Cedric Messina

King Lear

King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.

Peer Gynt

The 1972 BBC adaptation of Ibsen’s epic dramatic fantasy about a man in search of his soul.

Robinson Crusoe

A man struggles to survive after being shipwrecked on a deserted island.

A Song At Twilight

Enormously successful writer Sir Hugo Latymer has a tryst with the past not altogether to his liking. This bittersweet comedy is the story of a cosmopolitan author caught in his declining years between two women, one being his wife of convenience for twenty years, the other, one of his former lovers.

The Wild Duck

A devestating, yet bracing look at a family whose proximity to each other belies the decay of their relationships, The Wild Duck is just as modern today as it was when first staged. When Gregors Werle comes to stay with the Ekdals, his idealist nature refuses to tolerate the dreamworld of lies the family is living. However, in his bid to force the Ekdals to see the truth, the skeletons he unearths destroy the family that he wanted to redeem.

Separate Tables

A play by Terence Rattigan about the stories of several people staying at a seaside hotel in Bournemouth which features dining at "Separate Tables."

Romeo and Juliet

Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes a pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows doth with their death bury their parents' strife.

Billy Budd

A version of Benjamin Britten's opera based on the Melville story. Will the virtuous young sailor Billy Budd be hanged for murder?

King Lear

King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.

Peer Gynt

The 1972 BBC adaptation of Ibsen’s epic dramatic fantasy about a man in search of his soul.

Robinson Crusoe

A man struggles to survive after being shipwrecked on a deserted island.

A Song At Twilight

Enormously successful writer Sir Hugo Latymer has a tryst with the past not altogether to his liking. This bittersweet comedy is the story of a cosmopolitan author caught in his declining years between two women, one being his wife of convenience for twenty years, the other, one of his former lovers.

The Wild Duck

A devestating, yet bracing look at a family whose proximity to each other belies the decay of their relationships, The Wild Duck is just as modern today as it was when first staged. When Gregors Werle comes to stay with the Ekdals, his idealist nature refuses to tolerate the dreamworld of lies the family is living. However, in his bid to force the Ekdals to see the truth, the skeletons he unearths destroy the family that he wanted to redeem.

Separate Tables

A play by Terence Rattigan about the stories of several people staying at a seaside hotel in Bournemouth which features dining at "Separate Tables."

Romeo and Juliet

Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes a pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows doth with their death bury their parents' strife.

Billy Budd

A version of Benjamin Britten's opera based on the Melville story. Will the virtuous young sailor Billy Budd be hanged for murder?

Maigret at Bay

Inspector Maigret responds to a call from a young woman in the middle of the night, but he then finds himself accused of raping her. He is forced to clear his name, and search for what had really taken place that night.

The Cherry Orchard

Madame Ranevskaya is a spoiled, aging aristocratic lady who returns from a trip to Paris to face the loss of her magnificent Cherry Orchard estate after a default on the mortgage. In denial, she continues living in the past, deluding herself and her family, while the beautiful cherry trees are being axed down by the re-possessor Lopakhin, her former serf, who has his own agenda.

The Merchant of Venice

Maggie Smith, Frank Finlay and Charles Gray star in the adaptation of William Shakespeare's classic play. The Venice Titian and the Belmont of Botticelli serve as the visual inspiration behind this lavish production.

Death of a Salesman

Willy Loman is an over-the-hill salesman who faces a personal turning point when he loses his job and attempts to make peace with his family: Willy's long-suffering wife Linda, and Biff and Happy, his troubled sons and his life.

The Chester Mystery Plays

Medieval Mystery Cycle first performed in Chester in the 14th century.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Mistaken identity, unrequited love, and the supernatural are combined in Shakespeare's classic set in the woods of Greece on a moonlit night.

The Siege of Manchester

A German mercenary is hired to defend the small township of Manchester during the English Civil War.

The Happy Valley

In 1940 Kenya as their country prepares for war, the local aristocratic social set lives a decadent, self-indulgent lifestyle, that leads to murder. The same events were also dramatised in the feature film White Mischief, which was released seven months after the first transmission of The Happy Valley.

