Remembrance of Things Past: Shakespeare's Comedies on French Television

                                                 Sarah Hatchuel & Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin

Abstract

This essay explores how Shakespeare's comedies were adapted, appropriated and transformed by French television, with a focus on the early days of television. It analyses several French adaptations of Shakespeare's comedies: As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. How have these comedies been appropriated by the French small screen and to what effects? How did the comedies insert themselves into French television culture? What changes were necessary to adapt them to French humour? What did these films reveal about the complex relationships between theatre and television? Here are the questions that this essay strives to tackle.

This article was first published in Shakespeare on Screen: Television Shakespeare. Essays in honour of Michèle Willems. Ed. Sarah Hatchuel & Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin. Publications des Universités de Rouen et du Havre, 2008. 171-97 <http://purh.univ-rouen.fr/node/173>. It is reproduced here as a clickable PDF document with kind permission from the PURH.

How to Cite

HATCHUEL, Sarah and Nathalie VIENNE-GUERRIN. "Remembrance of Things Past: Shakespeare's Comedies on French Television." In Patricia Dorval & Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin (eds). Shakespeare on Screen in Francophonia: The Shakscreen Collection 2. Montpellier (France): IRCL, Université Paul-Valéry/Montpellier 3, 2013. Online: http://shakscreen.org/hatchuel_vienne_2008/. Originally published in Shakespeare on Screen: Television Shakespeare. Essays in honour of Michèle Willems. Ed. Sarah Hatchuel & Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin. Publications des Universités de Rouen et du Havre, 2008. 171-97.