Richard Clifford on AllMovie

Shakespeare fans in Britain and America generally are well acquainted with the work of Richard Clifford. After performing regularly in acclaimed productions of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he appeared in other Shakespeare productions on Broadway and in London's West End. In addition, he has acted in three of pal Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare films: Love's Labour's Lost (2000) as Boyet, a lord in the company of the Princess of France; Much Ado About Nothing (1993) as Conrade, a follower of the evil Don John; and Henry V (1989), as the Duke of Orleans, one of the leaders of the French army. Clifford has also performed in productions based on the works or the lives of other giants of literature, including Gulliver in Lilliput (1982), Cyrano de Bergerac (1985), Little Dorrit (1988), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), and The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells (2001). Clifford is also a highly regarded director. At the Folger Theater in Washington, he has staged his productions of Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer (2002) and John Milton's Comus (2001). In his production of August Strindberg's Playing the Wife, performed at England's Chichester Festival in 1995, he had the privilege of directing actor Derek Jacobi. Clifford also directed one of the most widely publicized events in Britain in 2000: A Salute to the Man of the Millennium, a London bash at which the likes of Judi Dench, Helena Bonham Carter, and Bob Hoskins paid tribute to Shakespeare and honored Branagh for his contributions to popularizing Shakespeare.