''Shakespeare Wallah'' is a 1965 Merchant Ivory Productions film. The story and screenplay are by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, about a travelling family theatre troupe of English actors in

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

, who perform Shakespeare plays in towns across India, amidst a dwindling demand for their work and the rise of

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

. Madhur Jaffrey won the

Silver Bear for Best Actress The Silver Bear for Best Actress (german: Silberner Bär/Beste Darstellerin) was an award presented at the Berlin International Film Festival from 1956 to 2020. It was given to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance and was cho ...

at the 15th Berlin International Film Festival for her performance. The music was composed by

Satyajit Ray Satyajit Ray (; 2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian director, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and music composer. One of the greatest auteurs o ...

Plot

Loosely based on the real-life actor-manager Geoffrey Kendal's family and his travelling "Shakespeareana Company", which earned him the Indian

sobriquet A sobriquet ( ), or soubriquet, is a nickname, sometimes assumed, but often given by another, that is descriptive. A sobriquet is distinct from a pseudonym, as it is typically a familiar name used in place of a real name, without the need of expl ...

"Shakespearewallah", the film follows the story of nomadic British actors as they perform

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

plays in towns in post-colonial

. In this story, Tony Buckingham ( Geoffrey Kendal) and his wife Carla (Laura Liddell) oversee the troupe. Their daughter, Lizzie Buckingham ( Felicity Kendal), falls in love with Sanju (

Shashi Kapoor Shashi Kapoor (pronounced �əʃi kəpuːɾ (born Balbir Raj Kapoor; 18 March 1938 – 4 December 2017) was an Indian actor and film producer who is best known for his work in Hindi films. A recipient of several accolades, including four Natio ...

), who is also romancing Manjula ( Madhur Jaffrey), a

film star. In real life,

fell in love with Felicity's elder sister Jennifer Kendal. Their marriage provided an important contribution to the Indian film industry until Kendal's death in 1984.

Cast

as Sanju * Felicity Kendal as Lizzie Buckingham * Geoffrey Kendal as Tony Buckingham * Laura Liddell as Carla Buckingham * Madhur Jaffrey as Manjula *

Utpal Dutt Utpal Dutta () (29 March 1929 – 19 August 1993) was an Indian actor, director, and writer-playwright. He was primarily an actor in Bengali theatre, where he became a pioneering figure in Modern Indian theatre, when he founded the "Little T ...

as Maharaja * Praveen Paul as Didi *

Prayag Raj Allahabad (), List of renamed Indian cities and states, officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut ...

as Sharmaji (as Prayag Raaj) *

Pinchoo Kapoor Pinchoo Kapoor (1927 – April 28, 1989) was an Indian actor born in Rawalpindi, Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical r ...

as Guptaji * Jim D. Tytler as Bobby (as Jim Tytler) *

Hamid Sayani Hamid refers to two different but related Arabic given names, both of which come from the Arabic triconsonantal root of Ḥ-M-D (ِِح-م-د): # (Arabic: حَامِد ''ḥāmid'') also spelled Haamed, Hamid or Hamed, and in Turkish Hamit; i ...

as Headmaster's Brother *

Marcus Murch Marcus, Markus, Márkus or Mărcuș may refer to: * Marcus (name), a masculine given name * Marcus (praenomen), a Roman personal name Places * Marcus, a main belt asteroid, also known as (369088) Marcus 2008 GG44 * Mărcuş, a village in Dobârl ...

as Dandy in 'The Critic' * Partap Sharma as Aslam * Jennifer Kendal as Mrs Bowen (uncredited) * Ismail Merchant as Theater Owner (uncredited)

Production

After the success of the first film, ''

The Householder ''The Householder'' (Hindi title: ''Gharbar'') is a 1963 film by Merchant Ivory Productions, with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and James Ivory, and direction of James Ivory. It is based upon the 1960 novel of the same name by Jhabval ...

'' (1963), the team of Ivory and Merchant reunited with screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and actor Shashi Kapoor for this film. Due to budget constraints, the film was shot in black and white, and the Kendal family play their own fictionalized counterparts, the Buckinghams.

Reception

The film holds a score of 89%, based on 9 critics, on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

Home media

It was released on DVD from Odyssey, as well as in a boxset as part of the Merchant Ivory Collection of the Merchant Ivory Productions.

References

External links

''Shakespeare Wallah''
at the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

*
Merchant Ivory overview