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Much Ado About Nothing
- Narrated by: Dara Brown, Emma Faye, Linda Barrans, Cate Barratt, Alan Weyman, PJ Morgan, Catherine Bilson, Gary MacFadden, Kendra Murray, John Burlinson, Claudia Anglade, Lillian Rachel, Ron Altman
- Length: 2 hrs and 38 mins
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Twelfth Night
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- Length: 2 hrs and 1 min
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David Tennant stars as Malvolio in Shakespeare's comedy of disguise, madness and love. One of Shakespeare's happiest plays, Twelfth Night is both a comedy of misrule and a trenchant attack on puritanism. Disguise and deceit leads to misadventure, madness and mistaken love. Orsino loves Olivia, but she loves Cesario, who really does love Orsino (for Cesario is actually Viola).
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The Tempest
- By: William Shakespeare
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Sir Ian McKellen, fresh from his performance as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, is Prospero, and heads a strong cast in Shakespeare’s last great play. The wronged duke raises a tempest to shipwreck his old opponents on his island so that he can ensure justice is done. With Emilia Fox as Miranda, Scott Handy in the pivotal role of the sprite Ariel, and Ben Owukwe as Caliban.
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Shakespeare and McKellen - a Perfect Combination
- By Roderic on 12-08-2019
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Richard II
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- Length: 2 hrs and 46 mins
- Original Recording
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Richard II is dangerously out of touch with his kingdom. He wastes money, raises taxes to support his lavish lifestyle, plays favorites, and cares more about his vanity than the common good. When Henry Bolingbroke - father of the future Henry V - challenges Richard for the throne, it's a fight the king can't win. But in losing his crown he gains far greater things: his humanity and his soul.
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Romeo and Juliet
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Laurie Ann Walden
- Length: 3 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about two young Italian star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers.
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As You Like It
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Edward James Beesley
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As You Like It follows the lives of men and women who have been banished from their home after ruler, Duke Senior, was usurped by his younger brother. Duke Senior’s companions begin living in the forest outside of the duchy, where they encounter a man named Orlando, who has been secretly in love with the Duke’s daughter Rosalind.
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The Winters Tale
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Flo Gibson
- Length: 2 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Leontes, suspecting his wife's infidelity, imprisons her and exiles her infant daughter to a faraway island. Years later, his wife, presumed dead, is returned to him as a statue.
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Twelfth Night
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: full cast, David Tennant, Naomi Frederick
- Length: 2 hrs and 1 min
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Tennant stars as Malvolio in Shakespeare's comedy of disguise, madness and love. One of Shakespeare's happiest plays, Twelfth Night is both a comedy of misrule and a trenchant attack on puritanism. Disguise and deceit leads to misadventure, madness and mistaken love. Orsino loves Olivia, but she loves Cesario, who really does love Orsino (for Cesario is actually Viola).
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The Tempest
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Sir Ian McKellen, Emilia Fox, Scott Handy, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sir Ian McKellen, fresh from his performance as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, is Prospero, and heads a strong cast in Shakespeare’s last great play. The wronged duke raises a tempest to shipwreck his old opponents on his island so that he can ensure justice is done. With Emilia Fox as Miranda, Scott Handy in the pivotal role of the sprite Ariel, and Ben Owukwe as Caliban.
-
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Shakespeare and McKellen - a Perfect Combination
- By Roderic on 12-08-2019
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Richard II
- By: William Shakespeare, Bill Rauch - director
- Narrated by: Oregon Shakespeare Festival
- Length: 2 hrs and 46 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard II is dangerously out of touch with his kingdom. He wastes money, raises taxes to support his lavish lifestyle, plays favorites, and cares more about his vanity than the common good. When Henry Bolingbroke - father of the future Henry V - challenges Richard for the throne, it's a fight the king can't win. But in losing his crown he gains far greater things: his humanity and his soul.
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Romeo and Juliet
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Laurie Ann Walden
- Length: 3 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about two young Italian star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers.
-
As You Like It
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- Narrated by: Edward James Beesley
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As You Like It follows the lives of men and women who have been banished from their home after ruler, Duke Senior, was usurped by his younger brother. Duke Senior’s companions begin living in the forest outside of the duchy, where they encounter a man named Orlando, who has been secretly in love with the Duke’s daughter Rosalind.
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The Winters Tale
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Flo Gibson
- Length: 2 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Leontes, suspecting his wife's infidelity, imprisons her and exiles her infant daughter to a faraway island. Years later, his wife, presumed dead, is returned to him as a statue.
