ABSTRACT
states. It was their one collaboration, but both would try to direct Shakespeare for commercial television again, with unhappy results. In 1969 CBS withdrew funding for Welles’ condensed Merchant of Venice during filming in Yugoslavia and in 1956 the end of Brook’s Hamlet for the new British commercial franchise ATV was faded out to make room for a jingle for Kia-ora orange juice. This provoked a bitter debate about the direction British culture was taking, so while the Labour MP Tom Driberg granted it was a sign of grace that commercial television broadcast Brook’s Hamlet at all, he protested that Shakespeare was being treated “as if it were simply merchandise from the same counter as a light variety show”.10 Twenty years later Brook saw Welles speak on French television and was struck deeply by his words: “We all betray Shakespeare”. The CBS Lear showed how revealing acts of betrayal can be.
