The BBC Television Shakespeare (TV Series) As You Like It (1978) User Reviews

Much better than the current 7.0 score

[MissSimonetta · 8/10 · 6 November 2014]

I am shocked at how much scorn this adaptation of As You Like It has garnered on this website. In my opinion, it's a good if not great adaptation of one of the Bard's lesser comedies.

Helen Mirren and the beautiful locations are the prime reasons to check this one out. Mirren is engaging as the heroine Rosalind. And the forest and castle used for shooting are just beautiful.

Of course, the play itself has issues. The plot is thin and the resolution comes out of nowhere. Still, it's all an excuse to hear that glorious verse and witty banter.

A fine film, though not essential.

An Artificial Play Sunk By Too Much Reality

[tonstant viewer · 6/10 · 13 November 2006]

This is where it all began. BBC producer Cedric Messina was shooting a drama at Glamis Castle when he thought, "What a great place to shoot 'As You Like It.'" And so the idea for the complete series of Shakespeare telecasts was born.

Unfortunately, an all-too-real Forest of Arden here provides an impediment to the play. An artificial meditation on identity and appearance, "As You Like It" has one of Shakespeare's lamest plots, with poor characterizations, perfunctory incidents and sloppy story resolution. "Love's Labour's Lost" and "Twelfth Night" are as solid as tanks by comparison.

Video equipment was not as portable in the late 1970s as it is now, and the whole exercise is sapped by the actors' battle against Nature and logistics. A sense of strain is omnipresent. The characters are often physically too far apart and must yell at each other, Helen Mirren has to wave gnats away from her face repeatedly during a major speech, and a lush carpeting of ferns belies text references to a harsh outdoor existence. Basically, you come out of this play humming the trees.

Performances across the board are OK, but never better than that. Helen Mirren shows reliable professionalism as Rosalind and Richard Pasco's bilious affect is uniquely suitable to the character of Jacques.

Also noteworthy is the Banished Duke of Tony Church, who recorded frequently for the now-forgotten Marlowe Society of Cambridge's complete Shakespeare series on Argo LPs. And 6'7" David Prowse, fresh off his first appearance as Darth Vader in the original "Star Wars," shows up unexpectedly as Charles the Wrestler, performing the Shakespeare well in his own voice, and not overdubbed by James Earl Jones.

Budget considerations meant that "As You Like It" and "Henry VIII" would be the only plays in this series shot on location. BBC studio drama would come to an end in the early 1990's, but a production like this one points up the advantages of staying indoors.

Dame Helen Mirren as a young man!

[Red-125 · 8/10 · 2 January 2020]

Shakespeare's As You Like It (1978 TV Movie) was directed by Basil Coleman. Helen Mirren stars as Rosalind, the biggest female role in any Shakespeare play.

This movie is part of the Ambrose Shakespeare series, which filmed every one of Shakespeare's plays. Typically, movies in this series had minimal production values. (This is the way Shakespeare's plays were seen when they were originally produced. However, now the lack of scenery looks skimpy.)

However, this movie was filmed in Glamis Castle (as in Macbeth). The location allows us to see a real castle, with ramparts, as well as a great wooded area, which becomes Arden Forest.

We all know that Mirren can act, but I think she got better as she grew older. One problem is that she's very feminine--as Viola is--but she spends most of the play dressed as a man.

This As You Like it is probably as good as you're going to get on the small screen. I don't think it matters whether you see it as DVD or in a movie theater. My advice is to try to see it live onstage.

Darth Vader does Shakespeare

[El Cine · 24 October 2009]

What a great idea to shoot this play on location and mostly outdoors. The green meadows and leafy forests fill the production with the breath of life, and a remarkable natural feel. Not only does the outdoor filming suit the pastoral setting and themes of this play. By staging everything on location, and in an unsophisticated way, it makes us all the more attuned to how a script and a company of actors can transform a familiar, real-life location into something else. A fictional scenario suddenly becomes real before our eyes. Seeing this production, it's a reminder that your neighborhood park could easily serve as the stage for drama and high-flown rhetoric.

