Leon Garfield

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

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.