Shakespeare Wallah

Shakespeare Wallah
DVD cover
Directed by	James Ivory
Produced by	Ismail Merchant
Written by	Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Starring	Shashi Kapoor Felicity Kendal Madhur Jaffrey Geoffrey Kendal Partap Sharma
Music by	Satyajit Ray
Release date(s)	1965
Running time	120 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Shakespeare Wallah is a 1965 Merchant Ivory Productions film. The story and screenplay are by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Madhur Jaffrey won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 15th Berlin International Film Festival for her performance. The Music was composed by Satyajit Ray

Plot

Loosely based on the real-life Kendal family, this film follows the story of nomadic British actors as they perform in towns in post-colonial India performing plays by Shakespeare. 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), who is also romancing Manjula (Madhur Jaffrey) a Bollywood film star.

In real life, Shashi Kapoor fell in love with Felicity's elder sister Jennifer Kendal. Their marriage would provide an important contribution to the Indian film industry until Kendal's death in 1984.

Cast

• Shashi Kapoor - Sanju
• Felicity Kendal - Lizzie Buckingham
• Geoffrey Kendal - Mr. Tony Buckingham
• Laura Liddell - Mrs. Carla Buckingham
• Madhur Jaffrey - Manjula
• Utpal Dutt - Maharaja
• Praveen Paul - Didi
• Prayag Raj - Sharmaji (as Prayag Raaj)
• Pinchoo Kapoor - Guptaji
• Jim D. Tytler - Bobby (as Jim Tytler)
• Hamid Sayani - Headmaster's Brother
• Marcus Murch - Dandy in 'The Critic'
• Partap Sharma - Aslam

External links

• Merchant Ivory overview
• Shakespeare Wallah at the Internet Movie Database