Watch the performance - then read the reviews (if you wish to)

[LMcD]

It's only in the last 20 years or so that I've really started to appreciate Shakespeare's genius, not least because sub-tltles increase my understanding of the beauty of the text as I watch the action. I've just watched, and been mightily impressed by, 'The Winter's Tale' on the BBC iPlayer, and thought it would be interesting to see what the overall critical reaction was at the time of, or shortly after, it was broadcast. It was awarded between 2 and 4 stars, and I can only conclude that either I'm much cleverer than I realized to have found so much to enjoy and admire in this production or nowhere clever enough to see some of the serious faults which were only too obvious
to some critics. Would I have watched it had I checked the reviews first? Probably. Would I advise others to watch the performance and then read the reviews or not (as they wished)? Definitely! One piece of advice I would offer if you decide to watch it on iPlayer - create your own interval at around the time that the producer might have chosen had it been staged in front of an audience!

[Richard Barrett]

What a fantastic idea. I mean watching a TV production of Shakespeare with the subtitles on. I'm looking forward to giving that a try next time I have a free evening. I've never seen A Winter's Tale in any form and I have only the vaguest idea of what it's about. Thanks for the pointer!

[muzzer]

I shall do this shortly, but why oh why is the search facility on iPlayer so awful? Google works better.

On topic, the thing I suspect with Shakespeare overall is that having had a perfectly good intro as a child, he has then for me anyway been cast away in favour of everything more supposedly modern etc, and yet he’s more relevant. Hoping it’s not too late to find him again. I suspect there’s no escape.

[Bryn]

I shall do this shortly, but why oh why is the search facility on iPlayer so awful? Google works better.

On topic, the thing I suspect with Shakespeare overall is that having had a perfectly good intro as a child, he has then for me anyway been cast away in favour of everything more supposedly modern etc, and yet he’s more relevant. Hoping it’s not too late to find him again. I suspect there’s no escape.

Even Google is not too clever. If you make the mistake of including "television" in the search criteria in addition to "winter' tale " and BBC, you might just get a now unavailable earlier production. The link required is https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vkk7