The Three Sisters

In a small Russian town at the turn of the century, three sisters (Olga, Irina, and Masha) and their brother Andrei live but dream daily of their return to their former home in Moscow, where life is charming and stimulating meaningful. But for now they exist in a malaise of dissatisfaction. Soldiers from the local military post provide them some companionship and society, but nothing can suffice to replace Moscow in their hopes. Andrei marries a provincial girl, Natasha, and begins to settle into a life of much less meaning than he had hoped. Natasha begins to run the family her way. Masha, though married, yearns for the sophisticated life and begins a dalliance with Vershinin, an army officer with a sick and suicidal wife. Even Irina, the freshest, most optimistic of the sisters, begins to waver in her dreams until, finally, tragedy strikes.

The Tempest

Prospero, the true Duke of Milan is now living on an enchanted island with his daughter Miranda, the savage Caliban and Ariel, a spirit of the air. Raising a sorm to bring his brother - the usurper of his dukedom - along with his royal entourage. to the island. Prospero contrives his revenge.

The Country Wife

Directed by Donald McWhinnie.

Henry VIII

Henry is a proud monarch who flies in the face of the church in seeking to divorce Queen Katherine and marry Anne Bullen. As cardinal Wolsey, the powerful Lord Chancellor of England, attempts to bend Rome to the King's wishes, the court reverbates with political intrigue and accusations of treachery.

Spider's Web

Clarissa, the wife of a Foreign Office diplomat, is given to daydreaming. 'Supposing I were to come down one morning and find a dead body in the library, what should I do?' she muses. Clarissa has her chance to find out when she discovers a body in the drawing-room of her house in Kent.

Henry IV Part 1

Henry Bolingbroke has now been crowned King of England, but faces a rebellion headed by the embittered Earl of Northumberland and his son (nicknamed 'Hotspur'). Henry's son Hal, the Prince of Wales, has thrown over life at court in favour of heavy drinking and petty theft in the company of a debauched elderly knight, Sir John Falstaff. Hal must extricate himself from some legal problems, regain his father's good opinions and help suppress the uprising.

The Changeling

Sexual passion breeds violence in the Thomas Middleton and William Rowley written tale of a beautiful woman who falls in love with a sea-captain. Filmed with lush production values and at a leisurely, very British pace, Helen Mirren is riveting as Beatrice-Joanna, a young lass already torn by love and commitment.Beatrice-Joanna (Helen Mirren) is betrothed to Lord Alonzo de Piraquo (Malcolm Reynolds) but is in love with Alsemero (Brian Cox). She hires her father's manservant, De Flores (Stanley Baker), to kill Alonzo but after he has done so, she realises De Flores wants her as a reward.The Changeling was an instalment of the BBC's Play of the Month series and is a production for television of a 1622 Jacobean tragedy of the same name, written by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley.

Henry IV Part 2

The death of King Henry the Fourth and the coronation of King Henry the Fifth.

Playhouse

A one-hour anthology television series of one-off contemporary and classic dramas produced by the BBC.

BBC Play of the Month

A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.

Theatre 625

Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.

Dr. Finlay's Casebook

Dr Finlay's Casebook is a BBC television series that was broadcast from 1962 until 1971. Based on A. J. Cronin's novella Country Doctor, the storylines centred on a general medical practice in the fictional Scottish town of Tannochbrae during the late 1920s.

BBC2 Play of the Week

An anthology of plays and novels adapted into feature length TV movies, broadcast on BBC2 from September 1977 to April 1979.

The BBC Television Shakespeare

The BBC Television Shakespeare is a series of British television adaptations of the plays of William Shakespeare, created by Cedric Messina and produced by BBC Television. It was transmitted in the UK from 3 December 1978 to 27 April 1985 and spanned seven series. Development of the series began in 1975 when Messina saw that Glamis Castle would make a perfect location for an adaptation of Shakespeare's play As You Like It. On returning to London, he envisioned an entire series devoted exclusively to the dramatic works of Shakespeare. After encountering numerous problems trying to produce the series, Messina eventually pitched the idea to the BBC’s departmental heads and the series was greenlighted. The series as a whole received generally negative reviews from critics.