Inspired by the notion that the political intrigues behind the Wars of the Roses often seemed like playground squabbles, Jane Howell and production designer Oliver Bayldon staged the four plays in a single set resembling a children's adventure playground. However, little attempt was made at realism. For example, Bayldon did not disguise the parquet flooring ("it stops the set from literally representing [...] it reminds us we are in a modern television studio"[158]), and in all four productions, the title of the play is displayed within the set itself (on banners in The First Part and The Second Part (where it is visible throughout the entire first scene), on a shroud in The Third Part, and written on a chalkboard by Richard himself in The Tragedy of Richard III). Many critics felt these set design choices lent the production an air of Brechtian verfremdungseffekt.
Part of the long running BBC Television Shakespeare project which ran between 1978 and 1985.
An element of verfremdungseffekt in this production is seen when Gloucester and Winchester encounter one another at the Tower; both are on horseback, but the horses they ride are hobbyhorses, which David Burke and Frank Middlemass cause to pivot and prance as they speak. The ridiculousness of this situation works to "effectively undercut their characters' dignity and status."
The "anti-illusionist" set was also used as a means of political commentary; as the four plays progressed, the set decayed and became more and more dilapidated as social order becomes more fractious. In the same vein, the costumes become more and more monotone as the four plays move on - The First Part of Henry the Sixt features brightly coloured costumes which clearly distinguish the various combatants from one another, but by Richard III (1983), everyone fights in similarly coloured dark costumes, with little to differentiate one army from another.