The Comedy of Errors (Series 6 Episode 3)

First transmitted 24th December 1983

Double trouble for Roger Daltrey and Michael Kitchen

Cast: Michael Kitchen (Antipholus of Ephesus/Antipholus of Syracuse), Roger Daltrey (Dromio of Ephesus/Dromio of Syracuse), Suzanne Bertish (Adriana), Joanne Pearce (Luciana), Cyril Cusack (Egeon), Charles Gray (Duke of Ephesus), Wendy Hiller (Emilia), Ingrid Pitt (Courtesan), Nicholas Chagrin (Master of Mime), Sam Dastor (Angelo), David Kelly (Balthazar), Frank Williams (Officer), Marsha Fitzalan (Luce), Geoffrey Rose (Dr. Pinch)

Director: James Cellan Jones

I think the track record of the Shakespearean comedies in this series has been pretty well established: what works well in front of a live audience doesn’t always translate well to the screen devoid of that crucial audience interaction and the buzz of the actors feeding off the audience and vice versa. Which is to say that this is, despite a few flashes and odd bits of business, not the funniest production you are ever going to see. There are two main reasons for this.

Firstly, despite being easily the shortest play in the series, it still seems longer than it should, because it lacks energy and momentum. Too many scenes go on a fraction too long, not enough attempt is made to marry up the importance to the series of clarity and delivery of dialogue with the essential pace farce relies on. In particular, too much time is spent labouriously spelling out the various errors made by the characters, overegging the gags. As the momentum slips in the production, so the tightness of the comedy is affected, reducing the sense of audience immersion that farce needs. 

The second main reason is that, by and large, it is rather indifferently acted. To put it bluntly, while some actors try too hard to deliver comedic “turns” and mug to the camera in flashes of tedious “business” (often campy), others honestly seem to be slightly out of their depth. Even the performers who don’t fall into these two camps are underwhelming, as if they couldn’t quite click with the production, or couldn’t find the right tone. It’s unclear exactly why this is, but some elements don’t quite make sense. For example, Ephesus is clearly a laid back kinda place (mime groups and courtesans clearly have a lot of influence, and its citizens are warm and friendly). Since it’s clearly an easy going town, why is its Antipholos so up-tight and angry all the time?

It’s a sign that things haven’t been quite thought through into a coherent whole. Some of this blame probably needs to lie with James Cellan Jones who, despite some interesting touches, doesn’t have a consistent idea for the tone of the play. Which is not to say that some of the ideas are not rather effective, and it’s clear he wants to put on a production of the play that is a little bit more than just a straight comedic farce. From the start, Jones never lets the audience forget that the play is framed around an old man being sentenced to death for a trite crime, and the decision to have Egeon continually wondering around the set between scenes, forlornly searching for relief works very well to keep bringing us back to the serious issues under the surface.

But other ideas don’t quite work. Although I can see that some people would really hate it, I actually rather enjoyed the mime group at the start miming out Egeon’s story as he narrates it. It adds some visual interest to what is otherwise a massive slab of text, even though the mime group set about their work with the shallow smugness of overpraised young children. The introduction of the Master of Mime as a character suggests that the group are going to “see through” all this business from the start and they will be real presences throughout the production. But then they completely disappear (aside from a few beats between scenes) from the action, have no influence on events (other than making some disturbance in the final scene to allow the Syracuse versions to escape) and offer no commentary or chorus function. It’s always, I think, rather damning of flourishes like this if they only work once in a production – if you can’t integrate it all the way through, you are better going without it.

Then we come into the main comedy scenes themselves. Stanley Wells makes a rather interesting point about the play in performance, that it serves the production better to have actors who are not identical as it should be immediately clear to the audience at all times which of the twins they are watching at any one time. This is categorically not the case here. This is less to do with the fact that Kitchen and Daltrey play both versions of the characters, and more to do with the fact that they are wearing identical costumes (in itself this makes little real sense) and that the personalities of the two twins are too close to each other. You do see some clear variations in the final sequences in characterisation when they appear together (and the split screen work to have them appear side-by-side actually works rather well considering) but it’s not enough to really make it clear. I was pretty confused at points, especially with the Dromios – and when the audience is as unclear about what is going on as the characters, then a farce doesn’t work.

Of the two main performances in this, Roger Daltrey does an amiable job and makes a decent fist of playing the role. I read another review which describes his performance as “amiably amateur” which is pretty much on the money. It’s not bad, but he fails to differentiate at all between the two Dromios and he delivers all the lines with too much of a “comedy” acting style, as little more than thick yokels, gurning through a series of events. This noticeably fails to make the “find out countries in her” exchange anywhere near as funny as it should be, with a lack of comic timing and skill in delivery. He’s clearly pleased to be there, impossible to dislike and does not embarrass himself but is not really good enough for the part.

