John Wyver

Sandy Nairne

Geoff Dunlop

Ideas and Images in the 1980s

State of the Art

Amanda Wrigley

Screen plays is a ground-breaking collection that chronicles the rich and surprising history of stage plays produced for the small screen between 1930 and the present. The volume opens with a substantial historical outline of how plays originally written for the theatre have been presented by the BBC and ITV, as well as independent producers and cultural organisations. Subsequent chapters utilise a variety of critical methodologies to analyse a wide range of outside broadcasts from theatres, screen adaptations of existing stage productions, along with original television productions of classic and contemporary drama. Making a compelling case for the centrality of the theatre to British television’s past and present, Screen plays opens up new areas of research for all those engaged in theatre, media and adaptation studies.

Theatre plays on British television

Screen plays

No theatre company has been involved in such a broad range of adaptations for television and cinema as the Royal Shakespeare Company. Starting with Richard III filmed in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre before World War One, the RSC's accomplishments continue today with highly successful live cinema broadcasts. The Wars of the Roses (BBC, 1965), Peter Brook's film of King Lear (1971), Channel 4's epic version of Nicholas Nickleby (1982) and Hamlet with David Tennant (BBC, 2009) are among their most iconic adaptations. Many other RSC productions live on as extracts in documentaries, as archival recordings, in trailers and in other fragmentary forms. Screening the Royal Shakespeare Company explores this remarkable history of collaborations between stage and screen and considers key questions about adaptation that concern all those involved in theatre, film and television. John Wyver is a broadcasting historian and the producer of RSC Live from Stratford-upon-Avon, and is uniquely well-placed to provide a vivid account of the company's television and film productions. He contributes an award-winning practitioner's insight into screen adaptation's numerous challenges and rich potential.

A Critical History

Screening the Royal Shakespeare Company

"No theatre company has been involved in such a broad range of adaptations for television and film as the Royal Shakespeare Company. Starting with the Stratford Memorial Theatre company's version of Richard III in 1910, these continue today with the highly successful RSC Live from Stratford-upon-Avon cinema broadcasts. Among the iconic productions have been The Wars of the Roses (BBC, 1965), Peter Brook's film of King Lear (1971), Channel's 4's epic version of Nicholas Nickleby (1982) and Hamlet with David Tennant (BBC, 2009). Drawing on interviews with actors and directors, The RSC on Screen explores this remarkable history of collaborations between stage and screen and considers key questions about adaptation that concern all those involved in theatre, film and television. John Wyver is a broadcasting historian and the television producer of Hamlet as well as of RSC Live from Stratford-upon-Avon, and so is uniquely well-placed both to provide a vivid account of the RSC's television and film productions as well as to contribute an award-winning practitioner's insights into screen adaptation's rich potential and numerous challenges"--

William Shakespeare

Gregory Doran

Adams, Jeremy (Stage producer)

Robin Lough

"Richard is King. A monarch ordained by God to lead his people. But he is also a man of very human weakness. A man whose vanity threatens to divide the great houses of England and drag his people into a dynastic civil war that will last 100 years"--Container.

John Wyver

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