Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

jcpo After a long spell of unavailability this series will be released commercially in the US. Release date is set for 6/2/2009. The publisher is Acorn Media Group, Athena line. Retail vendors are lining up on Amazon. The selling price is about $80 US. It will also be available from Netflix. A check on Amazon UK yielded no results, but it is reasonable to expect a worldwide release. This is an extraordinary instructional video. After its initial airing on the South Bank Show in the UK, which ended in 1984, the series was picked up by Films for the Humanities. Their intended American audience was high-end libraries who could afford the near-$1000 price for the eleven VHS tapes. One hopes that the sales provided a good revenue stream for the good folks at FFH and the artists at the RSC. Some pioneering American theater artists purchased sets as well, and their audiences were much the better for the performances they attended.

richlandwoman Incredibly informative and interesting. I especially liked the dueling Shylocks episode, in which Suchet and Stewart play the same scenes back to back and explain why they made their different choices. Also very interesting is the episode in which each actor does a brief speech from Troilus and Cressida, then gets direction from Barton and redoes it, usually for the better.You also learn a little about the actors as people. For instance, Patrick Stewart is a bit of a ham. Ben Kingsley is soft-spoken and quick to admit what he sees as faults in his acting style. Ian McKellen is rather teacherly, expounding at length whenever he's given the chance.Highly recommended!

murphya If you love Shakespeare, or acting, or any of these great actors - or if you love all of these - the series is indescribeable. Actors taking speeches, working on them, improving them. Just great. Kingseley, Stewart, Howard, Dench, etc

pageiv My Reading and Acting Shakespeare teacher played snippets of this video to help convey that Shakespeare was more than the words on the page. The presentation, though old, is fun and extremely informative. I got a kick out of seeing Ian McKellen looking young and dapper with Patrick Steward looking like he just stepped off of the bridge of the Enterprise(to quote Mary Mcfly in Back to the Future "Didnt that man ever have hair?).To the point, I learned more watching this video than I have so far in class. All students of Shakespeare should see it.