RSC Shakespeare on Screen to feature Vanessa Redgrave in As You Like It

The Royal Shakespeare Company and the Barbican are offering a rare chance to catch Vanessa Redgrave's 1963 performance as Rosalind on the big screen in their Shakespeare on Screen season. Redgrave starred in Michael Elliott's production of As You Like It which will be screened on 19 January at 6pm.

The RSC have created RSC Shakespeare on Screen, a festival of highlights from 50 years of Shakespeare in performance.

The screenings will coincide with the RSC's King and Country plays at the Barbican. Nine titles have been selected from the archive of RSC work on stage or re-conceived for film and television.

John Wyver, RSC director of screen productions, commented how the films will feature some productions from the BBC archives that have been newly restored and will have hardly been seen since they were first shown.

Wyver went on to add: "the RSC Shakespeare on Screen season showcases some of the great performances of the British theatre from the past fifty years and more… It’s thrilling to present these at the start of the year that marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and to think that RSC productions from as long ago as fifty years can once again excite and involve and delight audiences today."

The film season will run at the Barbican Cinema from 9 to 31 January 2016 and will include:

•Macbeth (1979) with Judi Dench and Ian McKellen (9 January)
•An RSC Panel Discussion led by Judith Buchanan with current RSC artistic director Gregory Doran and other guests (10 January)
•A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1959), a rarely-seen partial recording of Peter Hall’s acclaimed staging (10 January)
•The Wars of the Roses: Henry VI (1965) with Janet Suzman (11 January)
•The Wars of the Roses: Edward IV (1965) with Peggy Ashcroft as Queen Margaret, Donald Sinden as the Duke of York and Roy Dotrice as Edward IV (11 January)
•The Wars of the Roses: Richard III (1965) with Janet Suzman and Eric Porter (12 January)
•Othello (1990) with Ian McKellen, Willard White, Imogen Stubbs and Zoe Wanamaker (17 January)
•As You Like It (1963), Michael Elliott’s version set around an oak tree with Vanessa Redgrave as Rosalind (19 January)
•Peter Brook's King Lear (1971) (23 January)
•A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1996) with Lindsay Duncan, Alex Jennings and Desmond Barrit (24 January)
•Hamlet (2008) with David Tennant (31 January)