The Shakespeare Collection

All round excellence in every department

It is easy to criticise these plays. Sometimes the beards look like they have been stuck on - and sometimes the sets are less than 100% realistic. Indeed, when I started watching Antony & Cleopatra, I was ungallantly thinking they could have chosen someone better looking to play Cleopatra. But the acting is very good, and by the end of the play, when Cleopatra applies an asp to her breast to kill herself, and says “Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, that sucks the nurse asleep?”, tears were running down my cheeks, I was so moved. If you are looking for big budget versions of the plays, “based on Shakespeare” or “inspired by Shakespeare”, look elsewhere. But if you want Shakespeare, the whole Shakespeare, and nothing but Shakespeare, look no further. The plays are available with subtitles, which I find really useful to help understand the Elizabethan English – and failing that, there is always the rewind button. The best 70 quid I have spent this millennium. Pure Shakespeare in All its Glory!

Great product, thank you.

I bought as a present for my partner who was thrilled with the collection. The DVD's are not the visual quality we get on the TV these days but we expected that from the date they were filmed.

Storage box rather unsatisfactory. The DVDs fall out when case is opened.

Full set of Shakespeare's plays with fine BBC performances. I have only watched The Tempest and Coriolanus so far. The Tempest was fantastic but unfortunately the sound is out of synch with the picture in Coriolanus which was very distracting. Appeared like a dubbed performance. I would still recommend but loses a star due to the quality on Coriolanus.

UPDATED Bad DVD packaging. Another reviewer has also said this. The outer DVD cardboard box surrounding the whole lot is sturdy. (And the Amazon delivery box outside of that was fine.) Inside the DVD box come two plastic DVD cases. What they seem to have done is place twice as many discs in each case as made to hold. Each disc holder is holding two discs, the top DVD is loose and mostly fall out as soon as you open the plastic case, and will fall right out unless the case is flat on a table etc, while the bottom disc is rammed hard in and requires a lot of careful effort to remove without bending. This is not confined to one disc holder or one box, it is the whole lot, of every disc, half were rammed in tight, the other half were loose or fallen out. Only receiving the delivery yesterday, and opening it today, I have yet had a chance to watch any, but about 10 discs I have test loaded to see if they will run, as I was concerned about how they were packaged, and all 10 start OK. Whether there is any deeper damage will find out over the months it will take. The disc holder is so bad that I have decanted the 10 I tested in individual DVD jewel cases that I happened to have spare. Beware then. The DVD content might be excellent but thats no good if the discs are delivered damaged. £90 minus one penny for this set and I certainly expect proper disc case packaging, not something this shoddy. UPDATE I bought - on behalf of someone without internet access - a repeat order. As the person is also partially mobility restricted with less than perfect hands motor control, for them I opened the DVD cases. Exactly the same thing - hald the DVDs are loose and fall out the other half rammed on the spindle thingies that you have to bend them to loosen them. My own set i had alresdey decanted into individual jewel cases, and am doing the same for the other persons set. Really is shoddy packaging and could damage the contents but would be hard to prove. This is not the Amazon delivery outer packaging - this was fine in both instances - but is the DVD cases (2)of the item itself.

I bought this pack as a gift for someone but I have had the same - a different style of pack but the same contents - for many years and continually enjoy rewatching. Most highly recommended.

Outstanding. Brilliant acting and great directing and productions for the most part. Excellent value for money. I haven't finished watching all of them, so I can't comment on all the plays, but the ones I've seen so far have been performed as if on theatre stages rather than on location. Once you get used to this, the plays and the acting become more compelling. I can't recommend this collection highly enough despite how dated they might seem to a modern viewer. Excellent value for money. Delivery and packaging spot on.

Produced by the BBC in the 1980s. Excellent rendition of the dramas with noted actors. Includes plays rarely produced in our time and exposes viewers to the complete range of Shakespeare and his wide skill as a playwright. Recently I viewed "Cymbeline", a period drama which in a career of teaching English literature I had never read. Authentic and enjoyable production. I was intrigued to find Shakespeare using "egregius" referring to a character in its original Latin sense of "outstandingly bad". This word almost disappeared from use until recently, when it has been used simply for emphasis.

Although criticized at the time of broadcast in the seventies and eighties for being too conservative and "safe", in retrospect this BBC series deserves respect for its ambition, and praise for the quality of its realization. Good, clear productions with some exceptional actors : Patrick Stewart, Helen Mirren, Anthony Hopkins, Ben Kingsley, Judy Davis, Bob Hoskins, Derek Jacobi, Alan Rickman...plus many others, less well known internationally, but first rate performers, among the very best of contemporary British acting talent.

I loved watching all the DVDs 📀 it was great 😊

Timeless collection. Arrived promptly. Ingenious presentation and a lifelong companion. Most of the all-time Greats left an indelible mark on this monument to English language.