Theatre Workshop: On Shakespeare’s Stage

Synopsis: BBC audiovisual resource on teaching theatre history for upper secondary school courses (age 13-16). Aided by a filmstrip and slides combining extracts from Cymbeline as performed by the Shared Experience theatre group (dir. Mike Alfreds) with illustrations from a model of the play as it might have been staged at the Globe, the programme attempts to communicate what it must have been like to watch a performance in Shakespeare’s days. Includes interviews with the actors who comment about acting on a thrust stage.
Series: Theatre History
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Film; Radio
Technical information: Black-and-white / Sound
Transmission details: 29 Sep 1980 at 11:40 (Channel: BBC Radio 4)
Duration: 20 mins

Director

Mike Alfreds

Producer

Dan Garrett

Writer

Edward Delsey

Contributor

Tony Timmington

Cast

Theatre company: Shared Experience
Production type: Documentary/Educational/News
Plays: Cymbeline
Subjects: Drama
Keywords: acting; Globe Theatre; schools; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); theatre history; Elizabethan stage

Notes: The BBC Radio 4 programme was only transmitted on VHF.
General: BBC Schools Radiovision programmes usually involved a sound programme which was broadcast for schools to record and an accompanying set of slides or colour filmstrips for use with a stills projector. The educational pack also contains free note booklets which give scripts of the broadcast and cues for changing frames.
Reviews: 'Radiovision offers a complete audiovisual resource that blends the imaginative stimulus of radio with the impact of large, coloured pictures. It is totally under the teacher’s control and can be used for several years’ (BBC Radio Programmes and Resources for Schools, Colleges and Individuals: Annual Programme 1986-1987, p.37)

British Universities Film & Video Council