From the BBC's exhaustive and typically exemplary adaptations of some of the great bard's best known plays and, like this, a number of his lesser known works, all filmed in the late 70s and early 80s and performed by pretty much the cream of British theatre. The five acts depict a dizzying change of alliances, a Papal excommunication and subsequent acceptance, and the play ends finally with King John's death at the hands of a monk.