The BBC Television Shakespeare

1. Romeo and Juliet

Air Date: 1978-12-03

Patrick Ryecart and Rebecca Saire play the star crossed lovers in one of Shakespeare's best-loved plays.

2. King Richard the Second

Air Date: 1978-12-10

Derek Jacobi is King Richard II in the second of the BBC's new productions of Shakespeare.

3. As You Like It

Air Date: 1978-12-17

Classic comedy by William Shakespeare about the travails of lovers Rosalind and Orlando, who become entangled in a beguiling game of love, lust and mistaken identity.

4. Julius Caesar

Air Date: 1979-02-11

Shakespeare's great political thriller tells the story of the conspiracy against Caesar, his assassination and the defeat of his conspirators.

5. Measure For Measure

Air Date: 1979-02-18

Shakespeare's classic comedy occasionally veers into more troublesome territory, as the characters face dark and ambiguous moral choices.

6. The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight

Air Date: 1979-02-25

Classic play by William Shakespeare starring John Stride, Timothy West, Ronald Pickup, and Claire Bloom.

7. Episode 7

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8. Episode 8

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9. Episode 9

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10. Episode 10

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11. Episode 11

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12. Episode 12

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13. Episode 13

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14. Episode 14

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15. Episode 15

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16. Episode 16

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17. Episode 17

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18. Episode 18

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19. Episode 19

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20. Episode 20

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21. Episode 21

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22. Episode 22

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23. Episode 23

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24. Episode 24

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25. Episode 25

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26. Episode 26

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27. Episode 27

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28. Episode 28

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29. Episode 29

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30. Episode 30

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31. Episode 31

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32. Episode 32

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33. Episode 33

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34. Episode 34

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35. Episode 35

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36. Episode 36

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37. Episode 37

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1. The First Part of King Henry the Fourth with the Life and Death of Henry Surnamed Hotspur

Air Date: 1979-12-09

Televisation of one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, featuring the opportunistic miscreant, Sir John Falstaff. Second play in a tetralogy of history plays by William Shakespeare, along with Richard II, Henry IV, Part II, and Henry V.

2. The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth containing his Death: and the Coronation of King Henry the Fift

Air Date: 1979-12-16

Classic play by William Shakespeare, starring Jon Finch and Anthony Quayle. This is the third play in a tetralogy of history plays by William Shakespeare, along with Richard II, Henry IV, Part I, and Henry V.

3. The Life of Henry the Fift

Air Date: 1979-12-23

Classic play by William Shakespeare about Henry V, the monarch he admired above all others. Part of a tetralogy of history plays by Shakespeare, along with Richard II, Henry IV, Part I, and Henry IV, Part II.

4. Twelfth Night

Air Date: 1980-01-06

BBC televisation of the classic comedy of mistaken identities by William Shakespeare.

5. The Tempest

Air Date: 1980-02-27

William Shakespeare's swansong play about the nature of revenge, reconciliation and forgiveness.

6. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Air Date: 1980-05-25

Shakespeare's classic tale of betrayal, murder and revenge, set in Elsinore Castle in Denmark.

1. The Taming of the Shrew

Air Date: 1980-10-23

Classic comedy by William Shakespeare. Petruchio is determined to mold the shrewish Katharina into a suitable wife, both for her dowry and for the challenge of overcoming her fearsome reputation.

2. The Merchant of Venice

Air Date: 1980-12-17

BBC televisation of William Shakespeare's classic comedy about prejudice, love, loss and gain.

3. All's Well That Ends Well

Air Date: 1981-01-04

Shakespearean comedy. A woman goes to extraordinary lengths to win the man she loves. Helena, a ward of the Countess, has set her sights on Bertram, the Countess's son.

4. The Winter's Tale

Air Date: 1981-02-08

Classic play by William Shakespeare, considered either a comedy or a romance. One of Shakespeare's last works, the play also contains tragic elements that weave throughout the work.

5. Timon of Athens

Air Date: 1981-04-16

When wealthy and famously generous nobleman Timon of Athens discovers the true state of his financial position, his former friends abandon him, and in disgust he retreats to a cave to rail against humanity.