Who cares about the technical difficulties? When Rosalind has to brush aside a fly unwelcomed by the production, it's all the more charming, the way it increases the realism and spontaneity.

All this comes through even more because this is a largely straightforward recording of a play, not an earnest work of cinema. I'm all for fluid and creative camera work, but here the mostly static camera is the better choice, making us feel more that we are attending a live play outdoors, not a movie that's clearly removed from our reality.

This is exciting...and frankly, As You Like It needs all the excitement that can be supplied. I'm not exactly a Shakespeare connoisseur, but it seems to me that this play is one of the fluffier, flimsier plays of his I've seen.

For such a long production, very little happens. It's light in tone but lacks the comedy, scheming, and twists of other plots like A Midsummer Night's Dream. For any of the interesting stuff in this play (some well-written dialogue, a few gestures towards action or suspense, gender-bending, even pseudo-lesbianism way ahead of its time), you can probably find some other Shakespeare play that does it better. Even by the standards of the time, it breaks credibility that Rosalind's lover and her own father can't see through her boy-disguise and recognize her. The play feels like either a test run written early in the Bard's career or a rehash from the end. I would've had a much harder time watching this production if filmed indoors on sets, even artistic or otherwise well-made ones.

On the other hand, this play stands out because it has wrestling. Wrestling?! In Shakespeare?! I guess so! And not that amateur wrestling like students do for school -- think pro wrestling, but not fake! (It's all the funnier to see lowbrow pro wrestling in highbrow theatre like Shakespeare.) This TV movie treats us to a fully-staged match starring Darth Vader. And I don't mean James Earl Jones, a noted actor for whom a Shakespeare performance would be nothing unexpected. No, we get the man in the black suit himself, David Prowse, whose role even requires him to speak many lines! Yes, Darth Vader does Shakespeare!

Prowse holds his own in both the fighting and reciting, although you can tell he's not the talented professional that the other actors are. Speaking of whom, they are the other chief strong point for this movie. (Oddly, though, they didn't reshoot a few scenes in which Helen Mirren stumbles on her lines.)

Also notable for Le Beau, the twittiest character ever; a Dana Carvey lookalike playing leading man Orlando; and the leading ladies decked out in court dresses with headpieces you have to see to believe, like something taken from a sci-fi picture or maybe Hammer House of Horrors.

Boring but beautiful

[mrdonleone · 6/10 · 22 March 2009]

What a boring picture. I love the works of Shakespeare, but this one is much too long to be seen at one night and it lacks great acting. Still, I have to admit Helen Millen was here at her loveliest. I've never seen her in another picture where she's so beautiful as Roselind in this 'As you like It'. But I don't quite understand what happened with the evil brother from the beginning. I don't understand the role of that creepy guy in the woods too. IT ends so suddenly. There are a lot of problems to be solved, and then simsalabim it ends. Yes, many things remain unclear and unsolved. Maybe I will have to see this again? Not in the next 20 years.

The best As You Like It currently available on video.

[jwands-1 · 10/10 · 17 January 2006]

Helen Mirren heads a splendid cast of actors in this production. Not only is the cinematography lovely, but the forest scenes accurately depict both the sense of freedom and the sense of dislocation and strangeness that a retreat to the Forest of Arden represents for the court characters. Rosalind serves as a splendid counterpoint to Orlando in the forest, training him to understand the needs of women and constantly catching him off-guard with her banter. Jacques is suitably pompous and condescending, admirably outwitted by Rosalind when he has the audacity to attempt to match wits with her. Even the minor parts, such as those of Phebe and Audrey, are acted with skill.

