Merchant of Venice

Synopsis: Televised adaptation of the play in which the mise en scene was inspired by Italian Renaissance art, a practice which subsequently distinguished director Cedric Messina’s productions for the BBC Television Shakespeare series. Frank Finlay is Shylock and Maggie Smith, Portia.
Series: Play of the Month
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Television
Technical information: Colour / Sound
Transmission details: 16 Apr 1972 at 20:15 (Channel: BBC1)
Duration: 130 mins

Notes: Radio Times programme notes suggest that "the Venice of Titian and the Velmont of Botticelli" inspired the costume and set design for this production.

The production is also available from retailers as part of the MAGGIE SMITH AT THE BBC collection released 2008.
History: This broadcast forms part of a series of eight Shakespeareare plays produced for BBC by Cedric Messina, who was to launch the production of the BBC TV Shakespeare series three years later.
Stills: A still of the production showing Maggie Smith as Portia is reproduced in Radio Times, 13 December 1975, p.17.
Reviews: Radio Times, 16 April 1972, pp. 56-58.
On the change in perception of the character of Shylock from farcical scapegoat to a tragic figure cf. Rothwell, Kenneth S. and Annabelle Henkin Melzer, Shakespeare on Screen: An International Filmography and Videography (London: Mansell, 1990), entry 396, p. 181.

British Universities Film & Video Council