Antony and Cleopatra (1959 film)

Antony and Cleopatra is a 1959 Australian television play based on the play by William Shakespeare.

It was broadcast live in Melbourne then recorded and screened in Sydney. The ABC also broadcast a production of Hamlet at the same time, which was broadcast live in Sydney then recorded and screened in Melbourne.

The Sydney Morning Herald critic wrote that:

Not much of the pomp and poetry came through the rich texture of Shakespeare's language in the... production.. although as a straightforward account of love and war this Melbourne performance Was satisfactory enough. Two things helped to lower the temperature of the love and the language; first, Arthur Chipper's rearrangement of the first half of the play was quite skillful, but the cutting was on a political rather than on a passionate bias, and second, producer Christopher Muir'_s use of cameras and- lighting did little—except in a few scenes — to imaginatively underline the play's mood, atmosphere, and growing tensions.