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All’s Well That Ends Well
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As You Like It
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Henry VI, part 3
Henry VIII
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Much Ado About Nothing
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Richard II
Richard III
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The Taming of the Shrew
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Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Winter’s Tale
Shakespeareana

Available versions

1979: Kevin Billington

2012: Mark Rosenblatt


Henry VIII
1979: Kevin Billington

This is the BBC Shakespeare Plays version of Henry VIII. There is a considerable range in the BBC Shakespeare productions, and some of them are pretty minimalistic. This one is not. For all that it is not one of Shakespeare’s best-known plays, it features a cascade of dazzling performances by the best actors of the day, and it is formidable. If you can only see one production of the play, see this one. It’s brilliant and beautiful.

The production is set in Tudor settings, not all of them clearly sound-stages, and the gritty reality of it carries a certain weight all its own. Beyond that is the fundamental seriousness of the play, and — irrespective of the impressive acting forces brought to bear on it — the fact that the play is presented almost (if not quite) uncut. Whereas in the other available version probably half the lines have gone missing, here you can follow through whole scenes, intact, getting Shakespeare’s lines as he intended them.

For me, among other things, this meant that the play was vastly more comprehensible than the other main contender (the Globe version). The continuity of plot actually lives in those lines that some directors decide to jettison. Here, speaking for myself as a bear of little brain, it all kind of makes sense. Pedestrian as such a desire may seem, it’s mine.

In addition, there is also the opportunity to see quite a few of the great Shakespeare actors of their age. Claire Bloom as the defeated Katherine of Aragon is magnificent — she carries herself with such dignity that even if you are rooting for team Bullen, you can’t help but admire her. Jeremy Kemp is Norfolk (Howard). and he does a fine job; David Rintoul, whose rendition of Fitzwilliam Darcy in a mostly-forgotten production of Pride and Prejudice seems to me the perfect one, plays the role of Abergavenny; Barbara Kellerman is young and beautiful and clearly unaware of the horrific maw into which she is leaping; some will remember her as Jadis from the BBC productions of some of the Narnia books a few years later. Ronald Pickup is serene and reserved as Cranmer, who penned most of the words of the Book of Common Prayer; John Rhys-Davies, known to Tolkien-movie fans as Gimli, and from his more memorable role in Raiders of the Lost Ark, is the generous and great-souled Capucius in but a single scene. Julian Glover (“You may begin your landing now, Lord Vader,” and “Germany has declared war on the Jones boys”) has his usual august self-possession. Two generations of Lloyd Packs are present; Michael Poole is superlative as the stymied and cornered beast that was Cardinal Wolsey; and finally the unnamed singer toward the end is played by one of the golden voices of her generation, Emma Kirkby.

All in all, this is a formidable production of a play that is otherwise easy to overlook. It is done with such panache and finesse that it deserves your serious attention.


Abergavenny: David Rintoul

Anne Bullen: Barbara Kellerman

Bishop of Lincoln: David Dodimead

Buckingham: Julian Glover

Capucius: John Rhys-Davies

Cardinal Campeius: Michael Poole

Cardinal Wolsey: Timothy West

Cranmer: Ronald Pickup

Crier: Michael Gaunt

Cromwell: John Rowe

Door-keeper: Brian Osborne

Dr. Butts: John Rogan

First Gentleman: John Cater

Gardiner: Peter Vaughan

Griffith: John Bailey

Henry Guildford: Adam Bareham

Henry VIII: John Stride

Katharine of Aragon: Claire Bloom

Lord Chamberlain: John Nettleton

Lord Chancellor: Jack May

Messenger: Michael Walker

Nicholas Vaux: Jack McKenzie

Norfolk: Jeremy Kemp

Old Lady: Sylvia Coleridge

Page to Gardiner: Timothy Barker

Patience: Sally Home

Prologue: Tony Church

Sandys: Charles Lloyd Pack

Sergeant-at-Arms: Alan Leith

Servant: Jeffrey Daunton

Singer: Emma Kirkby

Suffolk: Lewis Fiander

Surrey: Oliver Cotton

Surveyor: David Troughton

Thomas Lovell: Nigel Lambert