Maggie Smith as Beatrice in 1967

Much Ado About Nothing. Dir. Alan Cooke. Perf. Derek Jacobi, Robert Stephens and Maggie Smith. BBC. 5 February 1967.

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Earlier this month, the British Film Institute and the Library of Congress announced the re-discovery of over sixty BBC television broadcasts long thought lost.

A few days ago, the Library of Congress posted two brief clips from those no-longer-lost broadcasts. One of them is of Maggie Smith as Beatrice:

Here's the script they're following (Shakespeare's text is slightly edited):

LEONATO
By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.

BEATRICE
For the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen.

LEONATO
You may light on a husband that hath no beard.

BEATRICE
What should I do with him? Dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth; he that hath no beard is less than a man: he that is more than a youth, I am not for him; he that is less than a man, he is not for me. Therefore, I will hire myself out for sixpence a day, as the virgin in the proverb, and lead apes into hell.

LEONATO
Well, then, go you into hell?

BEATRICE
Oh, no, no. But to the gate. (II.i.18-43)

We all devoutly hope for a full DVD release of the film from which this rare glimpse into BBC Shakespeare in the 1950s and 1960s comes.

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Links: The Film at IMDB. The Blog Post by the Library of Congress. The Complete List of the Films Discoverd.