6. Antony and Cleopatra

Air Date: 1981-05-08

Shakespeare's classic story of Mark Antony, Roman military leader and triumvir, who is madly in love with Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt.

1. Othello

Air Date: 1981-10-04

Tragedy by William Shakespeare. The promotion of Moorish general Othello sparks bitter jealousy in his supposed friend, Iago. He subsequently plots to secure the downfall of Othello by provoking him into believing his wife Desdemona is being unfaithful.

2. Troilus and Cressida

Air Date: 1981-11-07

A love story set against the backdrop of the seemingly endless Trojan wars. Anton Lesser and Suzanne Burden take the title roles of William Shakespeare's war satire.

3. A Midsummer Night's Dream

Air Date: 1981-12-13

Part one of Shakespeare's classic play starring Helen Mirren and Robert Lindsay.

1. King Lear

Air Date: 1982-09-19

Classic play by William Shakespeare about an ageing King who decides to divide his Kingdom between his three daughters.

2. The Merry Wives of Windsor

Air Date: 1982-12-28

Comedy by William Shakespeare; the only one of his plays set in England in his own time. The roguish Sir John Falstaff attempts to seduce both Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, but finds both women are more than a match for him.

3. The First Part of Henry the Sixt

Air Date: 1983-01-02

A television presentation of the first part of Shakespeare's Henry VI. Henry V is dead and war continues with France. The Wars of the Roses are threatening and the Duke of York taunts the Earl of Somerset.

4. The Second Part of Henry the Sixt

Air Date: 1983-01-09

The BBC's screen production of William Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part II.

5. The Third Part of Henry the Sixt

Air Date: 1983-01-16

The BBC Production of William Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part III. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, aspiring to usurp the English crown plots to murder the deposed king in this concluding part of the Henry VI trilogy.

6. The Tragedy of Richard III

Air Date: 1983-01-23

The rise and fall of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, whose murderous Machiavellian schemes help him to the throne of England, but make him far too many enemies along the way.

7. The Tragedy of Richard III

Air Date: 1983-01-23

The rise and fall of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, whose murderous Machiavellian schemes help him to the throne of England, but make him far too many enemies along the way.

1. Cymbeline

Air Date: 1983-07-10

Classic play by William Shakespeare based on legends concerning the early Celtic British King Cunobelinus.

2. Macbeth

Air Date: 1983-11-05

Classic tragedy by William Shakespeare about how ambition can corrupt. Three witches foresee a great future for Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis.

3. The Comedy of Errors

Air Date: 1983-12-24

Comical misunderstandings arise when two sets of twins, each unaware of their other halves' existence, inadvertently end up in the same town.

4. The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Air Date: 1983-12-27

Comedy. The romantic complications of various residents of Renaissance Italy, notably the two young gentlemen Proteus and Valentine.

5. The Tragedy of Coriolanus

Air Date: 1984-04-21

Classic tragedy chronicling the life of the mighty warrior, Caius Marcius Coriolanus. Although a leader among men on the battlefield, Coriolanus finds himself comprehensively out-manoeuvred when he turns to politics.

1. The Life & Death of King John

Air Date: 1984-11-24

Classic play by William Shakespeare about the life and death of England's 'bad king', in conflict not only with the French and the Pope but also those who dispute his claim to the throne.

2. Pericles, Prince of Tyre

Air Date: 1984-12-08

Shakespearean comedy about a good man who suffers the brunt of life's hostilities. When Pericles solves the terrible answer to Antioch's riddle, his life is thrust into turmoil.

3. Much Ado About Nothing

Air Date: 1984-12-22

Comedy by William Shakespeare about two very different sets of lovers - Beatrice and Benedick, and Claudio and Hero.

4. Love's Labour's Lost

Air Date: 1985-01-05

Comedy about the romantic affections confounding the court of Ferdinand, King of Navarre. Ferdinand and three associates commit stochastic study for three years - which means no women - but things quickly unravel.

5. Titus Andronicus

Air Date: 1985-04-27

Tragedy by William Shakespeare. The great Roman general Titus Andronicus returns from the wars in triumph, but is comprehensively out-manoeuvred by wily politicians.