Playing Shakespeare

Aging New York cabbie Flanagan still has hopes of making it as a stage actor. He can recite any Shakespeare sonnet and is facile with accents, but he can't land an agent or a job. During the course of one summing-it-all-up day, he drives his cab around the city dealing with fare evaders, an insolent stage manager determined to keep him from auditioning for his choice director, his estranged wife who has a new lover, his mistress who seems awfully close to her "drawing teacher", and two teenage sons whose bright visions of the future don't seem to include jobs. If he can only cope with all the annoyances of this day, maybe he can deal with the limitations in his abilities and his future.

Hired to helm an Americanized take on a British play, director Lloyd Fellowes does his best to control an eccentric group of stage actors. With a star actress quickly passing her prime, a male lead with no confidence, and a bit actor that's rarely sober, chaos ensues in the lead up to a Broadway premiere.

Young Shakespeare is forced to stage his latest comedy, "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter," before it's even written. When a lovely noblewoman auditions for a role, they fall into forbidden love -- and his play finds a new life (and title). As their relationship progresses, Shakespeare's comedy soon transforms into tragedy.

Slice-of-life look at a sweet working-class couple in London, Shirley and Cyril, his mother, who's aging quickly and becoming forgetful, mum's ghastly upper-middle-class neighbors, and Cyril's pretentious sister and philandering husband. Shirley wants a baby, but Cyril, who reads Marx and wants the world to be perfect, is reluctant. Cyril's mum locks herself out and must ask her snooty neighbors for help. Then Cyril's sister Valerie stages a surprise party for mum's 70th birthday, a disaster from start to finish. Shirley holds things together, and she and Cyril may put aside her Dutch cap after all.

During the run of a particularly awful interpretation of Richard III, the star, Anthony O'Malley, begins to frequent a rough pub to develop his character. He meets Barreller who he discovers owes someone he's never met a considerable sum of money. Seeing an opportunity to make some fast money, O'Malley convinces hapless extra, Tom, to meet Barreller as the debt collector.

From the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, David Tennant, Catherine Tate and guests mark the life of William Shakespeare on the 400th anniversary of the playwright's death.

A documentary about the 1978 stage production of The Taming of the Shrew by the New York City Shakespeare company at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. Includes scenes from the production, interviews with Meryl Streep (Kate) and Raul Julia (Petruchio) as well as an introduction by producer Joseph Papp and audience commentary.

Macbeth is a 1978 videotaped version of Trevor Nunn's Royal Shakespeare Company production of the play by William Shakespeare. Produced by Thames Television, it features Ian McKellen as Macbeth and Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth. The TV version was directed by Philip Casson. The original stage production was performed at The Other Place, the RSC's small studio theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. It had been performed in the round before small audiences, with a bare stage and simple costuming. The recording preserves this style: the actors perform on a circular set and with a mostly black background changes of setting are indicated only by lighting changes.

Returning home from battle, the victorious Macbeth meets three witches on the heath. Driven by their disturbing prophecies, he sets out on the path to murder. This contemporary production of Shakespeare’s darkest psychological thriller marks both Christopher Eccleston’s RSC debut and the return of Niamh Cusack to the company.

In 1609, William Shakespeare published a collection of 154 sonnets, creating what is arguably the greatest lyric sequence in English literature - and at the center of this masterpiece lies a mystery that has endured for centuries. What are the identities of “the young man” and “the dark lady” to whom all but two of the sonnets allude? This moving performance brings to life the gritty reality of Shakespeare’s England, bits of the Bard’s plays and poems, and the consummate poet and dramatist himself as it exposes these personages unseen but so keenly felt in Shakespeare’s sonnets and in his life. Rupert Graves, Tom Sturridge, Indira Varma, Anna Chancellor, and Zoë Wanamaker star. Contains mature themes and explicit language. Some content may be objectionable. Produced by the Open University.

Othello is the greatest general of his age. A fearsome warrior, loving husband and revered defender of Venice against its enemies. But he is also an outsider whose victories have created enemies of his own, men driven by prejudice and jealousy to destroy him. As they plot in the shadows, Othello realises too late that the greatest danger lies not in the hatred of others, but his own fragile and destructive pride.

As John Barrymore reckons with the ravages of his life of excess, he rents an old theatre to rehearse for a backer's audition to raise money for a revival of his 1920 Broadway triumph in Richard III.

Film version of the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2012 production of Shakespeare's fast-moving thriller. A vivid story about a struggle for democracy, Julius Caesar is also a love story between two men united by an explosive act of political violence. The setting is a modern African state in which the tyrant Caesar is about to seize power. Cassius persuades Brutus to join the conspirators plotting an assassination. Featuring a distinguished cast of black actors, the film is shot on location and in the RSC's theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon

Live from Stratford-upon-Avon. The Royal Shakespeare Company presents The Taming of the Shrew. Turning Shakespeare’s fierce, energetic comedy of gender and materialism on its head to offer a fresh perspective on its portrayal of hierarchy and power.

