Shakespeare's Early Stars: Did you see them here first?

We've scoured the archives and collected a few famous faces as you may not have seen them. Many have been found from The BBC Television Shakespeare series - the complete plays, broadcast between 1978 and 1985. And we've a few other surprises, including a silent short with a very youthful John Gielgud! Enjoy our collection...

Alan Rickman (1946-2016) was a fine, versatile actor on stage, screen and radio who played everything from villains to romantic leads. But there’s no escaping the fact that he made a great baddie!

The RADA graduate took on numerous Shakespearean roles in theatre before playing Tybalt in his first television role – kicking off the BBC Television Shakespeare series, and a glittering career.

Rickman had it all – a touch of evil as Hans Gruber in Die Hard or the dastardly Sherriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, and dark ambiguous complexity as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films.

With his rich resonating voice and wry expression, a dryly comic delivery marked many of his roles, including that of ‘Dr Lazaras’/ Alexander Dane in in the comic space adventure Galaxy Quest. With tongue firmly in cheek, Rickman portrayed Dane, the former Shakespearean great who found himself trapped in a tacky TV ‘space opera’.

And just like Dane in his heyday, we’re certain that Rickman has received many ovations and repeat curtain calls - what a legend…

Find more about BBC Television Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet and read the full cast list.

This production of Henry V is Part Eight of a fifteen-part BBC series comprising Shakespeare’s history plays from Richard II to Richard III (the two tetralogies).

This is the second and final part of Henry V, and in this scene from 1960 a very youthful Judi Dench is being wooed by Henry...

BAFTA winner Dame Judi Dench

Dame Judi trained at the National Theatre and RSC. Her illustrious career has taken in several Shakespeare productions and many acclaimed TV and Film roles - including Mrs Brown, and the no-nonsense head of M16, 'M' in James Bond films alongside Daniel Craig.

Part of the BBC's An Age of Kings series.

Virginia McKenna, actor and wildlife campaigner, is probably most famous among film fans for her role in Born Free (1966). In the 1950s she was part of the Old Vic Theatre and as her TV career took off she won a BAFTA for her performance in the movie A Town Like Alice (1956).

Virginia McKenna in Romeo and Juliet (BBC, 1955)

This is an early appearance as Juliet in the BBC’s 1955 production. Later in the BBC Television Shakespeare series, McKenna also played Portia in Julius Caesar (1979).

Find more about BBC Television Shakespeare: Julius Caesar - and read the full cast list.

Sir Ian McKellen clearly lives and breathes Shakespeare, often sharing his knowledge and passion with fans both in person at special events and via Twitter.

McKellen recently kicked off our 24 Hour Shakespeare celebration in style. He also gave a special talk at the BFI about his life and career with Shakespeare.

In 1969, Sir Ian starred in Prospect Theatre Company's Edinburgh Festival production, Edward II - by Christopher Marlow, which was recorded at the Piccadilly Theatre, London.

Richard II was his first TV Shakespeare performance. Over the course of a long and distinguished career, McKellen has delighted fans on stage, radio, tv and film.

Ian McKellen in Edward II - 1969

Among his many Shakespeare performances is the haunting Richard III.

These days he's probably most famous among film fans as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings films, and also as Magneto in The X-Men.

Academy Award winning actor Vanessa Redgrave, a member of the successful Redgrave acting family, has appeared in over 80 films, and began her career with the RSC, where she first played Rosalind in As You Like It in 1961.

The BBC production soon followed and gave Redgrave one of her first prominent TV roles.

She has been a consistent star of TV and Film since, recently narrating the popular BBC One drama Call The Midwife and appearing in films such as Atonement and Foxcatcher.

Our clip, from the 1963 BBC production of As You Like It, is featured in the RSC's collection of Great Shakespeare Speeches...

As You Like it in 1978 was only Helen Mirren’s second TV role, having played a number of Shakespearean characters with the RSC in the ‘60s and ‘70s after graduating from the National Youth Theatre.