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Measure for Measure
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Royal Shakespeare Company
- Length: 2 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall
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Performance
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A performance of the tragi-comedy by the Royal Shakespeare Company. When a young woman is offered the choice of saving a man's life at the price of her own chastity, what should she do? The political and moral corruption of Vienna has driven Duke Vincentio into hiding while his deputy governor, Angelo, is left to revive the old discipline of civic authority. Angelo's first act is to imprison Claudio, a young nobleman who has gotten his betrothed, Juliet, with child.
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Cymbeline (BBC Radio 3: Drama on 3)
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Bill Wallis, Nia Roberts, William Houston, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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A BBC Radio 3 full-cast dramatisation of Shakespeare’s classic ‘Cymbeline’, starring Bill Wallis. Originally broadcast in December 2006 as part of the ‘Drama on 3’ collection.Shakespeare's play, set during the Roman invasion of Britain, centres around the banishment of the man who has incurred the wrath of the king by secretly marrying his daughter. Confusion follows in an intricate plot in which nobody is quite who they seem to be.
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Antony and Cleopatra
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Mark Bowen
- Length: 4 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Antony and Cleopatra (First Folio title: The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The play was first performed, by the King's Men, at either the Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe Theatre in around 1607; its first appearance in print was in the Folio of 1623. The plot is based on Thomas North's 1579 English translation of Plutarch's Lives (in Ancient Greek) and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony from the time of the Sicilian revolt to Cleopatra's suicide during the Final War of the Roman Republic.
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Jefferson is an innocent and unwitting party to a deadly liquor store shoot-out in the 1940s. As the only survivor, he is tried and convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, a university-trained teacher at the plantation school, is persuaded to visit Jefferson in his cell. Wiggins is torn between staying in his native Cajun community or moving on. The 2 men gradually form a bond as they jointly discover the simple heroism of resisting - and denying - the expected.
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Great but missing information
- By Aaron on 28-01-2015
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M. Butterfly
- By: David Henry Hwang
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- Length: 1 hr and 51 mins
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John Lithgow and B.D. Wong here recreate their original roles from the Tony Award-winning production. Inspired by an actual espionage scandal, a French diplomat discovers the startling truth about his Chinese mistress.
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King John
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Craig Franklin, Andy Harrington, Alan Weyman, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Life and Death of King John was probably written in the 1590s but not published until the First Folio in 1623. Of Shakespeare's 11 history plays, King John is the one which deals with the story of a monarch most removed from Shakespeare's time. The historical remoteness of this ruler, and also the fact that he had no genealogical links with the Tudor dynasty, enabled Shakespeare to present him in a warts and allà fashion.
Publisher's Summary
Much Ado About Nothing appears to have been written about 1599, shortly before As You Like It and Twelfth Night. The action combines two narrative threads: the spirited comedy of the courtship of Benedick and Beatrice, and the somber tale of confused love between Hero and Claudio. The first is a creation by Shakespeare and the second appears to have been drawn from an Italian source, either by Bandello or Ariosto.
The action takes place in Messina. Eponymous lovers Hero and Claudio seem to be ideally matched and nearly everyone is looking forward to their impending marriage. The odd man out is the sinister Don John, brother and former enemy of Don Pedro, Prince of Aragon, but recently restored to the Prince’s favor. Being of a morose and jealous temperament, Don John plots to disrupt the wedding and cause division between the lovers, with the aid of his fellow conspirators, Borachio and Conrade. However, this evil plan is thwarted by an unexpected incursion by the bumbling constables Dogberry and Verges. The young couple are finally reunited, but only after Claudio has first been led to believe that his rejected spouse, Hero, has died of shame and grief.
The matching of Beatrice and Benedick, encouraged by some artful chicanery by Hero and Claudio, and marked by many witty and sardonic exchanges of repartee, serves to lighten the texture of the darker elements of the action.
Featuring Emma Faye as Hero, Kendra Murray as Beatrice, Dara Brown as Claudio, Lillian Rachel as Benedick, Cate Barratt as Dogberry, and Gary Macfadden as Don John. Also featuring the voices of Catherine Bilson, Ron Altman, Alan Weyman, P J Morgan, Claudio Anglade, John Burlinson and Linda Barrans.
Songs arranged by Alan Weyman
Audio edited by Denis Daly
Text kindly provided by playshakespeare.com
Originally published in 1623.