Shakespeare: The Problem Plays: All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure For Measure, The Merchant of Venice, Timon of Athens, Troilus and Cressida, The Winter’s Tale

Written by William Shakespeare

William Collins Books and Decca Records are proud to present ARGO Classics, a historic catalogue of classic prose and verse read by some of the world’s most renowned voices. Originally released as vinyl records, these expertly remastered stories are now available to download for the first time.

All 6 of Shakespeare’s ‘Problem Plays’ are collected here, performed by the celebrated Marlowe Dramatic Society and Professional Players.

Mystery, power, and malevolence are present in these plays, all of which subvert the happy endings that one would expect in a comedy, and the tragic effect one would expect in a tragedy, to pose deeper, moral questions that echo modern society. Performed by an incredible array of the 20th century’s greatest actors, Marlowe alumni including Roy Dotrice, Prunella Scales, Ian McKellen, Michael Hordern, and Derek Jacobi can be heard in these recordings.

All of the Shakespeare plays within the ARGO Classics catalogue are performed by the Marlowe Dramatic Society and Professional Players. The Marlowe was founded in 1907 with a mission to focus on effective delivery of verse, respect the integrity of texts, and rescue neglected plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries and the less performed plays of Shakespeare himself. The Marlowe has performed annually at Cambridge Arts Theatre since its opening in 1936 and continues to produce some of the finest actors of their generations.

Thurston Dart, Professor of Music at London University and a Fellow of Jesus College Cambridge, directed the music for this production.

This collection includes all 6 plays considered as Shakespeare’s Problem Plays:
• All’s Well That Ends Well
• Measure For Measure
• The Merchant of Venice
• Timon of Athens
• Troilus and Cressida
• The Winter’s Tale

The full casts for each production in this collection can be found in the description of the individual play’s product page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Release date: Dec 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9780008462024

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, on England’s Avon River. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children—an older daughter Susanna and twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died in childhood. The bulk of Shakespeare’s working life was spent in the theater world of London, where he established himself professionally by the early 1590s. He enjoyed success not only as a playwright and poet, but also as an actor and shareholder in an acting company. Although some think that sometime between 1610 and 1613 Shakespeare retired from the theater and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616, others believe that he may have continued to work in London until close to his death.