Helen Mirren's BBC TV Shakespeare roles - Imogen in Cymbeline, Rosalind in As You Like It, and Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Since then Mirren has starred in numerous films, both cult and mainstream. In recent years, she has played Elizabeth I in the TV series Elizabeth (also portraying Elizabeth on stage), and was the outspoken Chris in the hugely popular Calendar Girls film with Julie Walters. Mirren most famously portrayed Elizabeth II in the movie The Queen (2006) – bagging an Academy Award.

Read the cast list for BBC Television Shakespeare: As You Like It.

Patsy Byrne, 1933 - 2014, gave an unforgettable performance as Nursie in the BBC comedy Blackadder - always putting her foot in it, embarrassing Queen Elizabeth I (Miranda Richardson) and frequently missing the point.

In As You Like It, a young Byrne portrays the unsophisticated country girl Audrey, the object of Touchstone's affections...

Sir Michael Gambon rose to fame on TV playing Detective Philip Marlow in The Singing Detective, and followed up with the controversial drama The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover – also starring Helen Mirren.

This is an early TV Shakespeare appearance from Gambon, as Theseus in the BBC's Play of the Month. He had also appeared the 1965 film version of Othello, which starred Laurence Olivier. Following experience at the National Theatre, Gambon played several title roles in Shakespeare productions at Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

Gambon found further fame in Hollywood, starring as Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films.

Is that Benny from Crossroads?! Oh yes. Before Paul Henry found fame and cult stardom as handyman Benny Hawkins in the British soap opera, he was paired up with comedy legend Ronnie Barker in the BBC's Play of the Month, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Here's Henry as a lovestruck Thisbe, lamenting the cruel death of heroic lover Pyramus (played by Barker as Bottom!)

“Ooh, Betty!” - Michelle Dotrice has had a varied career, mixing classical roles with contemporary drama and comedy. Fans of 1970s sitcom Some Mother’s Do ‘Ave ‘Em will know her as the loving wife of hapless hero Frank Spencer. More recently, she has played mother to Sheridan Smith's eponymous central character in Inside Number Nine: The 12 Days of Christine, which was created by the team behind dark comedy The League of Gentlemen.

In Henry IV, part 1, Dotrice is wife to Harry Percy, played here by a youthful Tim Piggott-Smith...

We've rounded up a few stars of British TV, and something of a collection of sit-com royalty! Felicity Kendall stars as Viola, with Robert Lindsay as Fabian, Trevor Peacock as Feste and Annette Crosbie as Maria.

Patrick Stewart joined the RSC in 1966 and his first TV appearance was in ITV’s soap drama Coronation Street in 1967. Among many credits, Stewart revisited the role of Claudius in the 2008 RSC production of Hamlet, starring David Tenant as Hamlet, and also played John of Gaunt in the BBC's The Hollow Crown: Richard II (2012)

More recently, Stewart will be known to many as a star of the X-Men films and TV’s re-booted Star Trek: The Next Generation. He’s also a bit of a Twitter legend!

Quarshie has had a few roles in BBC Shakespeare TV productions, also playing Aaron in Titus Andronicus in 1985 and voicing Cassius in Julius Caesar for Shakespeare: The Animated Tales, in 1994.

Fans of the BBC medical drama Holby City will know Quarshie as Ric Griffin, a role he has played since 2001.

Bob Hoskins (1942-2014) once uttered the telecoms ad catchphrase "It’s good to talk” - and it’s great to see him talking Shakespeare here, although we’re not sure we like much of what he’s saying as the nasty, conniving Iago. As Othello's old lieutenant, Iago doesnt like Cassio (Othello's new lieutenant), and plans, with the help of his wife Emilia, to destroy both Cassio and Othello through Othello's feelings for Desdemona...

