Much Ado About Nothing

Directed by Alan Cooke, Franco Zeffirelli (stage director)
Writers: William Shakespeare, Robert Graves (adaptation)

1967

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• Alan Adams ... Inanimate
  Chloe Ashcroft ... House maid
  David Belcher ... Watchman #3
  Michael Byrne ... Claudio
  Wynne Clark ... Ursula
  Graham Crowden ... Verges
  Paul Curran ... Friar Francis
  Denis DeMarne ... A Lord
  Barry Evans ... Coffee boy
  Janina Faye ... Inanimate
  Frank Finlay ... Dogberry
  Neil Fitzpatrick ... Balthasar
  Kay Gallie ... Inanimate
  Michael Gambon ... Watchman #4
  Mary Griffiths ... House maid
  John Hallam ... Watchman #5
  Luke Hardy ... Inanimate
  David Hargreaves ... Borachio
  Alan Hutt ... Trombonist
  Derek Jacobi ... Don John
  Gerald James ... Leonato
  Caroline John ... Hero
  Roger Kemp ... Watchman #1
  Harry Lomax ... Antonio
  John McEnery ... Gentleman
  Ron Pember ... Watchman #2
  Edward Petherbridge ... Conrade
  Ronald Pickup ... Don Pedro
  Malcolm Reynolds ... Messenger
  David Ryall ... Sexton
  Maggie Smith ... Beatrice
  Robert Stephens ... Benedick
  Christopher Timothy ... Server
  
  

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  The screen version of the famed National Theatre production by Italian director Franco Zeffirelli. It was pre-recorded in the studio on January 11, 1967. The cast of forty three actors spent three weeks in rehearsal for the tv performance. Hence the production passes over the line from being a mere "recording" of a stage play to the status of a full-scale television drama.
  
  It is thought to be the earliest British television broadcast of the whole play and was assumed to be lost. However in 2010 a copy was discovered in the Library of Congress in Washington DC having been loaned to PBS, America's public broadcasting channel. The restoration of Much Ado About Nothing was completed by the BBC Archive Development in a collection of programmes from the 50s and 60s which were screened at London's Barbican.