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Shakespeare: The Complete Works

Argo Classics

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Shakespeare: The Complete Works

By: William Shakespeare
Narrated by: Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi, Diana Rigg, Roy Dotrice, Prunella Scales, Timothy West, full cast
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About this listen

William Collins Books and Decca Records are proud to present ARGO Classics, a historic catalogue of classic prose and verse read by some of the world’s most renowned voices. Originally released as vinyl records, these expertly remastered stories are now available to download for the first time.

For the first time, the complete works of Shakespeare are available to download as one. This collection includes all 37 plays, 4 narrative poems, and the sonnets.

Performed by an incredible array of the 20th century’s greatest actors, Ian McKellen, Timothy West, Diana Rigg, Derek Jacobi, Roy Dotrice, Prunella Scales, and many others can be heard in these recordings.

All of the Shakespeare plays within the ARGO Classics catalogue are performed by the Marlowe Dramatic Society and Professional Players. The Marlowe was founded in 1907 with a mission to focus on effective delivery of verse, respect the integrity of texts, and rescue neglected plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries and the less performed plays of Shakespeare himself. The Marlowe has performed annually at Cambridge Arts Theatre since its opening in 1936 and continues to produce some of the finest actors of their generations.

This collection brings together all of Shakespeare’s works, including:
• A Lover's Complaint
• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• All's Well That Ends Well
• Antony And Cleopatra
• As You Like It
• Coriolanus
• Cymbeline
• Hamlet
• Henry IV, Pt. 1
• Henry IV, Pt. 2
• Henry V
• Henry VI, Pt. 1
• Henry VI, Pt. 2
• Henry VI, Pt. 3
• Henry VIII
• Julius Caesar
• King John
• King Lear
• Love's Labour's Lost
• Macbeth
• Measure For Measure
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Othello
• Pericles, Prince Of Tyre
• Richard II
• Richard III
• Romeo And Juliet
• Sonnets
• The Comedy Of Errors
• The Merchant Of Venice
• The Merry Wives Of Windsor
• The Phoenix and the Turtle
• The Rape Of Lucrece
• The Taming Of The Shrew
• The Tempest
• The Two Gentlemen Of Verona
• The Winter's Tale
• Timon Of Athens
• Titus Andronicus
• Troilus And Cressida
• Twelfth Night
• Venus And Adonis

Public Domain (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers Limited Classics Drama & Plays Shakespeare
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I have always found Shakespeare’s work very good, though mostly the more famous works, so I thought, I’d take the plunge and get the whole works, and while I did enjoy the play like presentation, some of the Sonnets didn’t seem to sync with the listings, but the way the players presented the plays was excellent, I’m not a great reader, reading a physical book is not my forte, Dyslexia makes it quite a challenge, and the Tudor era language, is not exactly easy to get your head around, but having the audio of real Shakespeare players feed your brain the lines through the ears, and having the ability to stop, to check meanings when needed, or even replay a passage, to clear up your understanding, as well as the not losing your place on the page, every time you finish a line, as I am prone to do with physical books, making the reading a painfully slow experience, incredibly annoying, and off putting, this way is much more enjoyable, though I found some of the works we not particularly enjoyable, many were a pleasure, well done to all who took part.

Easy Going Shakespeare

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I downloaded this, slightly concerned that I’d have to wade through every play to find what I needed. But the plays are listed once you download the book on the app (it’s split into 9 parts, and each part is divided into chapters, with the beginning and end of each play being clearly marked). It would be handy to have a master list of plays, in order to locate the part you need to download if you don’t have room for everything, but they are in alphabetical order so it’s easy to make an educated guess. Wonderful value to have all the plays together like this.

The plays are listed now!

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This is the bargain of all bargains in the world. The greatest dramatic poetry of all time recorded by a team of outstanding actors under the direction of one of the leading Shakespearean scholars and directors. it's no exaggeration to suggest that these are the benchmark performances against which all others will be judged. The voices are exceptional for clarity of enunciation, unfailing sense of rhythm and grasp of the full poetic sense, acute awareness of what the words mean, suggest, imply... These actors really know the texts, which is not what we often hear in some recent productions. The audio quality is excellent, the economies are merely a matter of sound effects and range of music. The best possible present for any child, student or granny!

It's a terrible pity that Audible has so far not issued the companion set of wonderful recordings of great English poetry, Chaucer to Yeats, made by the same forces for the British Council. There are are very few such expert recordings of English poetry available.

The original recordings, which I have, are of Decca's finest audio quality. For some reason, Aidible has decided to transfer the recordings in much poorer quality sound. I agree with the reviewer who suggested that the trumpet calls should be muted.

Sets standards by which all others are judged!

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This collection is probably the best value item you can get for a credit on Audible. I've spent a very enjoyable year working through it simultaneously reading and listening through the Bards complete works.

However, there are a few technical problems with the collection. That there is no additional documentation such as cast lists is very frustrating, but liveable. The main problem is that there are several Plays with missing acts (an earlier problems with lack of Act division into "Chapters" was fixed in an early update), or with the Acts being in the wrong order, or with them randomly cutting the end off one act and having it at the start of the next.
Hopefully these issues will be fixed.
otherwise, highly recommend.

Great performances, slightly marred by technical e

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I didn't get past A Midsummer Night's Dream but honestly I enjoyed it less than the local outdoor amateur production.

I suppose it's of its time: on tape or vinyl the quality might have been acceptable but on modern devices it's just too distracting for me. Now, if the performances were captivating then I wouldn't even have noticed the technical shortcomings. At least in this first play of the collection, I didn't find them so.

RP or random Worzel accents, recorded in a toilet

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