Dame Maggie's 1967 portrayal of the playful debutante Beatrice in the cheerful Much Ado About Nothing is thought to be the earliest British television broadcast of the whole play. But the screen version of the famed National Theatre production by Italian director Franco Zeffirelli was assumed a lost treasure missing from the BBC’s archives. That was until a copy was discovered in the Library of Congress in Washington DC in 2010.

Televised adaptation based on a National Theatre stage, starring real-life married couple Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens as Beatrice and Benedick.

Director: Franco Zeffirelli
CAST
Maggie Smith: Beatrice
Robert Stephens: Benedick
Michael Byrne: Claudio
Derek Jacobi: Don Pedro
Frank Finlay: Dogberry
Michael Gambon: Watchman #4
Caroline John: Hero
Carolyn Johns: Margaret
David Hargreaves: Borachio
David Ryall: Sexton
Denis De Marne: A Lord
Edward Petherbridge: Conrade
Gerald James: Leonato
Graham Crowden: Verges
Harry Lomax: Antonio
John McEnery: Gentleman
Neil Fitzpatrick: Balthasar
Paul Curran: Friar Francis
Ronald Pickup: Don John
Wynnne Clark: Ursula

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Screen Adaptation - Co-Production : MISANTHROPOS – Official Website - https://www.misanthropos.net
Adapted by Maximianno Cobra, from Shakespeare's "Timon of Athens", the film exposes the timeless challenge of social hypocrisy, disillusion and annihilation against the poetics of friendship, love, and beauty.

IMDb page: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6946736/

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