Michael Kitchen does a serviceable job as the Antipholi, with Syracuse as a laid back fun loving kinda guy, who can’t believe his luck to have women throwing himself at him and has a playful relationship with his Dromio. His frequent direct addresses to the camera are playful and engagingly light in tone, making Syracuse an enjoyable companion for the audience. His Ephesus interestingly comes across as an uptight bastard, a bad husband and a man openly enjoying a series of affairs (as well as, it is hinted, a quiet awareness of his sister-in-law’s possible attraction to him) who takes a sub-Fawlty delight in slapping Dromio around. Two decent performances, but nothing really special.

The ladies in their lives are equally a mixed bag. Suzanne Bertish is probably a little too shrewish as Adriana, which then makes her coquettish hinting at sex being an after dinner treat for Syracuse slightly out of whack with the rest of her characterisation. She does however handle the longer speeches well, and there is a good sense of her pain and frustration at Ephesus’ obvious lack of faith and that her own anger stems from genuine feelings she has for him. She also gets some good moments of comic business, particularly when angrily preventing a Dromio from tidying away the contents of a table. Joanne Pearce though is flat out bad as Adriana, delivering her lines with a sing-song observance of the pentameter and failing to add any depth to the character – I suspect her simpering delivery is not meant to suggest she is having an affair with Antipholos of Ephesus, as I at first read it. Ingrid Pitts is embarrassingly oversexualised as the courtesan, Marsh Fitzalan makes no impression as Luce.

The older actors emerge slightly better. Charles Gray can of course now deliver this sort of thing standing on his head, and his Duke is a reasonable authority figure and humanitarian with the expected lecherous tone (very much Gray’s calling card now). Wendy Hiller adds an authority as Emilia (although the decision to accompany all her entrances with a Hallelujah chorus is as clunky as it sounds) as well as a touching sweetness. The acting honours of the production goes to Cyril Cusack as Egeon who not only brings a real depth of feeling and fatherly longing to his opening speech, but provides a large degree of emotion to the final scene – Egeon is probably the only character in the play that consistently works throughout and makes coherent sense.

The characters and acting are a mixed bag, but there are some nice touches here. As mentioned, several of the actors address the camera at key moments, which certainly makes some of the events more engaging, even if it doesn’t really help us understand them any better. Some of the small comedic performances and “near misses” work very well – in particular a moment at the end of A3 S2 when Antipholus of Ephesus witness his brother leaving his house and confusedly stares at the wine in his hand with a shake of the head – work very well, far better in fact than the overly played physical comedy (I’ve already mentioned the sub-Fawlty bashing of Dromio – never good to remind the viewers of far superior comedies than this).

The set itself is actually quite an impressive thing, playfully making no real attempt to present a “real world” instead reducing Ephesus to a carefully constructed single square, its floor made up of a wonderfully presented map of Greece, and bright primary colours dominating the surroundings and the buildings, giving the impression of an almost fairy tale background. How this ties in with the decisions around Egeon and the harking back to his sad state I’m less clear about – but it certainly makes the drama visually interesting. The split screen work to bring both sets of twins on screen at the same time is actually rather impressive considering the technical limitations of the time.

But the problem remains that I’m just not clear in the end exactly what sort of story is actually being told here. When it tries to be a comedy, it often goes for it far too much to actually be funny. When it focuses on the framing story, it never builds the mood enough to be actually moving. It’s a noble attempt at doing a farce with serious undertones on screen – but it just never clicks into place. Perhaps the core problem is that, deep down, this is too reverent to the text, willing to sacrifice the pace of the comedy to make sure that all the dialogue is delivered crystal clearly for the sponsors, as if the team were worried that to do anything less would be to insult the playwright.

The main problem is that all the stuff that works best is “televisual” and all the stuff that brings the film down is the “Shakespeare” stuff – and I think that is rooted in the fact that James Cellan Jones seems to lack real knowledge or experience with Shakespeare, making him uncertain how to play the dialogue or the plot. The camera flourishes work very well, and the idea he has about Egeon is good – but he basically seems to feel the actual dialogue is not going to be the source of any humour so never manages to bring any of it out of the performers. He then makes this worse, by instructing the actors to deliver it with clarity and respect rather than any comedic energy – a fatal flaw that holes the production beneath the waterline.

Conclusion

Some decent directorial flourishes and a few effective scenes and jokes basically get lost in what is overall probably a rather mediocre production – never outright bad, but often just slightly off beat, off tone or just missing being truly funny. With a lack of pace, too many scenes that outstay their welcome and a mixed bag of performances, where every good performer is matched by a sub-par one, this is a production that isn’t quite brave enough to cut loose from the text and really embrace making this comedy effective for film.

NEXT TIME: Tyler Butterworth and John Hudson are Two Gentlemen of Verona on the road for fun and romance.

Troilus and Cressida (Series 4 Episode 2)

First transmitted 7th November 1981

Suzanne Burden and Anton Lesser find true love never runs too smoothly - particularly when Charles Gray tries to help you.

