Hamlet (1980) Hamlet comes home from university to find his uncle married to his mother, and his father's ghost haunting the battlements and scaring the watch. Then his father's ghost directs him to seek revenge.

#BBCTelevisionShakespeare reached #Hamlet, all four hours of it, with not a word trimmed, as far as I could see. I saw it on first broadcast, less than two months after playing Claudius myself in an ambitious teenaged production which shaped my life in many ways 1/5

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A little experiment tonight; first, the next instalment in the #BBCTelevisionShakespeare was #TheTempest, decent but a little plodding (although I did like the set and the way the action moved around it), followed for purposes of comparison by #PeterGreenaway 's #Prospero'sBooks

Twelfth Night (1980) Viola and Sebastian are lookalike twins, separated by a shipwreck. Viola lands in Illyria, where she disguises herself like her brother and goes into the service of the Duke Orsino. Orsino sends her…

#BBCTelevisionShakespeare reached the all-star #TwelfthNight with everyone who was anyone in the late seventies having a blast. The women are the stars, as it should be, but special mention for Annette Crosbie giving Robert Hardy's Toby Belch the runaround at 100mph

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Henry V (1979) Insulted by the Dauphin, the newly-crowned King Henry V gathers his troops for war. But Henry must convince his men that he has left his wild days behind, and prove himself as a leader.

#BBCTelevisionShakespeare inevitably moved on to #HenryV. Somewhat underplayed in parts (it's possible to completely miss "Once more into the breach"), it's overall impressive in its impressionistic view, helped by using the Chorus to explain why. I wasn't sure 1/2

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Henry IV Part 2 (1979) The death of King Henry the Fourth and the coronation of King Henry the Fifth.

If you've been following my journey through the #BBCTelevisionShakespeare, it will come as no surprise that next up is 2 Henry IV (and you'll never guess what the next one is). A carefully constructed companion to part one, with all the plus points I noted there 1/2

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Henry VIII (1979) Henry is a proud monarch who flies in the face of the church in seeking to divorce Queen Katherine and marry Anne Bullen. As cardinal Wolsey, the powerful Lord Chancellor of England, attempts to bend…

#BBCTelevisionShakespeare part 6 is #HenryVIII which is the first I did not know at all (this is not strictly true, because I must have sat through it on first broadcast, but it did not live long in the memory). It's..uneven, let's say, but there are reasons for that

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Measure for Measure (1979) 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,…

Fifth #BBCTelevisionShakespeare was #MeasureForMeasure, that strangely modern story of patriarchy and hypocrisy. Hard to take some of the costumes in a post-Blackadder world, but it mostly worked, as long as you are OK with the convolutions and unconvincing reveal.

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Julius Caesar (1979) The assassination of the would be ruler of Rome at the hands of Brutus and company has tragic consequences for Brutus and the republic.

#BBCTelevisionShakespeare part 4 is Julius Caesar. Solid, if not stolid adaptation, with any number of classical actors giving it the full treatment. Innovative in its use of moving cameras which get in amongst the crowd scenes, but otherwise pretty predictable 1/2
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As You Like It (1978) Orlando is forced to work like a servant for his brother Oliver, so he goes to win his fortune in a wrestling contest, where he meets a lady of the court, Rosalind. Rosalind (daughter of the deposed d...

As promised, #BBCTelevisionShakespeare episode 3 is AsYouLikeIt, filmed on location at #GlamisCastle, which is at once a benefit and a drawback. The castle parts feel authentic and give a contrast to the outdoor cavorting, but the forest hardly screams 'adversity' /

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Richard II (1978) Richard II, who ascended the throne as a child, is a regal and stately monarch. He believes he is the rightful ruler of England, ordained by God, yet he is a weak and ineffective king - wasteful in…

Second #BBCTelevisionShakespeare experience was the much more carefully constructed #RichardII with Derek Jacobi as Richard, and Charles Gray as the Duke of York, but not that one. Brilliantly staged, doesn't pretend to be anything other than 'made for TV'

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Alongside the #CriterionChallenge (of which more later), I am starting the delightful task of watching the entirety of the #BBCTelevisionShakespeare in original broadcast order. Originally broadcast starting in 1978, I watched most of the early ones before heading off to university in Edinburgh 1/n