There are times, especially in Macbeth, where many of the actors don't have the on camera experience of the other performances (it was shot in 1978 and neither McKellen or Dench had yet to embark on their film careers to any large degree) and it often gives the impression that they are overacting something horrible. They are simply too big for the camera to contain as they are still giving performances that are geared towards ensuring that the person in the last row of the theatre is able to get as much out of it as those in the front row.

Personally I preferred the two that had been transfered from the stage to the television over the two made for the small screen. Although I wasn't necessarily in agreement with all the choices Ian McKellen made in his portrayal of Macbeth, I found his and Judi Dench's performance as Lady Macbeth specifically, and the casts of Macbeth and Twelfth Night in general, more exciting and alive than the others.

While the casts of the other two performances gave wonderful readings of the text, showing complete mastery and comprehension of the language and the verse, they lack the theatricality of the stage versions. While this makes them ideal for the camera, which picks up the subtlest of movements and slightest nuances of speech, I personally find that it takes a good deal of the life out of the text. This was language that was written for declaiming from a stage, to be larger than life, so when it is performed as realistic dialogue appropriate for the small screen I find it loses what made it special in the first place.

Of the four performances in the set, only Twelfth Night wasn't filmed in the 1970s, and the two made for television productions show their age somewhat more than the others. In particular the sets are more obviously stage pieces than the realistic backgrounds today's audiences are used to. The production of Macbeth is spared this because they recreated the minimalist stage settings of the original production and perform it in a virtually bare studio, using only occasional pieces of furniture to define the setting.

In Romeo And Juliet and King Lear the obvious artificiality of the sets creates a theatrical backdrop for the performances that is somewhat at odds with the more naturalistic presentation of the text. While it doesn't detract from the quality of individual performances, they were disconcerting enough that I was distracted from the on screen action each time the set changed.