All the world's a stage

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 2 January 2019]

To put it lightly, 'As You Like It' is not one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. Consider it one of his weakest actually. It's not the language and text that's the problem, Shakespeare's unrivalled mastery of language and text can be seen in even his lesser work. The problem is the too thin and absurd story with a silly and randomly introduced ending, just about kept afloat by Shakespeare's prose and nice characters.

Do find the late 70s-early 80s BBC Shakespeare adaptations very interesting for mainly their distinguished casts and general fidelity and respect to the plays. Regardless of reservations with the production values and more than once there has been uneven casting. Don't consider any of them unwatchable but some are better than others, liked to loved a fair number but some disappointed. This production of 'As You Like It' has garnered some scorn here, while sharing some of the criticisms to me despite its unevenness it's better than has been said by some. It is not one of the best of the series, nowhere near, but not one of the worst. Personally would put it somewhere in the middle.

Can understand a few of the criticisms. The camera work is static in places and tends to be rather unimaginative.

'As You Like It's' pace has its draggy spots when the action is especially thin and on the static side in direction (the story of the play though is to blame partly for this though). And the humour is variable, most moments delight and are very funny, especially the witty banter, but others came over as strained as a result of trying too hard dramatically.

However, really did love the rustic sets (one of not many in the series to be done on location, thus there is more of an opened-up feel), which looked very attractive. Especially the forest setting. The costumes were evocative and didn't look ugly. Also appreciated that as a performance and adaptation it was faithful to the text and action, generally did make it engaging and make it easy to understand and didn't try to incorporate any senseless or distasteful touches. The most inspired touch being the wrestling scene. Even if it could have taken more risks and had more freshness as there was at times an air of too faithful and safe.

Shakespeare's wit and poetry always shines, as does the beautiful music, but it's the cast that make this production of 'As You Like It' worth seeing. Helen Mirren has a demanding role as Rosalind and carries it off pretty splendidly. Brian Stirner has his dull moments early on but mostly his Orlando is very convincing. Richard Pasco revels in Jaques' pompous condescension in a maddeningly thrilling way and James Bolam is a scene-stealing Touchstone. Angharad Rees is very good.

All in all, decent production and while flawed better than given credit for. 7/10 Bethany Cox

an excellent production

[mhk11 · 9/10 · 11 July 2018]

This 1978 production is a sparkling version of a great play. Indeed, apart from some unnecessary abridgments of Touchstone's coruscating orations, this production is nearly flawless. The natural settings endow the play with a genuinely rustic atmosphere. (The fact that Helen Mirren occasionally has to wave insects away from her is something which contributes to that atmosphere.)

Arthur Hewlett, who appears to be on the verge of death in his performance as Adam, in fact lived for nearly two decades beyond the making of this production. Richard Pasco, who steals nearly every scene in which he appears as Jacques, died in 2014 at the age of 88. Helen Mirren is at her usual level of excellence in her starring role. Angharad Rees, who died of cancer in 2012, is likewise excellent as Celia/Aliena. Brian Stirner is not at quite the same level (with two or three slightly misjudged renderings of lines), but he performs commendably as Orlando. Kudos are due to everyone else in the cast as well, in a production that does not include any bad performances.

A really good version with Helen Mirren's perfect Rosalind. One of the more engaging and enjoyable BBC Television Shakespeare's

[mickman91-1 · 7/10 · 7 February 2022]

Some of these BBC Television Shakespeare adaptations are a bit dry and dusty. But this one was really dynamic and engaging. Helen Mirren is the perfect and most beautiful Rosalind, the best I have seen. I love the songs they composed for the Shakespearean lyrics. There aren't many AYLI versions available to watch on screen so this is a must watch. Along with the 2010 Globe version which is available online.

The BEST of the BBC Adaptations!

[mhtyler · 9/10 · 31 March 2002]

I can't possibly disagree with the first review more. The cast is splendid, the performances are spot on, and unlike most of the BBC productions it engages you immediately and doesn't bog down.

