Helen Mirren Remembers - As You Like It

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Summary

Dame Helen Mirren looks back on one of her earliest television roles, filmed before she'd become a household name and international star, playing Rosalind in the BBC's 1978 production of the Shakespeare comedy As You Like It. She shares her thoughts on the potential that As You Like It's playing with gender could have for today's audiences, reflects on the quality of the roles Shakespeare wrote for women and explains why she thinks the Bard will be as significant in 100 years' time as he is today.

Review

David Butcher

Actors don’t tend to put the boot into Shakespeare, it’s bad form. But Helen Mirren makes the case here, in a programme first shown in 2023, that many of his female characters are, in fact, “horribly underwritten”. When she played Ophelia, Mirren found the role frustrating, and even “Lady M” has only one great scene, she argues. (“When in doubt, write a mad scene for your heroine…”) An exception is Rosalind in As You Like It, which was one of Mirren’s first TV roles in 1978, and has plenty of wit and poetry. “When you play her,” says Mirren, “You think, ‘My God, does this woman ever shut up!’”

This BBC Television Shakespeare production of As You Like It follows at 10.10pm, filmed in and around Glamis Castle in Scotland, with Mirren and the late Angharad Rees wearing medieval headpieces so elaborate, they almost steal the show.

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rolenameSeries producerSimon GoretzkiProducerSimon Catt

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