UKC

I've got a BBC complete box set of the plays and wondered if anyone could recommend something unusual. I've seen a lot of the "famous ones" (Hamlet Macbeth, Caesar, R&J, the histories, RichardIII,the tempest, twelfth night) though not necessarily these productions in the past.
Any suggestions?

In reply to andrew ogilvie:

Mid summer nights dream is a good one

In reply to balmybaldwin:
I think that counts as one of the better known ones? Maybe Coriolanus?

In reply to pog100: Thanks.

In reply to andrew ogilvie: King Lear is brilliant. One bloke I knew who'd read it at uni said, "Not a nice family those Lear's". A bit like the famous one, "Wasn't Lady McBeth a right cow".

In reply to moac: Or the famous comment about Hamlet?

"Its not too bad, pity it is so full of quotations".

In reply to Simon4: And thankyou too.

I took pog100's advice and watched The first half of Coriolanus last night with the remainder for this evening.I have seen King Lear as part of the BBC productions in the mid 80s ( another good one ). Strangely when I bought the DVD boxset I was anticipating that they would be the productions from the 80's which I remembered, in fact they seem to be of slightly earlier productions of the plays - can it really be that the BBC made two complete cycles of Shakespeare between 1967 ( colour TV) and the end of my school career in 1984? Those were the days.

MSND so will be next on my list...

In reply to andrew ogilvie: Macbeth and Merchant of Venice were good, i'd burn every copy of Romeo and Juliet if i could though.

In reply to Nath93:

I love Romeo and Juliet! What's not to?

Another good one is Othello which has all the standard hallmarks of Shakespeare with a few extras thrown in, especially in dealing with the love between a white European Duke's daughter and a Black Moor soldier.

In reply to andrew ogilvie:I recommend the Ralph Fiennes version of Coriolanus and Sam Worthington's Macbeth. Brill remakes.
Andy

In reply to Andy Cloquet:
gotta love romeo and juliet

In reply to GudrunEnsslin: It was probably my squeaky English teacher and her eternal love for Shakespeare that ruined it for me.

In reply to andrew ogilvie: It all depends on the production, I guess. The best I ever saw was Pericles at the Globe. Not one of his most renowned, but it was a great production and the scenes of the storms at sea were the best thing I've seen on stage.

In reply to andrew ogilvie:
Are you looking for film adaptations?

Kenneth Branagh's 1993 version of Much Ado About Nothing is lovely. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1045992-much_ado_about_nothing/

In reply to andrew ogilvie:

Tesco do a Shakespeare burger ....a burger or not a burger , that is the equestrian

In reply to andrew ogilvie: A few decades ago I saw Troilus and Cressida at the Citzens in Glasgow. Male leads were dressed in GI uniforms (I think the Vietnam war was still on) and if I remember rightly the female lead was played by David Hayman.
They also did the whole play in a South Carolina accent on the premise that that might have been how English was spoken back in the late 16th Century.
Now a recording of that might be interesting....

In reply to andrew ogilvie:

I'll recommend this one as being a lot more exciting than any of the previous suggestions...
http://www.shakespearecountyraceway.com/

In reply to Andy Cloquet: I'll second the Fiennes Coriolanus, it's excellent. And while your at it, Baz Lurman's R&J (though some may find this a contentious view) and Al Pacino in the Merchant of Venice.

But for something a bit off the beaten track, why not see where Tarantino gets his ideas from and watch Titus Andonicus.

In reply to Ian65:

I thought Fiennes' Coriolanus was absolutely superb; but if you had to twist my arm, and get me to say what I (and millions of others) regard as Shakespeare's greatest work, it has to be King Lear. And in second and third positions are Hamlet and Macbeth. I don't believe there are any other plays that come remotely near those three in western culture.

In reply to andrew ogilvie:

If there is recording of Peter O'Toole's Macbeth it should be worth watching:

"Not so much downright bad as heroically ludicrous. . . "

"Like a blacksmith hammering on an anvil. . ."

"Hollywood at its most hilarious self-parody. . ."

"A cross between Bette Davis and Vincent Price. . . "

In reply to andrew ogilvie:

As you like it.


In case anyone is interested., I noticed that the National Theatre is putting on Othello later in the year and tickets are going on general sale on Thursday.

In reply to andrew ogilvie:

I saw the film Coriolanus last year and would recommend it to anyone, whether or not they have an interest in Shakespeare, it was absolutely brilliant.

youtube.com/watch?v=bsYrGIQnmxo&

In reply to andrew ogilvie:

I would like to commend an audiobook version of Lear in the Naxos catalogue. It was produced in 2002 to mark the late great Paul Scofield's 80th birthday. He gives a superb performance as Lear supported by a stellar cast; Branagh as the Fool, Alec McCowen as Gloucester and a wonderful David Burke as Kent among others too numerous to mention. It is one of the things I would rush into a burning building to rescue if it was the last copy.

In reply to Ian65: That comment is the sort of comment Mark Kermode would make on his Radio5 film show with Simon Mayo: 'well, observed,' if I may be patronising?

In reply to andrew ogilvie:

Someone already mentioned the play. I'll give a shout out for Julie Taymor's film adaptation of Titus Andronicus (simply called Titus). Taymor is foremost a theatre director anyway so her films are very "stagey" in the best sense of the word, and on Titus she had a dream cast, then overlaid them with her own unique visual interpretation. It's not like watching a film OR a play, it's like experiencing modern art. That's not to say it's the greatest film ever, but it's something different, which is what you asked for. Though, like many others on the thread, I'm not sure WHAT you are asking for! I could say Forbidden Planet, Ten Things I Hate About You, or that odd Civil War version of The Tempest made for American TV with Peter Fonda, Harold Perrineau and Katherine Heigl...