Cast: Anton Lesser (Troilus), Suzanne Burden (Cressida), Charles Gray (Pandarus), Benjamin Whitrow (Ulysses), Vernon Dobtcheff (Agamemnon), Geoffrey Chater (Nestor), John Shrapnel (Hector), Kenneth Haigh (Achilles), Anthony Pedley (Menelaus), Jack Birkett (Thersites), Esmond Knight (Priam), Tony Steedman (Aeneas), Paul Moriarty (Diomedes), Elayne Sharling (Cassandra), David Firth (Paris), Ann Pennington (Helen), Bernard Brown (Menelaus), Merelina Kendall (Andromache)Director: Jonathan Miller

Like Timon of Athens, Troilus and Cressida is one of Shakespeare’s most rarely performed works. Again it’s not hard to see why as soon as you sit down and watch it: this is that rarest of things, a Shakespearean satire, a parody of Homer, in which each of the heroes is deconstructed as something considerably more flawed and human. It’s also parodies Homer’s poetry, meaning each character talks at very great length to get across their point – none more so than Ulysses, who barely delivers a line shorter than a page.

It’s also a play that lacks dramatic thrust. Troilus and Cressida themselves are undefined characters (Cressida in particular is a very difficult part, essentially acting as the plot demands rather than as a human being). This explains why the showpiece roles are often seen as Pandarus and Thersites – two cynical commentators and observers, who have the best lines and soliloquies. Who wouldn’t want to play (or indeed watch) that, rather than the cryptic love story at the (nominal) heart of the story? Especially since the two lovers don’t even meet until the play has reached the half way point.

 

So this play is a deconstruction of the mythic ideal, and this is the tone Miller’s production works to capture. Both the Greek camp and Troy are run-own, shabby affairs, populated by characters who have been going over the same conversations over and over again for the last seven years of war. In the Greek camp, soldiers laze around in dirty tents, playing cards and being entertained by prostitutes (visually Miller was inspired by the look of M*A*S*H*). The Greek leaders laze on beds drinking, barely going through the motions. Garrulous characters, particularly Ulysses and Nestor, seize the conversation in tired silences. Between councils, Achilles and others laze with their lovers or gossip with servants. The Greek costumes are as shabby, brown and dirty as the rest of the camp, and drink is clearly in plentiful supply (and a regular prop).

 

It’s little different in Troy. The city is a construct of interior courtyards and rising staircases, all of it rough, chipped wood, smeared colours and flaking paintwork suggesting years of undersupply. The inhabitants, like the Greeks, continue the same debates – in a central scene, the Trojan princes debate the futility of continuing the war, Troilus, Hector and Paris trot out their arguments with a similar weary familiarity, going over familiar viewpoints before committing to carry on once again. Even the interjections of Cassandra are met with an over-familiar and tired boredom. The costumes chosen for the Trojan characters have a grander, old-fashioned feel to them, reflecting the more noble ideals and romantic views of the majority of the Trojan characters, in contrast to the more realpolitik Greeks.

 

The loss of idealism is the central thrust of Miller’s production. John Shrapnel’s scene-stealing performance as a quick-tempered, impulsive but essentially decent and honourable Hector is the tragic centre. War to him is close to a game with fixed rules, reflected in his behaviour when visiting the Greek camp: as soon as the challenge with Ajax is finished, he reflects old-fashioned nobility and good nature, like Prince Charles visiting a school, rather than a man in the middle of a war to the death. This contrasts with Kenneth Haigh’s cruel, arrogant and bullying Achilles, more interested in burnishing his reputation and lazing with Patroclus, completely aware combat has no rules. Much of the production builds towards the final meeting between these two characters in battle. Romanticism dies with Hector, who is beaten to death by soldiers, while Achilles watches dispassionately, before walking over to push Hector’s bloody remains into the mud with his boot.

The end impact of that murder is seen in Troy, which in the final scene is a darkened city, with wounded soldiers standing at every point, a delirious Pandarus wandering past the grieving family of Hector. Troilus – at the start an idealistic man – rants and raves in furious defiance against the Greeks. The mood carries across from the battlefield – a blasted wasteland with a bloody sun hanging in the sky. Troy has become a fatalistic city, where hope and dreams have been abandoned in an acceptance of destruction. It’s a doom-laden ending to the play, Miller suggesting that war is now on a slope descending towards Hell itself, where inglorious death awaits the characters.

Alongside this nihilistic view of the Trojan war, a contrast is made with the romance between Troilus and Cressida. Both the lovers are young and naive, with a rather innocent outlook on the world. In their first scene together, both Lesser and Burden are chaste and timid, unsure of how to act upon an obvious attraction between them – they virtually need Pandarus to push them together. What Miller suggests is that their naivety leads to them interpreting this first burst of passion – an early crush effectively – as a passion for the ages. Their uncertainty is still there: even when waking from a night together they are physically hesitant with each other. When separated they respond as if trying to meet expectations: Cressida clings to Troilus in dramatic outbursts of tears and wailing; Troilus behaves as the strong comforter but stridently demands again and again that she swear undying devotion. It’s all a bit much for something that is really little more than a one-night stand.

