Frances Barber and David Harewood star in Shakespeare's towering tale of great love, political intrigue and tragedy. BBC radio has a unique heritage when it comes to Shakespeare. Since 1923,...
One of Shakespeare's final works, Cymbeline uses virtuoso theatrical and poetic means to dramatize a story of marriage imperiled by mistrust and rebuilt in the context of international confllict.
To be or not to be... Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow... O for a Muse of Fire... The quality of mercy is not strained... This sceptred isle... Once more unto the breach dear...
Michael Sheen stars as Hamlet with Kenneth Cranham as Claudius, Juliet Stevenson as Gertrude and Ellie Beaven as Ophelia in the best-known and most powerful tragedy of modern times...
Father and son Julian and Jamie Glover star as King Henry and his son, Hal, in this powerful production, which also stars Timothy West and Prunella Scales...
Political intrigue and fierce battle rage in this tense and dynamic production in which a country is torn apart under the legacy of Julius Caesar, 'the colossus'.
Kenneth Branagh heads an outstanding cast in playing one of Shakespeare's strongest characters. The eighth production in the widely admired series of Shakespeare plays.
The plays of William Shakespeare, and his famous lines, are part of the national consciousness. There may be few solid facts about Shakespeare the man, and yet not only do we want to know all about...
By the time Shakespeare came to write Macbeth - almost certainly in 1605/1606 - he had already completed three of the great tragedies with which modern audiences are so familiar: Hamlet (1601),...
When a young woman is offered the choice of saving a man's life at the price of her own chastity, what should she do?
The political and moral corruption of Vienna has driven Duke...
A Midsummer Night's Dream must be one of the most enduringly popular of Shakespeare's plays, and it is not difficult to see why: the work blends several kinds of comedy with a powerful atmosphere...
"The course of true love never did run smooth" —Lysander A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's best early works, an airy, romantic romp in the woods among bumbling rustics,...
Samuel West stars as Richard II with Joss Ackland as John of Gaunt in Shakespeare's lyrically tragic history. BBC radio has a unique heritage when it comes to Shakespeare. Since 1923, when...
Douglas Henshall, Sophie Dahl and Susannah York star in Shakespeare's passionate story of doomed love. The full beauty and meaning of some of the most lyrical lines ever written can truly be heard.
From the BBC Sound Archives, one of Shakespeare's most famous and memorable speeches, with Paul Scofield and Peggy Ashcroft as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, bringing these ominous words vividly to life.
As read by the legendary Sir John Gielgud-- perhaps the greatest interpreter of the Bard we shall ever know-- the sonnets in this selection come alive...
Everyone knows something of Shakespeare's sonnets, even if only in memorable fragments like 'the darling buds of May', or 'remembrance of things past',or 'the marriage of true minds'. For centuries...
"Our revels now are ended... this rough magic I here abjure..." In Shakespeare hinting at the end of his own magnificent career in these and others lines spoken by the great magician,...
Ian McKellen, as Prospero, heads a strong cast in Shakespeare's last great play. The wronged Duke raises a tempest to shipwreck his old opponents on his island so that he can ensure justice...
Twelfth Night, nowadays one of Shakespeare's best-loved and most-admired comedies, was not always so regarded: Samuel Pepys saw the play three times in the 1660s and judged it 'silly'. Modem...
The Winter's Tale was one of the very last plays Shakespeare wrote, a moving romance whose themes are sin, forgiveness, death, rebirth, and the power of Time and Nature to heal all wounds. Based on...
An intimate history of Shakespeare, following him through a single year that changed not only his fortunes but the course of literature for many generations to come...
