November 22, 2012

Tom Treadwell & Bill Shepherd produced The Complete Arkangel Shakespeare a 98 CD set of unabridged Shakespeare's 38 plays, with a total playing time of 102 hours. (The plays were originally released in the late 1990's in groups of 4 or 5 on cassettes.) The productions were recorded with over 400 actors, many of whom have worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and each each play contains original music, composed by Dominique Le Gendre, and radio-like sound effects. The performances were recorded in London at The Sound House.

This was the first ever audio set of Shakespeare's complete plays.

In the UK the cassettes were released by Penguin Audiobooks and in the US the set was originally released by Audio Partners Publishing, which was acquired in 2007 by BBC Audiobooks of America.

Winner of the Audie Award for Best Drama and Finalist for Audiobook of the Year.

Clive Brill spent seven years producing drama for BBC radio and in 1990 he became head of Development for BBC TV Series. He took on this "Shakespearean" task in 1996. He has directed David in the radio drama's The Island, Murder in Samarkand, The Purple Land. and a staged reading of Edward III at The Globe.
T
he Book of the Week readings of Robert Louis Stevenson's biography,the week long Night With A Vampire series from 2010 and the play A Quick Change ,which all feature David, were all Pacificus Productions with Clive as the producer.
Tom Treadwell, who formed Arkangel Productions, was a university professor whose speciality was Elizabethan drama.  He approached Clive in 1996 with the idea of the recordings. In 2000 they formed Pacificus Productions, which produces films, plays and radio.  

"A rhapsody of words, assembled for the ear. This venture marries scholarship and accessibility on an unmatched scale. The real strength lies in the astonishing intimacy offered by a sound recording."  - New York Times.

The CD's come with a synopsis of the story and a cast list and the tracks are split by act/scene, with a few exceptions. 

The Complete Pelican Shakespeare was the published texts that were used for the recordings. It took five years and $3 million to complete the recordings and included the acting talents of Eileen Atkins, Joseph Fiennes, Sir John Gielgud, Ciaran Hinds, Alan Howard, Jane Lapotaire, Amanda Root, Sophie Thompson, Samuel West, and Timothy West.

David performs on many titles including:

Comedy of Errors -Antipholus of Syracuse
Henry VI Part 1, 2, & 3 - Henry VI
King Lear - Edgar/Poor Tom
The Merchant of Venice - Launcelot Gobbo
Romeo & Juliet - Mercutio
Macbeth - Porter
Richard III - The Archbishop/Ghost of Henry VI


"Some of the performances are truly outstanding. . . Hugh Ross and Harriet Walker are chillingly urgent, driven Macbeths, with a brilliant comic, favor-currying Porter monologue by David Tennant (also a dynamic Mercutio and an affecting Edgar in "Lear")." - The San Francisco Chronicle - August 17, 2003 - Robert Hurwitt

I agree - I love him as The Porter!

Listen - Porter