Cinematic Shakespeare in Sound Only

Two Gentlemen of Valsna was recorded on location in Maharashtra, India. But when passers-by asked where the cameras were they were told: ‘there aren’t any’. Because this was a radio play. Director Willi Richards wanted a ‘filmic’ feel and used prominent actors from Bollywood and Indian television. Retaining Shakespeare’s story and English text, there are also additions in Hindi and Marathi, telling ‘another story, of the increasingly unwelcome British presence in India in 1857’, when Richards chose to set the play. This paper examines a production that is a radio/cinema hybrid, offering a different approach to presenting Shakespeare on both.