BBC Shakespeare On Sale
Since I wrote about the BBC Shakespeare DVDs two and a half years ago, prices have dropped on both sides of the Atlantic. You can now get the American discs for $99.99 per set, down from $149.99, but that still means paying $389.96 for only 20 plays at Amazon, which comes to roughly $19.50 per play. (One of them is 10% off right now.) The UK box, containing all 37 plays, lists for £199,99, but is on sale right now at Amazon UK for only £81,97, or roughly $128 (US), which works out to less than $3.50 per play. Of course, you will need an all-region DVD player to view them in the U.S., but those are not expensive, and are useful for watching other films not available in Region 1 coding.
The icing on the cake: Amazon UK usually subtracts 15% when shipping expensive items to U.S. addresses, since Americans, not being eligible for the National Health, aren’t expected to pay the VAT tax that finances it. That would bring the price down to less than $3.00 per play, plus shipping, which was fast and reasonably-priced when I bought the set a few years ago.
It’s nice to have all the plays, since the ones not available in the U.S. box sets are precisely the ones you are least likely to see in a theater.