Customer Reviews

BBC Shakespeare Tragedies II DVD Giftbox

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have the BBC Shakespeare complete and what can one say, other than it's superb! Word for word as written by WS, not edited, THE best actors in the known world - what more can one want? To read reviews like the previous, where he is NOT reviewing the product and production, but; rather, reviewing the VENDOR of the discs inflames my ire.

One can not go wrong viewing the BBC production of Shakespeare's works.

This is my fourth group of five Shakespeare plays from the BBC series. As before, the performances are excellent, the casting outstanding; the British have an inexhaustible supply of competent or better Shakespearean actors. And, as in all volumes from this series, these DVDs have the tremendous advantage of having the text appear as subtitles (you can turn them off if you so desire), which are of great help in understanding the dialog. The one reservation about this particular selection of plays is that only King Lear is among the Bard's greater plays, and two of them (Timon of Athens and Titus Andronicus) are among the most depressing things ever written. Still, it is good to be able to watch even those. I would like to see more of the plays become available in this five-volume format.

I would recommend turning on the English subtitles while watching each DVD to improve comprehension. Each DVD is about 2 hours in length. Hamlet is much longer.

The DVD's are generally ok, although the video and sound quality is not the best (unless you're viewing them on a <12" screen or your smartphone!). You can tweak the sound running the signal through an amplifier, so it's not a really big deal. However, sometimes they look more like 3rd generation copies. On several DVD's, if you use the subtitles, they are sometimes WAY, WAY out of synch with the actual spoken/viewed dialogue.This makes for a really nice memory game, but that's not what I purchased and not what Ambrose purports to sell! Fie on thee, Ambrose!

The box came with a slight wear on corners, even though I bought it as new. The two of the DVD I watched out of this set so far played well and were in good condition. Excellent production!

I bought all Shakespeare BBC series... Of course, had no time to watch all discs in a timely manner. One of the disks (so far) freezes and would not play. I contacted AMBROSE VIDEO PUBLISHING and they say that since the set was not bought from them directly, most likely is a illegal copy so they will not replace it.

The DVD is most likely original (I can tell a DVD-R from an original) but it will not play.

On one hand, AMBROSE VIDEO PUBLISHING wants to increase the sales by using Amazon but on the other hand will offer NO support from purchase made outside their site (if even this is true).

Other customers complain also about this kind of problem. Frankly, until this DVD, it never occurred to me to find an original, brand new DVD that would not play.

Update:

In the end, Ambrose got to better feelings and said "we stand behind our products". Indeed, they replaced the defective copy. Thank you guys!