Shakespeare Plays Available in Video Format
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All’s Well That Ends Well
Antony and Cleopatra
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Hamlet
Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, part 1
Henry VI, part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Henry VIII
Julius Caesar
King John
King Lear
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Macbeth
Measure for Measure
The Merchant of Venice
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Pericles
Richard II
Richard III
Romeo and Juliet
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Winter’s Tale
Shakespeareana

Available versions

1909: Charles Kent, J. Stuart Blackton

1935: William Dieterle, Max Reinhardt

1968: Peter Hall

1981: Elijah Moshinsky

1982: Joseph Papp, Emile Ardolino

1996: Adrian Noble

1999: Michael Hoffman

2010: Bo Bergstrom

2014: Dominic Dromgoole

2014: Julie Taymor

2016: Maxine Peake

2016: Emma Rice

2017: Casey Wilder Mott


Adaptations

1992: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Animated)

2005: ShakespeaRe-Told: A Midsummer Night’s Dream


Related

2015: Shakespeare Uncovered, Season 2, Episode 4


A Midsummer Night’s Dream
1996: Adrian Noble

Probably the oddest of the lot, and a very mixed success. While obviously a film production, it is nonetheless conspicuously stagey, with a lot of clever extra interplay superimposed upon the text. Alex Jennings plays both Theseus and Oberon, and Lindsay Duncan plays both Hippolyta and Titania, thus hammering home with a very heavy fist the parallelism between the two courts. A completely new point-of-view character is introduced — a small boy who moves as a kind of idealized spectator from one scene to another, saying nothing, but watching everything while popping up randomly (and, to my taste, irritatingly) here and there, through pieces of furniture and plumbing, and riding bicycles across the moon a la E.T. Perhaps he’s dreaming the whole thing (as some have suggested) or perhaps his relationship to the action is supposed to be something else — but it remains unexplained and tends to serve as a distraction from the story-line.

The art direction is a rather repellent avant-garde melange of clashing images and oversaturated primary colors. The characters seem to be drawn by turns from Victorian post cards and punk rock groups, and the costuming and makeup are bizarre and unattractive, and look surprisingly dated after only eight years.

Though the film has some vocal champions, I find the whole effect more arch and clever than illuminating. For all its oddness, though, it’s worth seeing, and certainly at its best moments there are some astonishing visions and remarkable pieces of acting. I should warn, however, that there are a few scenes that are more sexually explicit than many will find comfortable or (certainly) dramatically necessary.


Demetrius: Kevin Doyle

Egeus: Alfred Burke

Fairy; Courtier: Dominique Poulter

Fairy; Courtier: Gemma Aston

Fairy; Courtier: Guy Hargreaves

Fairy; Courtier: John Baxter

Fairy; Courtier: Joseph Morton

Fairy; Courtier: Matt Patresi

Fairy; Courtier: Michelle Jordan

Fairy; Courtier: Nicola McRoy

Fairy; Courtier: Oscar Pearce

Fairy; Courtier: Sarah Kruger

First Fairy: Ann Hasson

Francis Flute; Peaseblossom: Mark Letheren

Helena: Emily Raymond

Hermia: Monica Dolan

Hippolyta; Titania: Lindsay Duncan

Lysander: Daniel Evans

Nick Bottom: Desmond Barrit

Peter Quince; Mustardseed: John Kane

Philostrate; Puck: Barry Lynch

Principal Fairy; Courtier: Darren Roberts

Principal Fairy; Courtier: Emily Button

Principal Fairy; Courtier: Tim Griggs

Robin Starveling; Cobweb: Robert Gillespie

Snug: Kenn Sabberton

The Boy: Osheen Jones

Theseus; Oberon: Alex Jennings

Tom Snout; Fairy: Howard Crossley