--- title: "ShakespeaRe-Told" year: 2005 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/shakespeare-told" fi1m_id: "shakespeare-told" imdb_id: "tt1062205" tmdb_id: 13562 fi1m_score: 66 critics_reviews: 1 published: "2026-10-07T14:18:47.790491+00:00" updated: "2026-10-07T14:18:54.126213+00:00" region: "IE" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # ShakespeaRe-Told (2005) Created by Peter Bowker · 1h 30m · Drama ## Identity ShakespeaRe-Told - **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/shakespeare-told - **Type:** Series - **Fi1m ID:** shakespeare-told - **IMDb ID:** tt1062205 - **TMDB ID:** 13562 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1062205/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/13562 **Fi1m score: 66** · Critics: 1 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* Macbeth runs a kitchen, Beatrice reads the regional news, and for once the modern dress fits better than the doublet > Two of these four modern Shakespeares are good television and the Macbeth is better than that. The Shrew is fun and the Dream a long evening. Start with the restaurant and forgive the series its weakest quarter. ## Synopsis Four films of 90 minutes each, every one dropping a Shakespeare play into present-day Britain with the verse taken out and the plot kept. Beatrice (Sarah Parish) reads the regional news in a studio where her old sparring partner Benedick is being brought back as co-anchor, while the younger pair, Hero and Claude (Tom Ellis), plan a wedding with Ursula (Olivia Colman) helping. Ella Macbeth (Keeley Hawes) runs the front of house at a restaurant where her husband Joe, the chef, does the cooking and the owner takes the credit; three binmen tell him the place will one day be his. Kate Minola (Shirley Henderson), a Conservative MP with no manners and no husband, is told by her mother (Twiggy) that her sister cannot marry until she does. A fourth film sends *A Midsummer Night’s Dream* to a holiday park. ## Review Peter Bowker’s series, first shown on 7 November 2005, takes four Shakespeare plays, strips out the verse, keeps the plots and the names, and hands each to a different writer for a 90-minute film. David Nicholls has *Much Ado About Nothing*, Peter Moffat has [*Macbeth*](https://film.one/film/macbeth), Sally Wainwright has *The Taming of the Shrew* and Bowker keeps *A Midsummer Night’s Dream* for himself. It is the kind of idea that usually produces an hour of smugness about how relevant the Bard still is. Here it mostly does not, and the reason is that the writers were allowed to treat the plays as plots rather than monuments. Two of the four are good, one is a pleasure with a problem, and one we would skip. Nicholls puts *Much Ado* in a regional television newsroom, which is the right size for it. Sarah Parish plays Beatrice as a woman who has been the cleverest person in the building for ten years and has stopped expecting anyone to notice. The script gives her and Benedick real work to do between the insults, autocues, running orders, a weather map, and Brian Percival directs the studio scenes so that the on-air smiles and the off-air faces are in the same shot. Olivia Colman’s Ursula is one of the small parts that make the thing feel like a workplace rather than a cast list. Tom Ellis has the thankless job of Claude, the decent young man who believes the wrong thing, and does not make him a fool. The *Macbeth* is the one to see. Moffat sets it in a restaurant kitchen, with Joe Macbeth at the pass and Keeley Hawes’s Ella running the dining room, both of them doing the work while the man whose name is over the door collects the praise. Mark Brozel shoots the kitchen as a place of steel, steam and shouting, and keeps the camera low and close. We were tense before anyone had so much as thought about doing anything wrong, and what did it was Hawes: the way she stands at the door between the kitchen and the restaurant, smiling at the customers, watching her husband be patronised, and saying nothing at all. Richard Armitage, as the other man in the kitchen, plays decency without making it dull. What follows we will not describe, except to say that a kitchen turns out to be a fine place for it. Wainwright’s *Shrew* makes Kate Minola a Conservative MP, and Shirley Henderson plays her as a woman who has decided that being disliked is quicker than being charming. Henderson is small and the voice is small and she fills every room anyway; we laughed, properly, at her first scene in the Commons, and kept laughing for an hour. Twiggy is dry and well cast as her mother and David Mitchell gets good value from a few lines. The problem is the one every modern *Shrew* has, which is the last ten minutes of the play, and Wainwright’s way round it is clever rather than convincing. We admired the footwork and did not believe a word. The *Dream* is the weak one. Bowker moves it to a holiday park, which should be funny and mostly is not, and Ed Fraiman directs the lovers in the woods as if the woods were a problem to be got through. Sharon Small and Rupert Evans do what they can. The mechanicals’ play, which