This goes some way towards one of the modern problems with the play: every male character seems to instinctively suspect Cressida is a woman of loose morals and inconstancy. By making her early dalliance with Troilus something youthful, built on instinct rather than reasoned or mature reflection, her later alliance with Diomedes then makes some sense. The reception Cressida receives from the Greeks when arriving – basically a lusty cheering from horny men who haven’t seen their wives for a long time (Diomedes even has to beat some of them away) – suggests she is aware finding a protector in this den of violent, sex-starved men might not be bad idea. Burden suggests in her performance that Cressida may regret the loss of Troilus (and her innocence) but she is savvy enough to seduce Diomedes to secure her future. Just as with the war, this is a loss of innocence.

Suzanne Burden does her best with a tricky role here: from her first scene with Pandarus, she clearly has an intense interest in sex and a flirtatious nature, but (similar to Troilus) does not seem to have developed an emotional maturity to sit alongside it. When confronted with her man, she is tentative and quiet throughout. There is a suggestion in Burden’s performance that she is less drawn towards him than he is to her, as if she is willing to explore romance and sexuality with him, but perhaps does not see him as her permanent partner. It’s a nice image of how Juliet might have turned out if she had survived.

Opposite her, Anton Lesser’s excellent performance as Troilus is a dynamic force of youthful naivety, sharing Hector’s view of war as a game, and almost childlike in his understanding of love. His romanticism and idolisation of Cressida creates a woman who cannot fail but disappoint him. As mentioned, his response on separation is to be the strong man, but he matches this with youthful insecurity in her faithfulness. When circumstances force Cressida away from him, he lacks the emotional intelligence or maturity to understand the reasons for her actions, and redirects the near teenage anger and rage into an obsession with the martial future of Troy, taking on Hector’s mantle: but as a sullen and disillusioned young man rather than a moderate idealist. Similar to Burden, it makes the part almost a companion piece to Romeo – only a Romeo rejected by Juliet who buries himself in Montague-Capulet brawls.

At the centre of the web of sex and manipulation is Charles Gray’s campy, creepy and (inevitably – it is Charles Gray!) toadlike Pandarus is the selfish spider. Gray’s Pandarus sees ensnaring Troilus in his family as his meal-ticket and, as such, is willing to spin any story necessary to successfully pimp out Cressida to him. He has wit and charm, but is entirely self-focused (clearly shown in the final shots as a disease-raddled Pandarus walks blindly past the funeral of Hector, absorbed with his own self-inflicted tragedy). When bringing the lovers together he virtually pushes them together to get the result he wants, frustratedly crying “have you not done talking?” It’s another decent performance from Gray, though I could have done with a performance which is slightly less broad and allowed us to see a bit more of Pandarus’ intelligence as well as his greed.

In the Greek camp, there is a batch of strong performances, with Geoffrey Chater the stand-out as a hilarious Nestor, playing him as a pompous, preening old man, nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is, constantly agreeing shamelessly with the most persuasive figure (usually Ulysses), chuckling pointedly at obscure jokes to highlight his intelligence and, in one great moment, prattling at such great length to a visiting Hector that Ulysses has to physically interject to restrain him (Chater remains at the edge of the frame, constantly trying to retake the conversational impetus). Benjamin Whitrow’s Ulysses is a good companion performance to this – smooth, proud, calculating, a natural observer, with Whitrow suggesting that his self interest has kept him from the ennui and boredom of the rest of the men (and also allowed him to take the driving seat in discussions).

Vernon Dobtchett is a solid presence as Agamemnon, displaying just the right mixture of pride and terminal lack of charisma. Kenneth Haigh’s self-absorbed, cruel Achilles is a soulless contrast to Hector. Regular performer Anthony Pedley gives another lovely performance as a preening and dim Ajax, lead meekly by the last person he spoke to. Jack Birkett gives a screechy, camp performance as a dress-laden Thersites that really captures his bitterness and cynicism, but perhaps misses out on making clear Thersites’ role in the play of providing a commentary on events.

Miller uses many of his usual tricks in the production – long takes abound – and uses direct address to the camera at several key-moments, in particular with Thersites. During Cressida’s ‘betrayal’ in A5 S1 he successfully manages to introduce multiple perspectives swiftly: Cressida’s, Troilus/Ulysses’ and Thersites’, managing to demonstrate the unclear images that each has of the other (Cressida cannot see the others, Troilus cannot hear everything that is said, Thersites can see more but not hear). In a particularly good touch, Helen is introduced silently in A2 S2, making the lords more comfortable as they argue against her presence in Troy. The depiction of the griminess and dirt of war is very well done, with marching troops superimposed over shots of the Greek lords, and the battlefield a muddy plain under a dying sun (although the gruesome shot of Hector’s caved in skull is a perhaps a little too much).

It’s a well worked and intelligent, if overlong piece of television that, rather like the play, wears its brain on its sleeve and at times lacks a little heart. There is wit and humanity there but much of it serves as secondary to the dissection of notions of honour and romance. So it’s just as well that it excels at doing this!

