The BBC Television Shakespeare

Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny where civil blood makes civil ha...

Richard II, who ascended the throne as a child, is a regal and stately monarch. He believes he is the rightful ruler of England, ordained by God, yet...

Orlando is forced to work like a servant for his brother Oliver, so he goes to win his fortune in a wrestling contest, where he meets a lady of the co...

Marcus Brutus is Caesar's close friend and a Roman praetor. Brutus allows himself to be cajoled into joining a group of conspiring senators because of...

When the Duke of Vienna takes a mysterious leave of absence and leaves the strict Angelo in charge, things couldn't be worse for Claudio, who is sente...

Henry is a proud monarch who flies in the face of the church in seeking to divorce Queen Katherine and marry Anne Bullen. As Cardinal Wolsey, the powe...

Henry Bolingbroke has now been crowned King of England, but faces a rebellion headed by the embittered Earl of Northumberland and his son (nicknamed '...

King Henry's health is failing as a second rebellion against his reign threatens to surface. Intent on securing his legacy, he is uncertain that his s...

Insulted by the Dauphin, the newly-crowned Henry V gathers his troops for war. But Henry must convince his men that he has left his wild days behind,...

Viola and Sebastian are lookalike twins, separated by a shipwreck. Viola lands in Illyria, where she disguises herself like her brother and goes into...

Prospero, the true Duke of Milan, is now living on an enchanted island with his daughter Miranda, the savage Caliban and Ariel, a spirit of the air. R...

Hamlet returns home from university to find his uncle married to his mother, and his father's ghost haunting the battlements and scaring the watch. Th...

Baptista has two daughters: Katherine and Bianca. Everyone wants to wed the fair Bianca, but nobody's much interested in problem child, Katherine. Bap...

Antonio's best friend, Bassiano, is in love with Portia, a wise and wealthy heiress, and needs three thousand ducats to press his suit. With Antonio'...

Helena loves Bertram, but he's of noble birth, while she's just a doctor's daughter. But Bertram is at the court of the King of France, who is ill, an...

King Leontes of Bohemia suspects his wife, Queen Hermione, of deceiving him with his good friend Polixenes. Leontes drives Polixenes out of his kingdo...

Ancient Athenian Timon is well-known for his generosity - his many friends come to all his parties and like to get presents from him. But then Timon s...

Octavius Caesar (later known as Augustus), Mark Antony, and Lepidus form a triumvirate to rule the Roman Empire. Antony will rule in the east and goes...

Set in 16th-century Venice and Cyprus, Othello the Moor, a noble black warrior in the Venetian army, has secretly married a beautiful white woman call...

The bitter Trojan War drags on - the Greeks blame Achilles' apathy for low morale, while Troy's hero Hector challenges one of the enemy to a personal...

Hermia is in love with Lysander, but her father wants her to marry Demetrius. To escape the arranged marriage, she and Lysander elope into the woods....

When England's ageing King Lear renounces his throne to divide his kingdom among his three daughters, treachery, madness and murder soon follow. After...

When Sir John Falstaff decides that he wants to have a little fun he writes two letters to a pair of Window wives: Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. Wh...

Following the death of his father, Henry V, the young Henry VI is proclaimed king under the protectorship of his uncles, the Dukes of Gloucester and E...

Dissension is rife in the English court. Suffolk's influence intensifies. The fractious English nobles unite in their common aim to get rid of the Duk...

With Richard Plantagenet on the throne of England, the Yorkists confront the Lancastrians. King Henry agrees to York's demand that he disinherit his s...

Richard Duke of Gloucester, youngest brother of King Edward IV, will stop at nothing to get the crown. He first convinces the ailing King that the Duk...

Cymbeline, the King of Britain, is angry that his daughter Imogen has chosen a poor (but worthy) man for her husband. So he banishes Posthumus, who go...

Shakespeare's dark tragedy tells of ambition and guilt amidst a background of regicide, violence and the supernatural. When a trio of witches tells th...

Aegeon of Syracuse has come to Ephesus to seek his son, who went in search of his missing twin and mother months ago. Too bad that Ephesus has just de...

Two great friends leave Verona for Milan, Valentine with great enthusiasm and Proteus unwillingly, as he will have to leave his recently-betrothed Jul...

A banished hero of Rome allies with a sworn enemy to take his revenge on the city.

King Richard I, the revered 'Lionheart', is dead. His brother John has become King of England, but the French argue that the throne should belong to t...

When Prince Pericles, visiting Antioch, discovers the dreaded answer to King Antiochus's riddle, he flees for his life straight into famine, shipwreck...

Benedick and Beatrice fight their merry war of words. But when Beatrice's friend, Hero, is humiliatingly jilted by Benedick's best friend, Claudio, Be...

A scholarly king and his three companions swear off the society of women for three years, only to have a diplomatic visit from a French princess and h...

Having subdued the Goths, warrior Titus Andronicus returns to Rome to bury his sons, with Gothic Queen Tamora and her retinue as captives. The newly-d...