Audio books Weblog

Why not listen to this full cast production. The Tempest by William Shakespeare. BBC radio has a unique heritage when it comes to Shakespeare. Since 1923, when the newly formed company broadcast its first full-length play, generations of actors and producers have honed and perfected the craft of making Shakespeare to be heard.

Raging storms and rich, beautiful music combine to magical effect in this radio production of Shakespeare’s allegorical last play, where mystical forces work to restore harmony and order to an estranged community.

The play is introduced by Richard Eyre, former Director of the Royal National Theatre, and the accompanying booklet includes a scene-by-scene synopsis, full character analysis, brief biographies of the leading actors and of Shakespeare himself, as well as an essay from the producer on their interpretation of the play.

Revitalised, original and comprehensive, this is Shakespeare for the new millennium.

Written By
William Shakespeare

An Anthology Of Shakespearian Speches Performed By The World’s Leading Actors

BBC Radio Collection - All The World’s A Stage

Romeo & Juliet - Act I, Scene III
“O Romeo, Romeo - wherefore art thou Romeo”. This impassioned speech is beautifully spoken by Fay Compton in this BBC Sound archives recording.

Hamlet - Act III, Scene I
‘To be or not to be - that is the question….’ In this BBC Sound Archive recording, Michael Redgrave stars as Shakespeare’s troubled Prince of Denmark.

Henry V - Act IV, Scene III
‘This day is called the feast of Crispian….’ In one of the most famous and inspirational of Shakespeare’s speeches, Richard Burton’s rich and resonant voice delivers Henry V’s address to his army on the eve of Agincourt!

King Lear - Act II, Scene IV
‘I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad…’ Alec Guinness’s performance as King Lear stirs the listener in this recording from the BBC Sound Archives.

Macbeth - Act I, Scene VII
‘If it were done when ’tis done…’ From the BBC Sound Archives, one of Shakespeare’s most famous and memorable speeches, with Paul Scofield and Peggy Ashcroft as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, bringing these ominous words vividly to life.

Macbeth - Act II, Scene II
‘Is this a dagger which I see before me…..’ With Denis Quilley as Macbeth, this recording from the BBC Sound Archives brings Shakespeare’s memorable words to life..

Richard III - Act I, Scene I
‘Now is the winter of our discontent….’ Ian Holm delivers King Richard IIIs soliloquy, bringing Shakespeare’s wonderful lines, full of pyschological insight, vividly to life.

The Merchant Of Venice - Act IV, Scene I
‘The quality of mercy is not strained….’ In this recording from the BBC Sound Archives, Hannah Gordon is Shakespeare’s wise Portia.

Download and listen to William Shakespeare’s most famous speeches now

No one would argue that William Shakespeare is the most performed playwright in the world. Shakespeare plays are the cornerstone of the school curriculum in English Literature studies and they have been translated into almost every language. They have been adapted as television series and movies, attracting a younger generation to the text. Some plays have been updated to modern times and modern locations. A famous example is the musical West Side Story, adapted from Romeo and Juliet. The stage productions are mostly performed in the traditional way but some interpretations have been experimental, expressing the vision of the director.

Shakespeare was equally adept at writing tragedy and comedy. Tragedies such as Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet and King Lear are powerful tales of betrayal, murder and the quest for power. One of the most poplar comedies is A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which also involves a fantasy plot and romance. The long list of Shakespeare plays also include historical themes and royal leaders, such as King Richard III, Henry IV and King John.

The plays were performed at the Globe Theatre in London and in Shakespeare’s home town of Stratford on Avon. A large tourist industry revolves around the locations associated with Shakespeare and his family. The early printed texts are also prized, especially the first published volume of 36 plays known as the First Folio. Copies of this are very valuable, one of which is on public display in the British Library in London.

Scholars pore over the texts, analyzing sources and plot lines. There are those that dispute the authorship of some or all of the Shakespeare plays but they are in the minority. Of this group, most of them cite the real authors as either Francis Bacon or Christopher Marlowe. These claims are not taken seriously by the majority of experts.

