Learning on ScreenAll’s Well That Ends Well
- Synopsis
- A video recording, using a single, fixed camera, of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 1981 production of All’s Well That Ends Well. Directed by Trevor Nunn with Peggy Ashcroft as the Countess.
- Language
- English
- Country
- Great Britain
- Medium
- Video
- Technical information
- Colour / Sound
- Recording date
- 12 Feb 1983
- Duration
- 180 mins
Credits
- Director
- Trevor Nunn
- Writer
- William Shakespeare
- Music
- Guy Woolfenden
- Production Design
- John Gunter
- Cast
Additional Details
- Theatre
- Barbican Theatre
- Theatre company
- Royal Shakespeare Company
- Production type
- Stage Recordings
- Historical period
- Edwardian
- Plays
- All’s Well That Ends Well
- Subjects
- Drama
- Keywords
- Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
Notes
- General
- `In 1981, however, Trevor Nunn did direct a production of what he calls "Shakespeare’s most Chekhovian Play", with Dame Peggy Ashcroft as the "gracious and compassionate" Countess of Rossillion and Harriet Walter as Helena in the Main House. It was a great success with audiences and critics alike. Michael Billington called it "a masterpiece", the Daily Mail critic called it "a glorious affirmation of the RSC’s power to make us look again at the Bard’s least popular play and find gold hidden in the text." www.rsc.org.uk.
"A brilliantly versatile set of white girders and glass which closely resembles a Victorian railway terminus. With the addition of telling period props it serves as drawing room, conservatory, Italian cafe, Parisian ballroom, and, appropriately enough as a makeshift field hospital on Florence station when the action shifts to the Italian wars. Its immediate use after Rossillion is as a military gymnasium in Paris where athletic French noblemen brandishing moustaches, vault and fence while the ailing monarch is wheeled on in his bath chair." Christopher Edwards, Plays and Players (November 1981). - History
- The production opened at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre 5 July 1982 and transferred to the Barbican before going on tour. The RSC recording is from a performance at the Barbican.
- Stills
- Stills from, and design notes on, the production are available on the Arts and Humanities Performing Arts Data Service (AHDS) at http://ahds.ac.uk/performingarts/collections/designing-shakespeare.htm
- Reviews
- Kliman, Bernice. Shakespeare Bulletin 1, no. 11 (1983), pp. 4-5.
Production Company
- Name
Royal Shakespeare Company
- Web
- https://www.rsc.org.uk External site opens in new window
- Address
- Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Waterside
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
CV37 6BB
Archive
- Name
Shakespeare Birthplace Collections
- collections@shakespeare.org.uk
- Web
- https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/collections/ External site opens in new window
- Address
- Shakespeare Centre
Henley Street
Stratford-upon-Avon
CV37 6QW
Record Stats
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