William Shakespeare

Written by Rumpole of the Bailey creator John Mortimer the drama stars Tim Curry stars in the title role.

This six-part ATV Network dramatisation is based on the sixteen years that William Shakespeare is known to have spent in London, remains one of the most impressive biographical portraits to date.

With each episode built around the creation of a single play, a skilful interweaving of known events and contemporary interpretation show how key experiences may have inspired some of Shakespeare’s greatest works – the death of his young son, and his love for the famous ‘dark lady’ of the sonnets, for example.

The bustling taverns and theatres of Elizabethan London are lavishly recreated at the ATV Elstree Neptune Studios, while Shakespeare himself is played with tremendous sensitivity and breadth by Tim Curry.

Originally screened in 1978, William Shakespeare is a brilliantly imagined and very human portrait, in which the flaws and frailties as well as the immense strengths of one of the world’s greatest dramatists are brought vividly to life.

The drama is available on DVD via Network Releasing.