Two Types of Television Shakespeare

Summary

In order to appreciate the significance of The Television Shakespeare (the BBC series which broadcast thirty-seven plays between 3 December 1978 and 27 April 1985), it is necessary to think of it not just as Shakespeare but as television. Derek Longhurst wrote while the series was still in production that it 'needs to be evaluated in terms of the whole determining medium of television' and in a recent essay Graham Holderness has partly taken up this challenge. My intention is more modest and more formalistic.

I shall be looking at the work of two directors, Jane Ho well and Elijah Moshinsky, who between them directed eleven of the plays. Much of my evidence will be drawn from Howell's production of the first tetralogy (broadcast in England on 2, 9, 16 and 23 January 1983) and Moshinsky's production of Cymbeline (10 July 1983). In my opinion the originality (and success) of these directors in translating Shakespeare from one medium into another derived from a split in their allegiances. Ho well publicly acknowledged a struggle between television and the theatre. Moshinsky's case is more ambiguous, but it can be interpreted that he was frequently attempting to treat television as if it were cinema. In both cases the conventions of television drama were partly assimilated, partly challenged.