Richard Pascoe's Jaques is amazing, Hellen Mirren gives her usual strong performance, and so many of the smaller parts stand out. Touchstone for instance steals every scene he's in.

Indeed the only thing you really need wink at is the absurdity of Shakespeare's plot and its fantastical 11th hour resolution, but none of that matters...the play's the thing. Even the music is quite lovely.

Lovely

[KirkLaurelwood · 10/10 · 14 October 2002]

Seek this one out (my library had it). Helen Mirren is delightful (32 at the time). It's shot on location in Scotland, including a lot of outdoors scenes, many in the woods. I'd be surprised if there is a better version. Certainly not the 1936 Olivier, marred as it is by his wooden co-star.

Holy mother of god...

[drn5 · 1/10 · 17 March 2003]

This is from the early days of the BBC Shakespeare series, when they were young, naive and foolish, and before the budget shrivelled into minus numbers. To make 'As You Like It' they actually went outside, rather than to a studio, filming the play at Glamis Castle and a forest nearby, just to give it that epic quality. And they hired some of the best actors in the theatre, and gave them nearly 30 minutes to rehearse. Halcyon days.

It's awful.

Filming outdoors requires time and money, neither of which is on display here. The wind whips away the actors' words and blows their hair in their faces. And more intrusive are the animals. In a scene involving Corin, a flock of rare-breed sheep jumps over a gate while he is talking. The sheep are far more interesting than Corin (each one jumps in a slightly different way, and one of them nearly trips over). But the director seems to have the Ed Wood approach to such things ("It's realistic, because that's what would happen in real life"). Meanwhile, the opportunities offered by filming outdoors are wasted. Glamis Castle is perfect for the evil Duke's castle: it's a nasty-looking Gothic pile with pointy towers and a huge, looming bulk. And yet the director films on a gorgeous summer's day and manages to remove the slightest trace of Gothic gloom from the castle. And the forestry commission land looks just that. I'm sure I saw tyre-tracks on one of the country roads.

Even worse than the dodgy film-making is the child-like naivety of the interpretation, which frequently reminds one of amateur dramatics in a church hall. This is encapsulated in the hilarious entry of Hymen, who runs down a hill dressed like a member of Bjorn Again, and with a big cheesy grin on his face. It would be nice to think that this is an affectionate acknowledgement of the absurdity of the play's plot. Maybe I'd think that if it was openly metatheatrical, or deliberately camp. But the characters treat Hymen with awestruck wonder, and the poor viewer is left longing for something EITHER profound OR deliberately humorous.

Sadly, there are no decent films of 'As You Like It', but before you watch this one try to find Christine Edzard's 1992 version, which has its flaws, but has at least has had more than five minutes of thought put into it.

Compelling comedy

[alainenglish · 9/10 · 27 February 2010]

This fantastic rendition of "As You Like It" shames many others in the series with it's lovely costuming, strong direction and location work.

The brave Orlando (Brian Stirner) pursues the lovely Rosalind into the forest of Arden, after she is banished from the royal court by the Duke Frederic (Richard Easton), and along with her servant Celia (Angharad Rees) disguises herself as a boy to survive. Tagging along is Touchstone (James Bolam), the court fool. They find refuge with the former Duke of Arden (Tony Church), and cross-dressing romantic shenanigans quickly ensure as Rosalind attempts to ensure the honesty of her lover...

Although more could have been done with the location (near Glamis Castle, Scotland), it's quality shames the studio work done elsewhere in this series. Many other plays would have been significantly improved if they had been taken out of the studio but sadly this was not the case.

It helps that the play has been directed with flair and restraint - there is no dodgy lion sequence and the wrestling scene with Darth Vader actor David Prowse is brilliant.

Helen Mirren is compelling and well-costumed Rosalind, and Richard Pasco gives a wonderfully maddened turn as the moody Jacques. James Bolam makes a good fist of Touchstone.

