Playing Shakespeare (1983) Production: BBC miniseries Director: John Barton Cast: Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Peggy Ashcroft, Ben Kingsley, Alan Howard, and Jane Lapotaire

Synopsis: Actors discuss playing Shakespeare on stage.
Presenter/director John Barton guides members of the Royal Shakespeare Company in a discussion and dramatization of Shakespeare's use of language to define character, and his characters' use of heightened language to achieve their intentions. Explores the Elizabethan relish of words and the use of Elizabethan English in the development of Shakespeare's characters.

"There is so much in the videocassettes that my feeling was to want to slow them down so that they could sink in more deeply." --Shakespeare Newsletter

Related links:
DVD Review (6/1/2009) — blogcritics.org