I really enjoy most Shakespeare and have done since school days. I guess I was lucky in doing Midsummer Nights Dream for O Level, which is certainly one of the lightest / most enjoyable. Whilst I enjoyed it, I still feel there's something not quite right about "reading" Shakespeare - it really needs to be seen as theatre.

Some of the best productions I have seen...
- Ian McKellen in King Lear a couple of years ago
- Every couple of years here in Singapore they do a Shakespeare in the park - the whole picnic, wine etc. This year was Much Ado About Nothing and the last one was Midsummer Nights Dream - both highly enjoyable afternoon / evenings (even my 6 & 8 year olds enjoyed)
- I remember seeing Roland Gift doing Romeo & Juliet at the Edinburgh festival - must have been sometime in the early 90's
- The Ken Brannagh productions were always good - saw him, Emma Thompson, Richard Briers etc doing Midsummer Nights.

And then of course there's the film Prosperos' Books............

Saw Mark Rylance and Janet McTeer in the above at Hull New Theatre many years ago and it was a fabulous production. The same with Derek Jacobi and Dorothy Tutin in Anthony and Cleopatra in Leeds.
When I've seen Shakespeare in "larger theatres" it has not always worked mainly I think because of the physical distance between the actors and the audience. You need to concentrate for the entire play which can be difficult if you are 3/4s of the way back. The cast also need to be first class actors for it to work.
Northern Broadsides productions of Shakespeare are usually very accessible.
I'd love to see a play at The Globe in London which i'm sure would be the true experience of Shakespeare.

1. The Tempest - saw Derek Jacobi do Prospero at the Old Vic a few years ago - absolutely superb

2. Coriolanus - saw it performed in Portsmouth a few years back - really intense, violent and harrowing stuff - but so well written

3. Timon Of Athens - have only read it, but even that was enough - a tragedy of a life, written so well you can read it like a novel and not get confused

4. A Midsummer Night's Dream - the nicest of all his plays - there's a bargain version of it on DVD that's better than the cinematic 1999 version of it - couldn't find a link of it - but it does exist

5. Romeo & Juliet (Baz Lurhman version) - it's a bit more intense in this version than the theatrical version, which can border on the inane a little bit

Others worth checking out are The Winter's Tale and Henry V (the Kenneth Branagh one is quite good). Both very different, but both equally as enjoyable.

Doesn't get the same amount of limelight as some others but really is excellent and deserves to be considered one of Shakey's best - I saw Derek Jacobi in this role quite a few years back.

As an aside, I strongly recommend the novel Will by Christopher Rush, which finds the man looking back on his life from his deathbed - the language is wonderfully rich, fruity and filthy...

If you manage to see a production there, they use the castle as the set.

I did my MA dissertation on Shakespeare's later plays, and, despite this, I still love old Shakey. I have a worrying feeling that I only passed because no-one has actually read the later plays in their entirety, so no-one could contradict my spurious assumptions. It's safe to summise that it's not just rock stars who go a wee bit pants towards the end of their careers.

Ian Mckellen and Judy Dench are pretty good in Macbeth, too - have a glance on youtube.

is an underperformed masterpiece.
I saw Cheek By Jowl's production (a good few years ago now) and it was excellent.

I too took my MA in Shakespeare. My dissertation was also full of spurious assertion and assumption. However, mine was ripped to shreds as my tutor was paying attention. :-)

They're pretty good.

I was helping number one child with a bit of Macbeth homework last night and thinking that it's about time we went and saw something at the theatre.
I have very happy memories of Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet a few years ago and seeing Anthony Hopkins as Lear at the National.
But perhaps the best memories, as mentioned by Twang in the OP are of summer evenings in the gardens at Cliveden for Midsummer Night's and the Tempest amongst others.

Years ago I queued for hours to get free tickets for a performance of Othello in a circular wooden theatre in New York's Central Park.

The late Raul Julia played the lead, and was terrific, but Iago was played by the one and only Christopher Walken, who was sensational from start to finish. A complete revelation - funny, frightening, mad, loving, often at the same time.

He was riveting, and anybody who says his acting can go so over the top that it`s practically in the next trench should have seen him that night. A true master at work.

Daniel Day Lewis see his father(cs lewis)'s ghost, which precipitated his departure?

the Paul Schofield King Lear at a more than reasonable amount - highly recommended. Production values are a bit iffy in places, but the performances are so good you won't care.

On a side note, I still get rather crapped off when I hear folk say, "I don't like Shakespeare, I can't understand what they're saying" or variants on the same. Imagine having to think about what you're hearing and seeing. Imagine expecting an audience to have to do some work to get an outstanding level of return. If you don't want to put a bit of effort in, back to Big Brother for the lot of you. End of rant.

But live is *usually* enjoyable. I saw a terrible modern version of Hamlet - it's no good firing Kalashnikovs throughout the performance only to inexplicably switch to swords for the big fight now really, is it?

I saw Anthony Quayle as King Lear, and he was pretty hammy, I think he was still coming back on stage for encores after the last member of the audience had left

Most memorable was John Woodvine as Falstaff in "the Henries" - a marvellous actor needless to say, but the performance remains with me because at one point, he cracked *6* raw eggs into a tankard and with some "will he?, won't he?" pantomime, eventually downed the lot (to the loudest applause of the night). Presumably repeated each night for the run, twice with a matinee.

He's still alive too, it would appear. Cool Hand Luke? - pah!

the poems and the sonnets are wonderful too. A particular favourite is Sonnet 60:

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end,
Each changing place with that which goes before
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith, being crowned,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight
And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of natures truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow;
And yet, to times, in hope, my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

is, for many, the last word in Shakespeare on film. Never seen it, personally. Always think that it was a shame that Michael Powell never got to make The Tempest. That would have been good. I believe he had Mia Farrow planned to play Ariel.

in a production where the cast were dressed up in Hindu costume. I am serious here.

It was crap.

I also saw a brilliant, all female, version of Richard III at the Globe which starred the rather wonderful Kathryn Hunter.

Best Shakespeare I ever saw? Hamlet at Cumbernauld theatre about twenty years ago by a company called (I think) Kaos Theatre. The only set was a mat on the floor, the cast were on stage throughout, no props (sword fights were done with arms), there was a lot of rolling about on the floor physical theatre type stuff which took me aback, Guildenstern was silent, Rosencrantz did all the talking, and the sheer energy which went into it blew me away. I think my genuine love of Shakespeare came from this production.

Bouncy castle Macbeth. I jest not.

Can't imagine daggers would be a good idea in those circumstances.

...so it sort of comes with the induction pack, sandwiched between the tweedy jacket and the Hugh Grant wig, but I do completely adore Shakespeare. Naysayers are... well, I don't know what the fuck's wrong with them, frankly. Shakespeare is the only cultural experience - both read and seen - which never ever gets stale for me. There's always something more, and when he was seriously on his game he was (dare I say it? Yes, I think I do) THE towering genius of Western culture.

For the record, my top five would be:

1. Lear
2. Henry V
3. Sonnet 65
4. Much Ado
5. Othello

:-)