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

1985: Elijah Moshinsky

2000: Kenneth Branagh

2011: Dominic Dromgoole

2015: Robin Lough

2016: Jake O’Hare, Jennifer Sturley

2017: Barry Avrich


Love’s Labour’s Lost
2000: Kenneth Branagh

This is probably the fluffiest conceivable version of one of Shakespeare’s fluffiest plays. Running a mere hour and thirty-three minutes, much of it being taken by musical numbers (1930s chestnuts by George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, and Irving Berlin), more by miscellaneous fake newsreel clips about the court of Navarre in 1939, and still more occupied by various wordless cinematic set pieces, it’s high on concept, and short on Shakespeare.

With that proviso, it’s fun to watch. Most of the players are up to the task (reduced as it is), and many are quite excellent. Alicia Silverstone, alas, has to join Leonardo di Caprio and Keanu Reeves on my short list of actors who should probably forego Shakespeare in the future: her stilted diction evokes not so much someone playing a part as a schoolgirl reciting a few memorized lines of Shakespeare. The other three visiting ladies, and the four gentlemen of Navarre are splendid; Branagh is fun to watch as Berowne, the skeptic of the crew; Adrian Lester shows his superior acting and singing chops, and Natascha McElhone is bewitching as Rosaline. The other roles are covered at least adequately.

The film features some entertaining performances, excellent cinematography, occasionally dabbling with a Busby Berkeley aesthetic, and a lyrical score by Patrick Doyle. It’s hard not to enjoy it, though it’s definitely Love’s Labour’s Lite, and if one wants to find whatever this play has in it, probably a fuller version is called for.


Beatrice: Yvonne Reilly

Berowne: Kenneth Branagh

Boyet: Richard Clifford

Celimene: Emma Scott

Costard: Nathan Lane

Don Armado: Timothy Spall

Dull: Jimmy Yuill

Dumaine: Adrian Lester

Eugene: Graham Hubbard

Gaston: Alfred Bell

Hippolyte: Iain Stuart Robertson

Holofernia: Geraldine McEwan

Isabelle: Daisy Gough

Jacquanetta: Stefania Rocca

Jaques: Paul Moody

Katherine: Emily Mortimer

King Ferdinand of Navarre: Alessandro Nivola

Longaville: Matthew Lillard

Maria: Carmen Ejogo

Mercade: Daniel Hill

Moth : Anthony O’Donnell

Nathaniel: Richard Briers

Rosaline: Natascha McElhone

Sophie: Amy Tez

The Princess of France: Alicia Silverstone