Hoskins' breakthrough TV role was in Dennis Potter's Pennies from Heaven in 1978, followed by a turn as a gangster out of his depth in cult British movie The Long Good Friday (1980). He was later nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in Mona Lisa (1986). Since then roles were many and various - Hoskins appeared alongside an animated bunny in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and next to another British great, Judi Dench, in Mrs Henderson Presents (2005).

With a range of TV and film appearances to his name, Daniels guest-voiced the pop track Parklife by Blur in 1995 and In 2006 joined the cast of the BBC’s soap drama Eastenders, playing wheeler-dealer Kevin Wicks until 2008.

Here he is enjoying a bit of 'Pucklife' (sorry!) getting up to mischief with the fairies...

Now a veteran of stage and screen, a young Penelope Wilton played one of the less well-intentioned sisters here. She also played Desdemona in the BBC's Othello.

Penelope Wilton in Dr Who (BBC)

In a career spanning numerous dramatic and comic roles, Wilton played opposite Richard Briers in BBC sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles, went on to star in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads series and films including Calendar Girls, Shaun of the Dead and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Wilton has also starred in the BBC's Dr Who: The Christmas Invasion and is also know to many for playing Isobel Crawley in ITV's popular period drama Downton Abbey.

Following her screen debut in the play Grown Ups as part of the BBC's Playhouse strand – the start of her ongoing collaboration with director Mike Leigh - Brenda Blethyn took on roles in the BBC Television Shakespeare series, as Cordelia in King Lear and Joan of Arc in Henry VI, Part 1.

Brenda Blethyn with Penelope Wilton and Gillian Barge - King Lear (BBC, 1982)

Blethyn is another popular star of TV and Film, with standout performances in Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies, as well as the film adaptation of Jim Cartwright's Little Voice and the lead role as eponymous detective in the ITV drama Vera...

Never one to be pigeonholed, Roger Daltrey's varied and envelope-pushing performance career has seen him not only find prolongued success as frontman of British pop act The Who, but stretch his acting muscles. Who could forget bizarre rock-opera Tommy (1977)?

In The Comedy of Errors it's a double role for Roger Daltrey and Michael Kitchen, each playing 'two of a kind' - sets of identical twins separated soon after birth and living in rival cities. When 'The boys from Syracuse' arrive in Ephesus, an ingenious sequence of misunderstandings and false identifications follows...

Macbeth on The Estate was part of BBC 2's Performance season, filmed on an inner city estate in Ladywood, Birmingham, and also starring Ray Winstone as Duncan

David Harewood has risen to prominence in TV Dramas in the UK and USA, from The Night Manager and Hustle on BBC One to the tense political thriller Homeland for HBO.

Harewood is from Birmingham in the English West Midlands (so there’s another link to Shakespeare!)

Hamlet at Elsinore is a BBC/ Danish Radio co-production, filmed at Elsinore Castle

This is Michael Caine’s only classical role. He had no formal training, but went on to become a major film star, earning two supporting actor Academy Awards from a varied career of films including Zulu, Alfie, The Italian Job, Get Carter, Hannah and her Sisters, The Cider House Rules, and more recently the re-booted Batman movies starting with Batman Begins.

Christopher Plummer is also a famous face in Hollywood, and a much-awarded and nominated actor, the oldest actor to scoop the Academy Award at age 82! As King Lear in 2004 he was nominated for a Tony Award, and his varied career has taken in everything from the film musical The Sound Of Music (1965) to the Terry Gilliam fantasy The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus (2009).

Enjoy more great Hamlet performances from BBC Shakespeare Lives.

In 1994, Gielgud led a star-studded cast in the BBC Radio 3 and Renaissance Theatre Company co-production of King Lear, recorded as a special tribute to Sir John who celebrated his 90th birthday that year.

Gielgud had a long and illustrious career, with a great theatrical heritage and more than 60 films to his name. He appeared in many BBC Shakespeare adaptations on television and radio.