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i recently saw a colleagues amateur productons abridged versions of Midsummer Nights Dream and Macbeth.

i am a bit ashamed to say that i was a bit of a heathen when we were doing Shakespeare at school but seeing the players put something pretty good on at the local village hall has given me the bug?

Any suggestons for something to start me off?

I would try Branagh's Henry V made in 1989.
It will give you goosebumps,
And like most Shakespeare,
Once your ear becomes attuned to the language and delivery,
Its breathtaking. Enjoy. !happy!

Shelley,
Try King Lear as a study of madness!
Mike Freeman.

You could also try the mid 90s version of Much Ado About Nothing (directed & staring Kenneth Branagh with Emma Thompson, Kate Beckinsale, Denzel Washington, Keanau Reeves, Richard Briers, Brian Blessed, Imelda Staunton and others) which was filmed in Tuscany.


It's a nice, easy to follow piece, with some great acting from most of the cast (Reeves is typically plank-like, though and casting Ben Elton as Verges was obviously part of an "old pals act") and sumptuous scenery.

highly recommend seeing any production at Stratford itself or if the RSC are on tour go see them, the RSC always seem to put on better productions than all the others (understandable really), and get all the best actors. Ian McKellan, Patrick Stuart and Judi Dench have all starred in the last couple of years



personal favorites
Richard III, the Tempest, Midsummer Nights Dream

As much as I think that Mel Gibson's a right shit, he's rather good in/as Hamlet, it's worth having a butcher's...

As hellish as it might sound, and though it does contain some stunt pieces of casting, Branagh's Hamlet fairly zooms along---even at four hours. For what it's worth, the sex scene described as spurious, between KB and Kate Winslet, makes Ophelia's descent into madness credible. And the film looks fantastic.

Old Shakey gets a lot of stick from the masses, but at his best there's no one to touch him. Julius Caesar, with its shifting political alliances, is always relevant; Lear is painfully real (Kurasawa's take on it was called ran, a word that means "chaos"); Hamlet could have invented the art of psycho-analysis, and is packed with philosophical musings; and Macbeth, the ambitious power struggle that ends with him empty after the death of his wife.

For Hamlet, everyone goes on about To be or not to be, or Alas poor Yorick, but try this as someone who has come to terms with his own mortality:

"There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all."

And from Macbeth, perhaps the greatest lines he wrote, after the death of Lady M. I hear them in the voice of a world-weary, depressed speaker:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

I've alway's thought that Laurence 'larry' Olivier vastly overated, I have seen Branagh's Henry V. and I was absolutely riveted, especially when they found out who the traitor was. I was shouting "Kill the bastard!" at the T.V.
Brian Blessed was particularly good in it too.
Is it just me or was Olivier a poncy overated Ham?

That was the style of the time.

Ever seen the Julius Caesar with Brando as Antony? Pretty damned good.