Spotlight: Adaptations of plays

Many adaptations of stage plays have made it to television and to cinema over the years. Here's a selection of my favourites which currently live in my DVD collection:

Shakespeare - far too many to list and will be the subject of a succession of later posts.

Samuel Beckett:
The Beckett on Film project. From the short pieces (Play, Footfalls, That Time) to the longer plays (Endgame, Happy Days) this series showcased all of Beckett's stage work.

Performance:
A sequence of plays filmed for the BBC in the 1990s. Titles include Harold Pinter's Landscape and Old Friends, Jim Cartwright's Bed, Shakespeare's Richard II, a modern version of Strindberg's Miss Julie, Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, and Beckett's Endgame.

Oscar Wilde:
Choose from The Importance of Being Earnest (the 1952 film with Michael Redgrave, Michael Denison, and Edith Evans; the 1981 TV version with Gary Bond, Jeremy Clyde, and Wendy Hiller; the 1986 TV version with Paul McGann, Rupert Frazer, and Joan Plowright; or the 2002 film with Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, and Judi Dench); Lady Windermere's Fan (two silent versions in 1916 and 1925, Otto Preminger's 1949 film The Fan, or the 1985 TV version with Tim Woodward); An Ideal Husband (the 1947 film with Michael Wilding and Paulette Goddard; the 1969 television version with Keith Michell and Margaret Leighton; or the 1999 film with Jeremy Northam and Julianne Moore); or The Picture of Dorian Gray - strictly speaking an adaptation of a book (the 1945 film with Hurd Hatfield, the 1973 TV version with Shane Briant, the 1976 TV version with Peter Firth, the 2001 modern version featuring Malcolm McDowell, or the 2009 film with Ben Barnes).

Henrik Ibsen:
The Ibsen Collection; and Heddas Glenda Jackson, Janet Suzman, and Diana Rigg.

Anton Chekhov:
The Chekhov Collection; and versions of Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard featuring Alan Bates.

The American Film Theatre project.