ought to be the easiest laugh in the canon, lands flat, and the 90 minutes feel like more. Across the four, the production design is the series’ best decision: Jon Henson, Phil Roberson, Malcolm Thornton and Claire Kenny give each film its own world, a newsroom, a kitchen, a Westminster office, a caravan site, and none of them looks like the same Sunday-night drama with the furniture moved. The music is the opposite. Four composers, Charlie Mole, Tim Atack, Kevin Sargent and Hal Lindes, between them produce a lot of pleasant underscore that tells you how to feel a beat before the actors do. The reviews so far have been cooler than we are, finding the whole thing uneven and only moderately watchable. Uneven is fair; we have said as much. But a series is not an average, and the *Macbeth* on its own would justify the evening. Watch that first, then the *Much Ado*, then the *Shrew* if you are enjoying Henderson, and leave the *Dream* for a night when you have nothing better and are feeling forgiving. *Fi1m score 66, published 7 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is ShakespeaRe-Told worth watching?** *ShakespeaRe-Told* is worth watching for the *Macbeth* alone, and we scored the series 66. Two of its four modern-dress Shakespeares are good television, the *Shrew* is fun until its last ten minutes, and the *Dream* is a long evening. Start with Keeley Hawes in the restaurant kitchen and forgive the series its weakest quarter. **How long is ShakespeaRe-Told, and what is it rated?** *ShakespeaRe-Told* has episodes of about 1h 30m. It is a drama series. **Where can I watch ShakespeaRe-Told in Ireland?** *ShakespeaRe-Told* is not on any streaming or rental service in Ireland at the moment. It is available in 1 other country; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How does ShakespeaRe-Told compare to Throne of Blood?** *ShakespeaRe-Told* and [*Throne of Blood*](https://film.one/film/throne-of-blood) share only their *Macbeth*, and Kurosawa's film is the better of the two by some distance. The television version is a tense, well-acted 90 minutes in a restaurant kitchen; Kurosawa's is frightening, forcefully acted and still the standard. Watch the series for Hawes and the newsroom *Much Ado*, and watch *Throne of Blood* for the play itself. **What should I watch after ShakespeaRe-Told?** After *ShakespeaRe-Told*, try [*Throne of Blood*](https://film.one/film/throne-of-blood) (1957, Fi1m 88): Kurosawa’s Macbeth, with fog and arrows instead of a kitchen; still the standard. Then [*10 Things I Hate About You*](https://film.one/film/10-things-i-hate-about-you) (1999, Fi1m 80): The Shrew in an American high school, and more honest about the ending; and [*Canterbury Tales*](https://film.one/film/the-canterbury-tales) (2003, Fi1m 55): The BBC did Chaucer the same way two years earlier, with the same mixed results. ### Reviews we read (1) - **Variety**, Brian Lowry (40/100, inferred): Lowry finds the quartet intriguing but uneven, with its modernized Shakespeare often less successful than its ambition suggests. He praises the best installment’s whimsy and the casts, but finds the opening story sluggish and the overall experiment only moderately watchable. [Read](https://variety.com/2006/scene/markets-festivals/shakespeare-told-1200514406/) ## Details - **Created by:** Peter Bowker - **Creator:** Peter Bowker - **Director:** Mark Brozel, Ed Fraiman, Brian Percival - **Writer:** Sally Wainwright, David Nicholls, Peter Moffat - **Music:** Charlie Mole, Hal Lindes, Kevin Sargent, Tim Atack - **Production design:** Phil Roberson, Jon Henson, Claire Kenny, Malcolm Thornton - **Costume design:** Justine Luxton, Ralph Wheeler-Holes, Annie Symons, Stewart Meachem - **Producer:** Diederick Santer, Pier Wilkie - **Cast:** Shirley Henderson as Kate Minola; Nick Malinowski; Tom Ellis as Claude; Joseph Millson; Sharon Small; Olivia Colman as Ursula; Keeley Hawes as Ella Macbeth; Twiggy - **Runtime:** 1h 30m - **Release (Ireland):** 7 November 2005 - **Genres:** Drama ## Where to watch in Ireland Not streaming, renting or buying in Ireland at the last check. Also available in: US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Throne of Blood* (1957), Fi1m 88: Kurosawa’s Macbeth, with fog and arrows instead of a kitchen; still the standard. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/throne-of-blood.md) - *10 Things I Hate About You* (1999), Fi1m 80: The Shrew in an American high school, and more honest about the ending. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/10-things-i-hate-about-you.md) - *Scotland, PA* (2001): Macbeth as a 1970s burger bar; cheaper, nastier and oddly close to this one. - *Canterbury Tales* (2003), Fi1m 55: The BBC did Chaucer the same way two years earlier, with the same mixed results. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-canterbury-tales.md) - *The Hollow Crown* (2012), Fi1m 82: The histories with the verse left in, for when you want the words back. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/the-hollow-crown.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/shakespeare-told