Movie versions of the plays date back to the silent era and there have been many memorable performances. Actors tackling the Bard have included Lawrence Olivier, Marlon Brando, Richard Burton and Kenneth Brannagh. One of the most popular adaptations of recent times is Romeo and Juliet, starring Leonardo di Caprio and Clare Danes. The direction is fast paced and takes place in a contemporary setting but the script remains faithful to the text and to the spirit of the story.

It is inconceivable to think of a time when Shakespeare will not be performed in some form. Schoolchildren sometimes struggle with the text, which is why it is so important to keep the plays alive in stage and film productions. Shakespeare plays are like Mount Everest to every actor and will always remain so.

On audio for download

William Shakespear’s - The Merchant of Venice

BBC radio has a unique heritage when it comes to Shakespeare. Since 1923, when the newly formed company broadcast its first full-length play, generations of actors and producers have honed and perfected the craft of making Shakespeare to be heard.

Love, bigotry, greed and justice are entwined in this clear, fast-moving production, where the precision of radio gives added resonance to the powerful words of the trial scene.

The play is introduced by Richard Eyre, former Director of the Royal National Theatre, and the accompanying booklet includes a scene-by-scene synopsis, full character analysis, brief biographies of the leading actors and of Shakespeare himself, as well as an essay from the producer on their interpretation of the play.

Revitalised, original and comprehensive, this is Shakespeare for the new millennium.

Written By
William Shakespeare

Tags:WilliamShakespeare,Shakespeare,The Merchant of Venice

As You Like It is quintessential Shakespearean comedy, complete with a loquacious clown, lovers, disguises, rifts and reconciliations, and all within the atmospheric confines of the enchanted Forest of Arden. As the title suggests, As You Like It is a play in which everyone gets their way, where sinners are redeemed and where love holds sway over all. And because it is Shakespeare, even so light a comedy contains a wealth of keen observations about humanity in general, and in particular about the age-old tension between so-called civilized society and the state of nature from which it evolved. No less poetically-accomplished than Shakespeare’s more serious works, As You Like It is a stimulating literary pleasure from start to finish.

Tags:comedy Shakespeare,As You Like It,William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s best early works, an airy, romantic romp in the woods among bumbling rustics, temporarily star-crossed lovers, and the charming fairies who bewitch them all. Drawing on a popular English folk legend and annual holiday, Shakespeare weaves a chaotic and comical tale of misunderstanding, mischief and magic in which, like the dream-state it mimics, no harm is permanent and all is pleasantly resolved by the play’s end. A joyous celebration of love, language, and life itself, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is Shakespeare at his lyrical best.

Tags:audiobook,Shakespeare,Classic Literature

King Lear by Wlliam Shakespeare is a bitter tragedy of loyalty, power and politics. Colin Redgrave stars as Lear with Geraldine James as Goneril in Shakespeare’s bitter tragedyof loyalty, power and politics.

BBC radio has a unique heritage when it comes to Shakespeare. Since 1923, when the newly formed company broadcast its first full-length play, generations of actors and producers have honed and perfected the craft of making Shakespeare to be heard.

Some of the most stirring scenes Shakespeare ever wrote vibrate with powerful resonance in this grippingly dramatic radio production. Tortured madness, pure evil and the fatal struggle for power grip the listener until the final, shockingly tragic conclusion.

The play is introduced by Richard Eyre, former Director of the Royal National Theatre, and the accompanying booklet includes a scene-by-scene synopsis, full character analysis, brief biographies of the leading actors and of Shakespeare himself, as well as an essay from the producer on their interpretation of the play.

Revitalised, original and comprehensive, this is Shakespeare for the new millennium.