 

 

 

Conclusion

The play itself is hard going in places, but this is a production packed with good ideas that serves as a companion piece to Romeo and Juliet: in that play innocence and naivety are celebrated (though lead to tragedy and the deaths of both); here it is shown to be misguided and mistaken and is eventually refocused to anger, cynicism and resentment. Miller’s production, particularly in A5, really captures the feeling of a descent to despair. With several impressive performances – in particular Chater, Lesser and Shrapnel – this is as good a version as any to get a sense of this most difficult of plays.

NEXT TIME: Helen Mirren is besotted with a donkey-headed Brian Glover in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Will this unfailing crowd pleaser of a comedy manage to raise a chuckle in a series that has bummed out on comedy so far?

Julius Caesar (Series 1 Episode 4)

Julius Caesar

First transmitted 11th February 1979

 

Richard Pasco, Keith Michell and Charles Gray take us to Ancient Rome for paranoia and murder

 

Cast: Richard Pasco (Brutus), Keith Michell (Mark Antony), Charles Gray (Julius Caesar), David Collings (Cassius), Virginia McKenna (Portia), Elizabeth Spriggs (Calphurnia), Garrick Hagon (Octavius Caesar), William Simons (Trebonius), Sam Dastor (Casca), Alexander Davion (Decius Brutus), Brian Coburn (Messala), Darien Angadi (Cinna), Andrew Hilton (Lucilius)

Director: Herbert Wise

 

I have always had a soft spot for Julius Caesar. I have also always loved the classic BBC Roman drama series I, Claudius. So I should say that from the start I was pre-disposed to like an ancient Roman set Shakespeare drama, directed by the man who made I, Claudius. But, even despite this, I’ve got to say this is an intelligent, well acted adaptation of the play, inventively directed and full of a host of good ideas.

 

Returning to the studio set from the total failure of location shooting is a massive boon here. Tony Abbot’s complex Roman forum set feels suitably lived in. Yes if you want you can pick fault with an (obviously) fake blue sky that is artfully concealed in the background of several shots (and a matte painting hill), but remember the constraints of the time. And I would take imaginative direction and good acting over an expensive location shoot ham-fistedly managed any day.

 

Herbert Wise effectively creates a sense of scale here with a series of effective crane shots. Right from the start, the camera looms down and into an empty street, while we hear the chants of “Caesar, Caesar” off screen from the Roman crowds. It straight away creates an atmosphere, before the screen is populated with a vibrant crowd scene. These shots are repeated at key moments throughout, always acting to stress the grandeur of events, most notably in the meeting of the generals before the final battle.

 

In fact the camera work throughout is actually rather sophisticated. Long takes never appear static as a roving camera is used throughout, moving in and around the characters, prowling behind the actors, making the viewing experience the most immersive I’ve seen so far in this series. Wise’s camera makes the viewer as much a conspirator as the senators, joining them in close conversations and twitchily moving with them, as if under a paranoid scrutiny. Crowd scenes are shot throughout with an intelligence and dynamism that suggest a far larger company – Antony’s speech uses the crowd particularly well. A neat trick is carried out by having the crowds rush to get their revenge for Caesar’s reveal leaving behind (in a reveal to the audience) the soothsayer staring at Caesar’s corpse (take a look at the image below to see what I mean). Put your prejudices aside – this is seriously well-made stuff (for the time). Imagine what could have been done with the budget of The Hollow Crown here. And god almighty it is such a relief to find something so well made after the disaster of As You Like It.

 

Where Wise really scores in is that his directorial invention is not just restricted to the technical. Genuine thought about interpretation and the text seems to have gone into this, in ways which haven’t really been as apparent in any of the other productions I’ve seen so far. To Wise this is a paranoid, claustrophobic, political thriller with a real psychological edge and every directorial flourish is built around creating this interpretation of the play. This is most apparent in the decision to have the monologues delivered primarily as voiceovers, with a roving camera studying the actors intently thinking their way through the line and thought processes. However, at crucial points the characters blurt out loud key lines and phrases, as if the thoughts were too strong for them to keep inside. For instance in A1 S4, Brutus’ speech is all voiceover, other than the key phase “then lest he may prevent”. In A3 S1 Antony’s self accusation over Caesar’s body is all voiceover bar “Butchers!” and from “Cry havoc” onwards. It sounds corny when written down, but it not only shows the intelligence of the characters, it also gives a key psychological impact to them – it’s the best expression yet I’ve seen of thinking in this series, and the only real attempt so far to show soliloquies in a cinematic manner.

 

The characterisation of the conspirators also stresses their ‘public schoolboy’ nature. I really noticed the number of times Brutus refers to his school here – at least four characters are old school chums. Brutus himself is a patrician Eton head-boy, totally at ease with his status and expecting respect and deference from those around him, with Cassius almost like an over-eager Eton-fag, yearning for approval. Everything about the manner of the conspirators seems to suggest the simple assurance of men trained to positions, treating the plebians as people who don’t know what’s best for them. It’s clear from the start they never think through any of the things they must do to conduct a successful conspiracy, expecting all to fall into place. These people just don’t understand in any way ’politics’ in the way that Caesar and Antony do.

