Leon Garfield

Romeo and Juliet

The playwright's most famous dramatic study of jealousy and its tragic effects are conveyed vividly in a striking drawn animation style. The warmth of the Mediterranean contrasts with the coldness in lago's heart as he turns his noble master, Othello, against the beautiful and innocent Desdemona.

This bright and comic tale is famed as the only play written by Shakespeare in which he is known to have appeared himself - playing Adam, the old retainer to the hero Orlando. The sunniest of his comedies, the play tells of a group of courtiers escaping to the Forest of Arden where they meet, philosophise and fall in love.

Shakespeare's witty battle of the sexes is given a fresh airing in puppet animation. The unlikely bonding of a headstrong Kate and domineering Petruchio is only one aspect of a play about change and the magical transformations that theatre can produce.

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

Exquisitely sculptured Russian puppets perform this powerful and enchanting story full of regal and rustic characters. A fit of temper has tragic results for King Leontes. Sixteen years later, the gods and humbler mortals intervene to craft a happy, magical ending.

A portrayal of Shakespeare's darkest villain Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and his unquenchable thirst for the throne.

A compelling study of personal ambition versus the good of the state.

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, finds out that his uncle Claudius killed his father to obtain the throne, and plans revenge.

Shakespeare: The Animated Tales, Season 1, Episode 2. Exiled Prospero lives on a desolate island with his daughter, Miranda. When Prospero's usurping brother sails by the island, Prospero conjures a storm that wrecks the ship and changes all of their lives.

The events of the comedy take place in the country of Illyria, which for the English of Shakespeare's time was fabulous. The young Countess Olivia is loved by Orsino, Duke of Illyria. But the Countess is in mourning for her brother and refuses to receive the Duke's messengers.

An animated adaptation of twelve of Shakespeare's best-known plays. The series was produced by S4C for the BBC, but animated by some of the foremost artists of Soyuzmultfilm, the former Soviet Union's main animation studio. Each 26-minute play is directed by a different animator, in a wide variety of styles: cel animation for Macbeth, stop-motion puppets in Twelfth Night, and paint on glass for Hamlet.