All the World’s a Stage: A Celebration of Shakespeare’s First Folio

Introduced by Richard Curtis

In 1623, six years after Shakespeare’s death, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two actors in Shakespeare’s company, masterminded the publication of the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays.

The original publication contained thirty-six plays, divided into Comedies, Histories and Tragedies, and addressed to “The Great Variety of Readers”. To the best of our knowledge, eighteen of these plays had never been published before, and, without the First Folio, they might have been lost to the world.

The show was comprised of extracts from the eighteen plays that are first printed in the Shakespeare’s First Folio (and for most of them it is our only copy).

These plays range from the well-known favourites - Twelfth Night, Macbeth and As You Like It - to the more obscure - Timon of Athens, King John and Cymbeline.

All eighteen plays featured in some way, whether in a line or two of well-tuned verse, scenes, speeches or in song.

RUNNING ORDER

PROLOGUE: SEVEN AGES OF MAN 

Act 2 scene 7 from As You Like It 

INTRODUCTION - Richard Curtis

FIRST AGE: THE INFANT 

‘Elizabeth is presented to her father’ Act V scene 1 from Henry VIII

‘Perdita is banished’ Act II scene 3 from The Winter’s Tale 

SECOND AGE: THE WHINING SCHOOLBOY 

What You Will: Twelfth Night in Rehearsals An original sketch by Oscar Blustin (Newlands 2001³) 

THIRD AGE: THE LOVER 

‘O Mistress Mine’ Act II scene 3 from Twelfth Night (setting by Roger Quilter) 

‘Kate meets Petrucchio’ Act II scene 1 from The Taming of the Shrew 

‘Enobarbus describing Cleopatra’ Act II scene 2 from Antony and Cleopatra 

‘Viola and Orsino listen to a love song’ 

Act II scene 4 from Twelfth Night 

‘Come Away Death’ (setting by Roger Quilter) 

‘Helena confesses her love’ Act I scene 3 from All’s Well That Ends Well 

‘Valentine despairs at his banishment’ Act III scene 1 from The Two Gentlemen of Verona 

‘Who is Sylvia?’ Act IV scene 2 from The Two Gentlemen of Verona (setting by Gerald Finzi) 

‘Dromio panics’ Act III scene 2 from The Comedy of Errors 

‘It was a lover and his lass’ Act V scene 3 from As You Like It (setting by Gerald Finzi) 

FOURTH AGE: THE SOLDIER 

‘Antony’s prophesy’ Act III scene 1 from Julius Caesar 

‘The Bastard revels in battle’ Act II scene 1 from King John 

‘A messenger tells his king extraordinary news’ from Act V scene 5 from Macbeth 

‘Coriolanus and Aufidius find each other’ from Act 1 of Coriolanus 

‘A Talbot! A Talbot’ Acts I and II from Henry VI part 1 

‘MacDuff finds Macbeth’ Act V scene 6 from Macbeth 

FIFTH AGE: THE JUSTICE 

‘Justice and Iniquity’, Act II scene 1 from Measure for Measure 

SIXTH AGE: CHILDISH TREBLE 

‘Adam saves Orlando’ Act II scene 3 from As You Like It 

‘Blow, blow thou winter wind’ Act II scene 7 from As You Like It (setting by Frank Bridge) 

SEVENTH AGE: OBLIVION 

‘A necessary end’ extracts from all eighteen plays, including... ‘Timon’s last words’ 

Act V scene 1 from Timon of Athens 

‘Fear no more the heat of the sun’ Act IV scene 2 from Cymbeline (setting by Annabelle Brown) 

EPILOGUE Act IV scene 1 from The Tempest 

The list of Folio plays:

• All’s Well that End’s Well

• Anthony and Cleopatra

• As You Like It

• The Comedy of Errors

• Coriolanus

• Cymbeline

• Henry VI, Part 1

• Henry VIII (All is True)

• Julius Caesar

• King John

• Macbeth

• Measure for Measure

• The Tempest

• Timon of Athens

• Twelfth Night

• The Two Gentlemen of Verona

• The Winter’s Tale

• The Taming of the Shrew