 

Richard Pasco’s performance really seizes this interpretation of the conspirators with a vengeance. His Brutus is a hard man to like, impassive, arrogant and imposing but crucially not charismatic. He is a man devoid of any doubt once he has made a decision, he seizes the position of authority in any group as a divine right – the slightest questioning of him in A4 S2 by Cassius sees him first treat him like a dismissive older brother and then flip a table over in fury. There is a strange, unsettling calm about him and a sense of a man unable to truly understand the situation he is in. He sees himself as a master of events but is constantly buffeted by them. His appeal to the people is like a top scholar’s detailed homework and betrays his lack of appeal to those beyond his immediate contact. It’s a really interesting insight into a man who doesn’t seem to appreciate and understand anything – an arrogant man reduced in the end to literally crawling through the dirt asking someone to kill him. He is exactly the sort of man these posh schoolboys would think should appeal to the people. Richard Pasco is a little forgotten today, but you can see why he was such a leading classical actor at the height of his career.

 

It’s fair to say that the other performances don’t quite come up to his level. Keith Michell feels a little too old for Antony, and slightly overplays his wilder emotions, particularly in A3 S2. But he handles the big speech very well, subtly demonstrating Antony’s feel for politics. Small moments show him measuring the reaction of the audience and steeling himself to make the correct intervention at the crucial moment. David Collings’ Cassius veers a little too close to camp at key moments, particularly in the play’s opening. What he does do well is demonstrate how unequal the friendship with Brutus is, that Brutus is far more important to Cassius than vice versa. But although he delivers a good sense of Cassius’ willing submission to Brutus he doesn’t manage to make the part as moving as the interpretation suggests it could be.

 

A great success in Richard II, Charles Gray here is too weak a figure as Caesar. His features and manner suggest a stressed Baron von Greenback, and there are too many moments of weakness thrown in by Gray and Wise – this Caesar has a suggestion of an epileptic fit on his first appearance, trips down the stairs in the background at one point and has a constant sheen of sweat on his face. With Calphurnia he appears more as a petulant schoolboy – it all serves to undermine the character a little too much. Strangely, his strongest moment is his ghostly appearance late in the play. For the other performances, Elizabeth Spriggs goes well against type as a matronly, feminine Calphurnia and outshines Virginia McKenna’s high profile but less interesting Portia. Amongst a host of alumni from I, Claudius, Sam Dastor makes an urbane Casca.

 

Whatever small flaws there are in performances here though, each actor really handles the close-ups very well. The pressure-cooker events are nicely conveyed by the sweat that seems to be permanently placed on each forehead, as the camera drills in – at one point right into Cassius’ eyes. Acting without speaking is also spot-on here – unlike some other moments in these productions, the actors are clearly measuring and weighing everything being said to them. It’s striking in A1 S2 how little Brutus speaks, but yet how Pasco is always the focus of the scene and that the viewer learns more about him than Cassius. In A4 S1 the tension of the triumvirate is elegantly shown through a series of tight close ups on frowning, tense faces. Before the final battle, the camera roams around Brutus’ camp, lingering on the faces of the soldiers and observing a desolate Cassius who can hardly look at Brutus as he says farewell. The focus is on character not action – even the death of Caesar happens in the back of the shot, with Brutus’ guilty face as the audiences’ primary focus.

 

It’s probably clear by now that I enjoyed this production a fair bit. I feel there is more that I could mention and as I scan through the five pages of notes I made on this production (the most so far!) I feel sure I missed some things out. Now I will agree that not everything here is perfect – if you are not immersed in the budgeted production standards of the time you will see the obvious sets and dated costumes you expect to see. And yes, the final frenzied stabbing of Caesar partly happens off camera as the actors (clearly!) are not actually driving their swords into his body. But, honestly, look past some of the cheapness and there is some really compelling stuff here. It’s TV with intelligence but not flashy self-consciousness, and there should always be a place for that and I think reflects something we’ve lost in this Golden Age of high production values, brilliantly smart television – that love of something put together on the cheap but with real imagination, creativity and love. So god love you Herbert Wise, Richard Pasco and company – you should be proud of this.

 

 

Conclusion

Some truly intelligent direction delivers, for the first time, an actual interpretation rather than a straight telling of the play. A terrific performance by Richard Pasco anchors a production where everyone has their moment to shine. Stuffed with ideas and creativity, and also with a coherent visual sense and an ability to offer more than the ‘expected’ shots, this is the best film in the series so far.

 

NEXT TIME: Tim Piggot-Smith blackmails Kate Nelligan to surrender her virginity in Measure for Measure.

