BBC Television Shakespeare the distance is the backcloth, which is impressionistic." The backcloths were used to suggest locale without photographic representationalism; they imply air, water, sea, hills, a city, but never actually show anything specific. Geoff Feld won Best Cameraman at the 1981 BAFTAs for his work on this episode. The "Prefaces to Shakespeare" episode for "The Merchant of Venice" was presented by Timothy West who had played Shylock in a 1980 Old Vic production which he also directed. The "Shakespeare in Perspective" episode was presented by playwright and screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz. Cast In line with producer Jonathan Miller's aesthetic policy, director Elijah
Jessica (The Merchant of Venice) Christians (who do). Lorenzo joins them and Jessica recounts their conversation, leading to further banter between Lorenzo and Gobbo, until Gobbo leaves to prepare for dinner. In response to questioning by Lorenzo, Jessica praises Portia as great and peerless. Act 5, Scene 1—the final scene of the play, and following on from the courtroom scene in Act 4—opens with Jessica and Lorenzo strolling in the gardens of Belmont. They exchange romantic metaphors, invoking in turn characters from classical literature: "Troilus and Criseyde", Pyramus and Thisbē, Aeneas and Dido, Jason and Medea, and finally themselves in the same mode, until they