The Tempest casts strange spells at the cinema

Shakespeare's plays have inspired a vast number of films, but Prospero's story is behind some of the oddest and richest

So far there have been more than 400 film adaptations of Shakespeare that's more than any other author. There have been plenty of successes and even a few triumphs, but anyone who's laughed at, felt enraged by and fallen asleep during Laurence Olivier, Derek Jaocbi and Mel Gibson's variously awful attempts at Hamlet, for instance, will know all varieties of actors and directorial approaches can fail to make Shakespeare work on the screen.

Continue reading...