Written By
William Shakespeare

FIRST KNOWN PERFORMANCE
1606

FIRST BBC RADIO BROADCAST
2LO
11 September 1928

FIRST BROADCAST OF THIS PRODUCTION
BBC Radio 3
16 September 2001

RECORDED AT
On location at the Chapel at Lincoln’s Inn Fields and at BBC Maida Vale London W9

Tags:King Lear,William Shakespeare,classic literature. audio theater,drama

Hamlet, which dates from 1600-1601, is the first in Shakespeare’s great series of four tragedies, the others being Othello (1603), King Lear (1605) and Macbeth (1606). In writing this extraordinary play Shakespeare effectively re-invented tragedy after an interval of roughly two thousand years - we have to go back to the Greek dramatists of 5th century Athens to find anything of comparable depth and maturity.

Certainly Shakespeare had already dealt with tragic themes and situations in plays such as Romeo and Juliet, Richard II and Julius Caesar, but in Hamlet he found himself able to fuse with complete artistic success the conflicting concerns of the private individual and the public state of which he is a member, or for which he may indeed be responsible - Hamlet is, after all. Prince of Denmark. This is a quin-tessentially Renaissance theme: it is no longer enough to appeal to an accepted moral or religious system, but instead each man must find out for himself a moral path through the ‘unweeded garden’ of life.

The first known version of the Hamlet story is found in the twelfth century Historia Danica by Saxo Grammaticus. Most of the main ingredients of the story are already present, albeit in primitive form, and some of the names, too -’Amlethus’ for Hamlet. In 1576 Francois de Belleforest retold the story in his Histoires Tragiques, translated into English in 1608 and hence too late for Shakespeare to have read - but someone, perhaps Thomas Kyd, came across the story in the 1580’s and turned it into a play which must have been Shakespeare’s immediate source, however radically different Shakespeare’s version turned out to be. We know, incidentally, that the idea of a ghost seeking revenge comes from this lost play: Thomas Lodge in 1596 writes of the ‘ghost which cried so miserably at The Theater, like an oyster wife, "Hamlet, revenge. ‘"

Tags:Hamlet. William Shakespeare,Shakespeare,Classic lierature

This is the first new, full-scale edition of Cymbeline in 37 years.

One of Shakespeare’s final works, Cymbeline uses virtuoso theatrical and poetic means to dramatize a story of marriage imperiled by mistrust and painfully rebuilt in the context of international conflict.

Roger Warren’s commentary emphasizes the play’s theatrical impact and pays close attention to its complex, evocative language.

Listen to sample of Cymbeline - William Shakespeare

Tags:Cymbeline,William Shakespeare,audio books

William Shakespeare,Antony & Cleopatra,Classic Literature,Audio Books

William Shakespeare - Antony & Cleopatra
Frances Barber and David Harewood star in Shakespeare’s towering tale of great love, political intrigue and tragedy.

BBC radio has a unique heritage when it comes to Shakespeare. Since 1923, when the newly formed company broadcast its first full-length play, generations of actors and producers have honed and perfected the craft of making Shakespeare to be heard.

Antony & Cleopatra is an intense love story, exploring the constant conflict between duty and emotion with characters so charismatic they continue to fascinate after 2,000 years. Shakespeare achieved some of his most beautiful poetry in this play, and the richness of the language makes it perfect for audio.

The play is introduced by Richard Eyre, former Director of the Royal National Theatre, with specially composed music.

Revitalised, original and comprehensive, this is Shakespeare for the new millennium.

Download and listen to William Shakespear’s Antony & Cleopatra

Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare Arts & Drama / Shakespeare

In Julius Caesar, there are no heroes, only heroic words spoken by men of ambition, arrogance, and jealousy. Yet Julius Caesar is also one of Shakespeare’s most popular and polished works, a seamless blend of highly-stylized oratory and penetrating soliloquies that lays bare the innermost workings of the human mind. Here is Shakespeare in his prime, taking the story of history’s most notorious assassination and fashioning from it a brilliant and at times chilling indictment of politics by violence and of how even the strongest and noblest of minds can be corrupted by flattery and the lure of power.