerably, and he now envisioned an entire series devoted exclusively to
31977-434: 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. Before the situation came to a head, however, the necessary third investor was found, Metropolitan Life . 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. The complexity of this funding
32164-467: 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 had been staged (the three parts were called Henry VI , Edward IV and Richard III ). Due to the popularity of the 1965 broadcast,
32351-468: Was screened in both 1965 and 1966. 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, adapted by John Barton, and directed by Barton and Peter Hall . At the end of its run, the production
32538-409: Was selected as the season's "obscure" play, and King Richard the Second was included to begin the eight-part sequence of 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. Almost immediately, however, the concept for
32725-526: 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
32912-422: Was simply no need to do all thirty-seven plays, as many were obscure and would not find an audience amongst the general public, even in England. 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. Although there were still reservations within
33099-478: Was staged at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre (Washington, D.C.) from 12 October until 28 November 2010; this production added a puppeter-narrator, played by Louis Butelli, named for Henry VIII's jester, Will Sommers , as well as the character of Mary I, played by Megan Steigerwald. A remount of that production also played at Alabama Shakespeare Festival in 2012. In 2019 the play was done in repertory at
33286-408: 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. 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. From
33473-456: Was that the majority of the audience would not be regular theatregoers who would respond to stylisation or innovation. 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
33660-496: 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. However, Morgan was only willing to invest about one-third of what was needed (approximately £1.5 million/$ 3.6 million). Securing
33847-418: Was the first at the reconstructed Shakespeare's Globe from 15 May to 21 August 2010, as part of the theatre's first season of Shakespeare's history plays, with cannon fire at the same point as the 1613 production and a cast including Dominic Rowan as Henry, Miranda Raison as Anne, Ian McNeice as Wolsey and Kate Duchêne as Katherine (with Raison also playing Anne in the same season's Anne Boleyn ). It
34034-427: 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. Another early problem for Messina
34221-516: 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 a North 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 ,
34408-426: 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. The educational aspect of the series was considered such a success 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
34595-512: 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. 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,
34782-418: Was undertaken by Cyrus Hoy , who in 1962 divided the play between Shakespeare and Fletcher based on their distinctive word choices, for example Fletcher's uses of ye for you and ' em for them . In the mid-nineteenth century, James Spedding had proposed a similar division based on the use of eleven-syllable lines; he arrived at the same conclusions Hoy would reach a century later. The Spedding-Hoy division
34969-544: Was witnessed by George Villiers, the contemporary Duke of Buckingham (no relation to or descendant of the Duke of Buckingham portrayed in the play), who left half-way through, once the play's Duke of Buckingham was executed. (A month later, Villiers was assassinated.) During the Restoration era, Sir William Davenant staged a production, starring Thomas Betterton , that was seen by Pepys . Thomas Betterton played Henry in 1664, and Colley Cibber revived it frequently in
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