King Lear is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It tells the tale of a king who bequeaths his power and land to two of his three daughters, after they declare their love for him in an extremely fawning and obsequious manner. His third daughter gets nothing, because she will not flatter him as her sisters had done. When he feels disrespected by the two daughters who now have his wealth and power, he becomes furious to the point of madness. He eventually becomes tenderly reconciled to his third daughter, just before tragedy strikes her and then the king.

Shakespeare's drama tells the story of a young man who can only come into his own upon his father's death and the father who longs for immortality. Using only Shakespeare's words, this adaptation tells the deeply personal story of Prince Hal's coming of age and his relationships with two father figures: the mistrustful King Henry IV and the hilarious, irrepressible Falstaff. A Court Theatre Production.

Pericles is the Prince of Tyre but is forced to leave the city due to the atrocities that the wicked Emperor of Greece threatens to bestow should he stay. His courage, wisdom and goodness are recognized wherever he goes so much so that he marries the Queen of Pentapolis who bears him a child at sea, for he is forced to return to Tyre to pacify its citizens who are clamouring for his return as their ruler following the death of the wicked Emperor of Greece.

After an insult from the French Dauphin, King Henry V of England invades France to claim the throne he believes should be his. Henry stops an assassination plot, gives powerful speeches and wins battles against the odds. In the end, he woos and marries the princess of France, linking the two nations.... 

Venus and Adonis is a rich and rewarding work. This version includes substantial in introductory and concluding commentary from Shakespeare expert Charlie Creed, in addition to the full poem. Written in glorious language, the story balances comic invention with a tragic and moving love story. Appearing in quarto form in 1593, Venus and Adonis was Shakespeare’s first published work - for though several of the author’s plays had been performed by this date, none had been printed.

Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare's more brilliantly populated plays and remains among the most widely read. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom investigates Macbeth's interiority and unthinkable actions with razor-sharp insight, agility, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character. The book also becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.

When Shakespeare’s words make your head spin, our audio translations will help you sort out what’s happening, who’s saying what, and why! These popular guides make the Bard’s plays accessible and enjoyable. 

In all of literature, few antagonists have displayed the ruthless cunning and unscrupulous deceit of Iago, the antagonist to Othello. Often described as Machiavellian, Iago is a fascinating psychological specimen: at once a shrewd expert of the human mind and yet, himself a deeply troubled man.

King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The aged, abused monarch is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from majesty. He is widely agreed to be William Shakespeare's most moving, tragic hero. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character.

A Classic recording of Shakespeare's well-loved comedy. Cast including renowned Shakespearean actors John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft and Gary Watson.

The young king of Navarre and three of his courtiers have vowed to lock themselves away for three years of study and fasting, and to forswear the company of women for this period. No sooner is their vow made than it is tested, however, as the princess of France and three of her ladies arrive in Navarre on a diplomatic mission. The young men fall instantly and hopelessly in love, and the tension between their vow and their passion forms the subject of this charming and sparkling early comedy.

As You Like It follows its heroine Rosalind as she flees persecution in her uncle's court, accompanied by her cousin, Celia, and Touchstone, the court jester, to find safety and eventually love in the Forest of Arden.

Henry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in around 1599. Its full titles are The Chronicle History of Henry the Fifth (in the First Quarto text) and The Life of Henry the Fifth (in the First Folio text). It tells the story of King Henry V of England, focusing on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt (1415) during the Hundred Years' War.

King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606. READ BY PAUL SCHOFIELD AND CAST.King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606. It is considered one of his greatest works. King Lear descends into madness after wrongly distributing his estate on the strength of flattery. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king.

By the time Shakespeare came to write Macbeth - almost certainly in 1605/1606 - he had already completed three of the great tragedies with which modern audiences are so familiar: Hamlet (1601), Othello (1603), and King Lear (1605). Each of those plays gives us an eponymous hero who is in some significant way flawed, but for whom we also inevitably feel deep sympathy, whatever his errors or crimes. But in MacBeth, Shakespeare has chosen for his tragic hero a man guilty of the most terrible crime imaginable to a Jacobean audience, that of regicide - the murder of a king.