A good effort, and no doubt one of the better ones of the BBC series.

Well done adaptation - Helen is Great

[RJK-8 · 8/10 · 29 September 2006]

This production benefits from great use of natural settings and a cast that knows how to make "the bard" sing for those of us not steeped in medieval English. The music is an added bonus. The director included the wrestling match instead of just hearing about it, no doubt to provide a little bit of action to what is otherwise mostly talk. The pacing is a little slow at times, but since we're not really worried about the plot it doesn't matter. Helen Mirren sets the tone for all the actors in terms of really getting into the role. The emphasis is not so much the cynicism but the "looking at oneself from the outside." We are encouraged to look at ourselves thusly.

One of the best comedies by Shakespeare

[Dr_Coulardeau · 10/10 · 9 October 2010]

This is one of the best comedies by Shakespeare because it contains all the tragic drama at the beginning that is necessary to make the end endlessly happy. A false Duke, title-less brother of a real Duke, usurps in some way the fief and title of the real Duke, and the false Duke is thus a fake. But he banishes his rival not to be in anyway challenged in his usurpation. Then from the city, the castle, the seat of this Dukedom we move to the refuge of the banned in some Forest of Arden. They live there like more or less shepherds, with shepherds, waiting for better days. Shakespeare creates a character, Jaques, who is needed to bring to that refuge some sad wit that both reflects the situation and reflects on the situation. The second element of a good comedy by Shakespeare is the happy ending. And in this comedy Shakespeare pushes the happy ending to perfection. Four weddings presided by Juno and her envoy Hymen, four women and four men married on the same day at the same time in the same place. Nothing can be more sacred than that bringing together of the passion of Christ and his resurrection. A wedding is in a way the end and death of a life of superficial freedom to give way to a resurrection of deep emotional realization till death them parts. And Shakespeare doubles up this happy occasion with the conversion, Christian conversion mind you, of the fake Duke to the reclusion of the monk he thus becomes when on his way to a vengeance or murder he will never fulfill. And yet Jaques will then retire to the cave of the exiles because he does not have the heart to go back to civil life, waiting as he is for the seventh age of man, the one just before the lethal liberation. But Shakespeare is also a born comedian and he has to set at the very center of his fable an element that makes any moment full of double entendre and innuendo. The daughter of the banished Duke, Rosalind, who is banished in her turn, decides to live her banishment as a boy. The disguise is today obvious. It was absolutely hilarious in Shakespeare's time since then women were played by male teenagers. The double-entendre became in those days ambiguously clear. And Orlando, who is in love with Rosalind, is more or less defied by Ganymede, who is no one else but Rosalind in disguise, to practice his courting of Rosalind on him Ganymede, who is in fact Rosalind. This situation becomes a grand comedy of transvestite jest and fun. On the surface a boy courts a woman in the person of a boy who lends his person for that game. In the 16th century under the surface a boy courts a boy who is supposed to be a girl who plays the part of a boy lending himself to the game of being the girl he is supposed to be and who the other boy loves. Slightly complex, isn't it? In modern times the girl is disguised as a boy who lends her/his disguised boyhood to virtually be the girl he/she really is. Every word then becomes ambiguous in all possible ways and funny at the same time, including in the field of sexual love, especially when a shepherdess falls in love with Ganymede who is in fact Rosalind, a boy actor in the old days, a girl nowadays. The best part of the play is that it could have become a farce and Shakespeare very skillfully avoids the Commedia dell arte, and leads the comedy to some kind of moral tale about love, power, ambition, property and life. This production is enhanced by young actors and actresses and by an excellent music.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

Atrocious

[curtisloew · 3/10 · 16 February 2008]

Helen Mirren...James Brolam...a good cast list but an absolutely awful performance. The Forest of Arden for starters left me watching and anticipating a dog walker to wander into shot to accompany the sounds of the M/A road motorway in the background. Apart from the camera angles being poor and far too close, the acting is so wooden that one is forced to admire the slight effort in the costumes.