 

 



Richard II (Series 1 Episode 2)

Richard II

First transmitted 10th December 1978





Jon Finch and Derek Jacobi lay the foundations for civil war in the poetic opening to Shakespeare's history cycle

Cast: Derek Jacobi (Richard II), Jon Finch (Henry Bolingbroke), John Gielgud (John of Gaunt), Charles Gray (York), Wendy Hiller (Duchess of York), Mary Morris (Duchess of Gloucester), David Swift (Northumberland), Clifford Rose (Bishop of Carlisle), Charles Keating (Aumerle), Richard Owens (Mowbray), Janet Maw (Queen), Jeffrey Holland (Surrey), Jeremy Bulloch (Henry Percy), Robin Sachs (Bushy), Damien Thomas (Bagot), Alan Dalton (Green), Jonathan Adams (Gardener)

Director: David Giles

 

The second production in the series is a starrily-cast Richard II.  And what we get here is a very skilled, professional attempt at capturing this play on screen. As a play, Richard II demands a sense of scale, colour and pageantry – and perhaps, therefore, it’s one of the hardest to convey from a 4 by 3 box in the corner of a room.

 

The faithful adaptation style from R and J is continued here, with the setting exactly in period and adhering very faithfully to mainstream critical interpretations of the play. Forced by budget and house style, this is a chamber piece, a well acted conversation placed in a series of rooms or meetings at camps and tents in dead of night. When the film does move into a daytime ‘exterior’ sector, for the trial by combat in A1 S3, this is easily the least successful scene of the production, with some concessions made to the spectacle of the moment but the camera unable to move from close-ups (for fear of exposing the unrealistic set) to help create a sense of scope and tension. But what this film does know is what it can do with in its limits, and it does them very well. As a costume drama this is a very well made example of 1970s British television.

 

Giles’ direction is faithful and unimposing, using careful camera moves and framing to communicate the story simply and clearly. His focus is very much on character and performance. The direction aims at creating a claustrophobic world in which the psychology of the drama and the characters is established as keenly as possible. This more intense, focused drama plays to Giles’ strengths and it’s telling that he is far more comfortable when dealing with the more intimate scenes, which are constantly more visually interesting and dynamic than the crowd scenes. It’s rather odd – and has a big impact on the success of the opening scenes, which largely consist of large group scenes. Compare the flatness of A1 S1 with the far more dynamic and engaging two-hander in A1 S2. It’s a very telling contrast to the more ‘large scale’ R and J with its large cast of extras – here extras, when they appear, are almost shoved to the edges of the frame, as if to avoid distracting the eye as much as possible. Giles is a highly experienced studio director, and his experience working with a few actors on a close set is really clear here.

 

This production makes motions towards a more complex interpretation than the first film in the series. Before the first line of the play, Richard pauses outside the court and seems to draw breath and compose himself, preparing himself to publically take on the role of King or readying himself for a difficult confrontation. It’s strongly implied in Act 1 that Richard is behind the death of Gloucester that sparks the events of the play, a small point but one which informs a lot of Jacobi’s performance (and his cool, dismissive reactions to Mowbray) and Owens’ anger and disillusionment as Mowbray. The nature of ruling is also explored, with Richard shown as more interested in lounging around getting massages than involving himself in the business of running the country. This is a sharp contrast with Bolingbroke who is rarely seen not sitting surrounded with papers, with a hands-on style of ruling. Points like these illustrate a desire to develop an interpretation of the play, although these are kept very low key and subtle and not allowed to intrude too heavily on the actors’ performances.

 

Which is in no way a weakness, because this production has some hugely successful performances. Derek Jacobi is one of the most intelligent classical actors alive, and he brings all the focus of that intelligence to this production. Reflecting the nature of the play, his performance splits Richard into two distinct phases with the flip coming during Act Three. At first Richard is a smiling tyrant, an uncaring man convinced of his own divine certainty and seemingly incapable of understanding other people. Throughout, he treats Bolingbroke, Gaunt and especially Mowbray with a lightness and imperious cheerfulness, and a cruel streak is shown throughout with his openly giddy and joyful reaction to Gaunt’s death and his appointment of York as his deputy, which Jacobi plays almost like a private joke. He’s the sort of man who airily knocks four years off Bolingbroke’s banishment on a whim and breezily talks about his “uneasiness” before smilingly banishing Mowbray for life.  It’s clear why so many lords feel so little regard for him.

 

This then flips expertly from Act 3, as Richard’s world comes crashing down, with Jacobi delivering a rollercoaster of challenging line readings and widely oscillating emotions. In A3 S2 alone he goes from imperious confidence through, in-turn, mad-eyed certainty, despair, rage, impotent fury, heartfelt anguish, tears, desolation, resignation, self-realisation and finally a kindling of humility and humanity – all within about ten minutes of screen time and never feeling forced or misplaced. Jacobi’s Richard is being re-born during this sequence and realising he is not a god but a man who “needs bread as you do”. This sequence continues in Act 4, a tour-de-force deposition scene, with Richard torn between bitterness and the fixed neutrality of a man compelled to do an unpleasant duty. This tension only explodes once offered a list of his ‘crimes’ by Northumberland, bringing out a burst of pain and defiance at the turn-coats that surround him, but without losing his developing sense of humanity. It’s quite something to take a character so unsympathetic in the opening hour and make him someone the audience really roots for. It is performances like this that justify the BBC’s decision to chase down the big name actors.