What if your first true love was someone you’d been told you must hate? Set in a world very like our own, this Romeo and Juliet is about a generation of young people born into violence and ripped apart by the bitter divisions of their parents. The most famous story of love at first sight explodes with intense passion and an irresistible desire for change, but leads all too quickly to heartbreaking consequences. Erica Whyman directs, with students from our Associate Schools playing the Chorus, alongside the professional cast.

Ms. Julie teaches performing arts workshops with the help of her assistant Gus at their Wellspring Center for the Performing Arts.

Professor Robert Winston meets Lucy, the first upright ape, and follows her ancestors on the three-million-year journey to civilisation.

Engineering an Empire is a program on The History Channel that explores the engineering and/or architectural feats that were characteristic of some of the greatest societies on this planet. It is hosted by Peter Weller, famous for his acting role as RoboCop but also a lecturer at Syracuse University, where he completed his Master's in Roman and Renaissance Art. The executive producer is Delores Gavin. The show started as a documentary about the engineering feats of Ancient Rome and later evolved into a series. It originally ran for one full season of weekly episodes.

A Very British Coup is a British political thriller series based on the novel by Chris Mullin. It stars Ray McAnally as the newly elected left-wing prime minister Harry Perkins, who soon finds himself up to his neck in conspiracy.

A 2009 television documentary series in six parts that covers 40 years of the surreal comedy group Monty Python, from Flying Circus to present day projects such as the musical Spamalot. The series highlights their childhood, schooling and university life, and pre-Python work. The series featured new interviews with surviving members John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, alongside archive interview footage of Graham Chapman and interviews with several associates of the Pythons, including Carol Cleveland, Neil Innes and Chapman's partner David Sherlock, along with commentary from modern comedians.

First Among Equals is a ten-part serial based on Jeffrey Archer's 1984 novel First Among Equals, produced by Granada Television for the ITV network and first shown in 1986. As in the novel, the series follows the careers and personal lives of four fictional British politicians from 1964 to 1991, with each vying to become Prime Minister. Several situations in the novel are drawn from Archer's own early political career in the British House of Commons. While the novel depitcts the fictional characters interacting with actual political figures from the UK and elsewhere, this adaptation uses different names for the real-life politicians.

Before We Ruled the Earth is a two-part documentary television miniseries that premiered on February 9, 2003 on the Discovery Channel. The program featured early human history and the challenges human beings faced thousands of years ago. It also features animals examples such as: ⁕Woolly mammoth ⁕Megantereon ⁕American buffalo ⁕Cave bear ⁕Irish elk The first episode was called "Hunt or Be Hunted" and the second called "Mastering the Beasts."

Stephanie Flanders explores the ideas of three influential thinkers who transformed international economics, and examines how their influence has shaped the 20th and 21st centuries. She begins by profiling John Maynard Keynes, the Cambridge-born economist whose ideas revolutionized the approach of Western governments to financial crises during the Great Depression and the Second World War, and explains why the world's leaders drew on his teachings as the global meltdown took hold in 2008.

The social and class divisions in early 20th century England through the intersection of three families - the wealthy Wilcoxes, the gentle and idealistic Schlegels and the lower-middle class Basts.

Hold on to your butt (or laugh it off), because you've never ever seen news and pop culture covered like this before.

Over nearly six decades, the series has documented the group as they have become adults and entered middle-age, dealing with everything life has thrown at them in between. Now, as the group reach retirement age, the series is back to discover what they are doing…

Inside the NBA – the Sports Emmy Award-winning studio show known for its entertaining style and unfiltered commentary – pulls back the curtain on its more than 30-year history in this four-part documentary series. Interviews with celebrities, crew members, sports reporters and more illuminate the show’s evolution into a cultural phenomenon with untold stories that highlight the chemistry between Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal.

Questions to the Prime Minister. Held weekly since 1961, Prime Minister's Questions, also referred to as PMQs, gives Members of the British Parliament a chance to question the Prime Minister in the House of Commons. PMQs takes place at midday every Wednesday at the Palace of Westminster when the House of Commons is sitting.

Each episode of this cinematic documentary series tells the incredible story of one armed standoff, the result of the government’s perceived interference with an individual or group’s way of life. In turns heart-pounding, provacative, and tragic, these stories hold a mirror to the present and offer commentary on the relationship between the government, it’s people, and ultimately the balance of power.

There's a murder at the elegant hotel where Miss Marple is staying and international adventurer Bess Sedgwick is the prime suspect.