The King's Speech tells the story of the man who became King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. After his brother abdicates, George ('Bertie') reluctantly assumes the throne. Plagued by a dreaded stutter and considered unfit to be king, Bertie engages the help of an unorthodox speech therapist named Lionel Logue. Through a set of unexpected techniques, and as a result of an unlikely friendship, Bertie is able to find his voice and boldly lead the country into war.
Queen Elizabeth II is the longest-reigning monarch in the history of Great Britain and the Commonwealth. While her service to her country is legendary, she has become a figure of strength, endurance, and dignity the world over and indeed we all feel connected to her. Through triumph, loss, scandal, and celebration, witness the story of how a young Princess became Queen to the people of the world.
An adaptation of the play by William Shakespeare. Prospera (a female version of Shakespeare's Prospero) is the usurped ruler of Milan who has been banished to a mysterious island with her daughter. Using her magical powers, she draws her enemies to the island to exact her revenge.
Caesar returns from war, all-conquering, but mutiny is rumbling through the corridors of power.
Norwegian researcher Petter Amundsen claims to have deciphered a secret code hidden in legendary playwright William Shakespeare's works that reveals a map leading to the location of certain treasures. British Shakespearean scholar Robert Crumpton embarks on a mission to prove he is spectacularly wrong. (A remake of “Shakespeare: The Hidden Truth,” including new discoveries.)
Lucy Worsley gets into bed with our past monarchs to uncover the Tales from the Royal Bedchamber. She reveals that our obsession with royal bedrooms, births and succession is nothing new. In fact, the rise and fall of their magnificent beds reflects the changing fortunes of the monarchy itself.
One of Shakespeare's greatest plays, The Winter's Tale, though written at the same period as The Tempest, smashes all the rules that The Tempest follows. Unity of time, place and action are hurled aside as we range across Europe, from court to country, from high tragedy to low comedy, across a time span of sixteen years. The Winter's Tale tells of a delusional and paranoid king who tears his family apart. But this is the new Shakespeare, after he completed his great tragedies, and the tough struggle for redemption yields flickers of hope. Initial darkness gives way to joy as Time leads the characters to a shattering conclusion...
Today, few people's clothes attract as much attention as the royal family, but this is not a modern-day paparazzi-inspired obsession. Historian Dr. Lucy Worsley, Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, reveals that it has always been this way. Exploring the royal wardrobes of our kings and queens over the last four hundred years, Lucy shows this isn't just a public fascination, but an important and powerful message from the monarchs. From Elizabeth I to the present Queen Elizabeth II, Lucy explains how the royal wardrobe's significance goes far beyond the cut and color of the clothing. Royal fashion is, and has always been, regarded as a very personal statement to reflect their power over the reign. Most kings and queens have carefully choreographed every aspect of their wardrobe; for those who have not, there have sometimes been calamitous consequences. As much today as in the past, royal fashion is as much about politics as it is about elegant attire.
A monarch ordained by God to lead his people. But he is also a man of very human weakness. A man whose vanity threatens to divide the great houses of England and drag his people into a dynastic civil war that will last 100 years.
Having helped his brother King Edward IV take the throne of England, the jealous hunchback Richard, Duke of Gloucester, plots to seize power for himself. Masterfully deceiving and plotting against nearly everyone in the royal court, including his eventual wife, Lady Anne, and his brother George, Duke of Clarence, Richard orchestrates a bloody rise to power before finding all his gains jeopardized by those he betrayed.
Sir Walter Raleigh overcomes court intrigue to win favor with the Queen in order to get financing for a proposed voyage to the New World.
Using drama and documentary this film tells the remarkable story of Cromwell, one of the most important characters of British history, yet revered and hated in equal measure. Charles I has been executed and an East Anglian farmer is about to become leader of all England.
The story behind the translation and performance of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" in Klingon.
Broadcast live on the Hallmark Hall of Fame series on NBC, a pair of divorced actors are brought together to participate in a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew. Of course, the couple seem to act a great deal like the characters they play, and they must work together when mistaken identities get them mixed up with the mafia.
On a remote island off the coast of Maine, Liv, after years of silence, begins to weave a language out of Shakespeare's words. A driven neurologist, brought to the island to protect her, commits her to a psychiatric hospital. She becomes a full-blow rebel in the hospital; her increasing violence threatens to keep her locked up for life as she fights for her voice and her freedom.
Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth commits a treasonous act and takes the throne for himself.
Equal parts documentary, essay, and narrative,"Captain Elliot's Circle" is mostly a poetic interaction with an obscure corner of Chinese and British history. Constructed using primary source documents about the taking of Zhoushan, Britain's first choice for a seaport, in the late 1830s,this movie uses Captain Charles Elliot's reluctance to brutalize the Chinese to reflect on the cyclical nature of history and the power structures that move it. The long takes used throughout function to illustrate the dramatically different ways in which people who lived in the mid-19th century perceived time. Additionally, it represents the psychological effect of living on an island regardless of what era you were born in.The last third of the movie focuses on a young woman whose strange day job has taken her far away from the island of Zhoushan generations after Captain Charles Elliot was last there. "Captain Elliot's Circle" was shot on location in Zhoushan and Hangzhou.
Broadcaster Gyles Brandreth travels to the West Yorkshire moors, known as "Bronte Country". It is an area that shaped the Bronte sisters, and they have, in turn, helped shape it. He explores some of the influences on their writing.
A young British nobleman comes back from fighting in the War of the Roses to discover that his father has been murdered by an old family friend who is now an outlaw. However, he becomes suspicious about the exact circumstances of his father's death and determines to find out exactly what happened.
Teenage lovers Tony and Tyan-Hwa tip the balance of power in New York's Little Italy and Chinatown.