What is perhaps most noticeable, however, is the distinct lack of justice that the performance gives Shakespeare's play...for me Helen Mirren failed to produce a good performance and it seems that the poor and awkward movements seemed to summarise the piece, with the 'fight' scenes being less than a tussle. Overall, an awful performance that struggled to present any likeness to the original Shakespearean text.

surely...

[giò · 2/10 · 8 March 2001]

surely, they could have done better. especially with such a distinguished cast. indeed, helen mirren, maynard williams and stirnen (the first name escapes me at the moment) and, occasionally, james bolam provide the few memorable things about this adaptation. i know that the BBC shakespeare adaptations were also conceived for educational purposes. this does not mean, however, that they have to stick to a traditional staging. surely, shakespeare's plays offer so many possibilities for exciting interpretations. sticking so religiously to a perceived idea of "what the play is supposed to be like" does not do it any good. it's been done before and much better. what also angered me was the enormous potential for humour inherent in the text was not at all exploited. this made for a very dull and stiff production. i cannot believe how too many people still think that making shakespeare relevant to our times is like p***ing on hallowed ground. shakespeare was much laxer when it came to conventions. why should we be when we stage him? one of the funniest moments was one of involuntary humour. the campness of le beau does not work, and hymen's entrance had me rolling on the floor. it was so over the top, but nothing gave me the impression that they were aware of it. all of this again goes to show that even an entertaining and clever text can become frighteningly boring in the wrong hands.

Terrible

[jademcpherson18 · 1/10 · 19 September 2014]

As You Like It is supposed to be a comedy - this is not funny at all and remarkably boring! I have seen this play in the Globe Theatre and the Southwark Playhouse both of which were brilliant, this isn't. I was bored 15 minutes into it and was no more entertained by the end of it.

As You Like It is fantastic as a written play and performed on stage but this is a really bad adaptation of it and it's a waste of money to buy it. The plot moves far too slowly and it's quite difficult to know what's going on if you're not familiar with the plot already. Even the brilliant actress Helen Mirrin couldn't save it.

There are other TV adaptions of As You Like It, perhaps I'll give them a try instead.

Heavy on performance, lacking in fun

[iwannacookie17 · 5/10 · 30 January 2020]

The only thing funny in this comedy was watching The Queen in such a classic role. I felt all the singing parts unnecessary. The performances are more traditional than enjoyable. The "classic" performances make the dialogue unintelligible for the most part. It is hard to follow, and you don't really care for any of the main couples because you don't spend a significant time with any of them. The Bryce Dallas Howard version is much better.

Most of the actors could not deliver the lines well.

[john-lauritsen · 4/10 · 29 May 2018]

I agree with many of the criticisms made of this film. Unimaginative photography, costumes, etc. The main thing is that most of the actors were unable to do justice to Shakespeare's words. Some of the dialogue is in prose and some in pentameter, but here you could hardly tell the difference. The actors wasted their energies trying to emote, making faces, flailing around -- but they didn't bother to enunciate. In some cases, they didn't seem to understand what the words meant.

Helen Mirren was about the worst offender. She sometimes rattled off the words so fast that they were incomprehensible. And whenever she became emotional, which was often, her voice rose into high soprano range -- not appropriate, when impersonating an adolescent youth. The role of Rosalind is complex and intellectual; her performance was neither. In her dialogues with Orlando, she oafishly joshes around, instead of speaking seriously, boy to man. Rosalind's lines, that no man had ever died for love should have an ironic poignancy to them, but Mirren just clownishly punches them out. In comedy, the actors should be serious, and the audience should do the laughing.

However, a few of the actors were good. Jacques did justice to the "ages of man" speech. The very best was Silvius, when he slowly and movingly spoke his part in the "What is love?' dialogue. Phoebe also spoke her lines well.