Dame Maggie's 1967 portrayal of the playful debutante Beatrice in the cheerful Much Ado About Nothing is thought to be the earliest British television broadcast of the whole play. But the screen version of the famed National Theatre production by Italian director Franco Zeffirelli was assumed a lost treasure missing from the BBC’s archives. That was until a copy was discovered in the Library of Congress in Washington DC in 2010, fortunately having been loaned to PBS, America’s public broadcasting channel.

Robert Stephens as Benedick and Janina Faye as a Mermaid ...not everyone had embraced Zeffirelli’s exuberant production

The restoration of Much Ado About Nothing was completed by BBC Archive Development in a collection of programmes from the 50s and 60s which were screened earlier this year at London’s Barbican, shedding light on the early years of drama on TV.

Even more intriguingly for the actresses’ fans, Dame Maggie’s Beatrice is seen opposite her future husband Robert Stephens’ Benedick, completing one of Shakespeare’s most successful pairings. The actors were married a few months later.

But not everyone had embraced Zeffirelli’s exuberant production with its brass bands and Sicilian statues that burst into life. His irreverent interpretation of the play had caused one of the theatrical furores of the mid-60s.