The BBC Television Shakespeare

Seasons

1978

USA

8.1

BBC adaptations of all 37 plays wholly and authoritatively credited to William Shakespeare.

Episode List

S1 • E1

Romeo & Juliet

Two teenagers fall in love, but their feuding families and fate itself cause the relationship to end in tragedy.

S1 • E2

Richard II

The incompetent King Richard II is deposed by Henry Bolingbroke and undergoes a crisis of identity once he is no longer King.

S1 • E3

As You Like It

After the overthrowing of Duke Senior by his tyrannical brother, Senior's daughter Rosalind disguises herself as a man and sets out to find her banished father while also counseling her clumsy suitor Orlando in the art of wooing.

S1 • E4

Julius Caesar

The assassination of the would be ruler of Rome at the hands of Brutus and company has tragic consequences for Brutus and the republic.

S1 • E5

Measure for Measure

When the Duke of Vienna takes a mysterious leave of absence and leaves the strict Angelo in charge, things couldn't be worse for Claudio, who is sentenced to death for premarital sex. His sister, Isabella (a nun-in-training), however, is a very persuasive pleader. She goes to Angelo, but instead of freeing her brother, she gets an offer from Angelo to save Claudio's life if Isabella sleeps with him. The only sympathetic friend Isabella has is a priest who, in actuality, is the Duke in disguise...and he has a plan.

S1 • E6

Henry VIII

Henry VIII is a proud and wilful monarch who defies Rome's ban on divorce to marry his mistress Anne Boleyn. Cardinal Wolsey, the Powerful Lord Chancellor of England, attempts to bend Rome to the king's wishes in the matter of the divorce of Catherine of Aragon so he can marry Anne Boleyn. Later, near death, he repents his unpriestly activity. After Henry divorces her, Catherine is sent to Kimbolton Castle. Anne marries Henry and becomes his queen.