 

Jon Finch is a great match for him as a controlled and faintly sinister Bolingbroke, giving his performance a physicality that makes him an imposing threat from the start. If Richard is a tyrant in the sense that he doesn’t really care about the country or the people in it, Bolingbroke wants to control everything and everyone – and doesn’t have a problem with judicial murders (poor Bushy and Green) or quietly (with plausible deniability) ordering royal assassinations.  There’s a touch of masculine cruelty about him – he’s probably the first Bolingbroke I’ve seen to turn “rain on the earth my waters” into a piss joke.

 

The best supporting performance here surprisingly comes from Charles Gray’s York, a well meaning, morally upright but ineffectual old buffer, almost drifted in from Wodehouse, out of his depth when dealing with strong wills like Bolingbroke and Northumberland and constantly a few moments away from tears. He may be disgusted by Bolingbroke’s actions in A2 S3 but still feels compelled to offer him a shelter for the night and raises token objections in A3 S2 but still sit on a tribunal to condemn two innocent men. By A5 S2 he needs to get drunk to tell his wife about Bolingbroke’s coronation and Richard’s imprisonment. It’s a lovely pen portrait of a weak man in a position of responsibility and influence, blown from pillar to post by those around him.

 

Other performances are less successful. I was less persuaded by Gielgud’s Gaunt, who (similar to his Chorus in R and J) speaks the lines perfectly but with a strange absence of feeling (his farewell to Bolingbroke is notably unmoving). He delivers the famous speech of the play expertly with a teary emotion but I felt he was slightly miscast, that Gaunt needed a bit more of the earthy, domineering quality that Finch’s Bolingbroke has. Most of the rest of the cast only have small moments to shine, but Richard Owens is a fine Mowbray, Clifford Rose makes a lot of a few small moments as a militant Carlisle and, after a shaky start, David Swift is a bull-like, unsubtle Northumberland. For Star Wars fans there is a chance to see Boba Fett actor Jeremy Bulloch without helmet as an energised Henry Percy. I was less keen on Charles Keating’s underplayed Aumerle, and cuts to the Queen’s already small part mean Janet Maw arrives almost too late to make any real impression.

 

There are some unusual cuts in this play. Most of A2 S2 is removed, making the arrival of Bolingbroke in the country actually a little unclear. Cutting the opening of Act 4 leaves the fate of Bagot a plot-hole. A combination of trims and underplaying in A3 S3 undermines the impact of the gardener’s scene. If they wanted to make cuts, some trims to A1 S1 and S3 – both static talking shops in this production – would have been a far better choice. There are also several moments in the play that, to be honest, don’t really work. I’ve already mentioned the pacing errors in the opening scenes, but Giles doesn’t really solve the strange ‘comedy’ sequence of Act Five involving the York family pleading against each other over the fate of Aumerle. An attempt is made at playing the comedy of the moment, but it feels even more out of place with the rest of the play (and pity Wendy Hiller that this is her only appearance in the project). Bolingbroke’s exasperated final reaction shot here also doesn’t work at all.

 

But plenty of things work well. Giles does a lot with creative framing and character movement. Throughout the film, Richard constantly ascends and descends raised platforms, moving from solitary positions then bringing himself down to the same level as his subjects (some examples can be seen in the images above). There is also some lovely use of York, placing him fairly consistently at the front of the frame, almost as a chorus for scenes, suggesting not only his isolation from Bolingbroke and his followers but also his status in this production as the most sympathetic and humane of the characters and the viewers’ window into the action.

 

The finest directorial decision is the delivery of Richard’s final monologue in A5 S5. The speech is split into five chunks, with each chunk prefaced by a cut of Richard in a new position in his prison cell, using a visual shorthand to show both the passage of time and the completion of Richard’s long journey into self realisation. In each the camera drifts slowly but tellingly in towards Richard, stressing his own introspection and his claustrophobic isolation. It’s a very clever way of using a small set and a truly cinematic way of interpreting the speech and something that could not be done on stage, and it works very effectively, creating one of the production’s highlights. But these are unobtrusive flourishes in some very unfussy visual direction.

 A montage of the different positions and placements used for Richard's final speech

I found this blog more challenging to write than the last, possibly because I expected this – particularly after the poorly paced opening scenes – to be a dry shadow of the later Rupert Goold-directed Hollow Crown version. But this manages to hold its own. It’s not completely perfect, but in terms of acting and drama it’s a major step-up from Romeo and Juliet and, in its decision to focus on exteriors and night times, it uses the restrictions of studio filming far more to its advantage. Also, while Giles might have less flair as a director, he has far more ideas about the play and about how to work with actors and direct smaller scenes, which on the whole is more important than Alvin Rakoff’s flair. I have to say I really enjoyed this production and would definitely watch it again.

Conclusion
Some very impressive acting (particularly a stunning lead performance from Derek Jacobi) and unobtrusive direction make up for some poorly paced scenes to create a pretty impressive stab at producing a small-scale spectacle of a play. Not everything completely works, but there is enough here that succeeds to make this entertaining and moving viewing. Well done BBC!

Next up: Helen Mirren and James Bolam go frolicking in the forest of Arden in As You Like It.