Henry VI Part 1 (Series 5 Episode 3)

First transmitted 2nd January 1983

Brian Deacon, Bernard Hill, Mark Wing-Davey, David Daker and Paul Chapman choose their favourite flowers. It won't end well.

Cast: John Benfield (Basset/French Sergeant), Peter Benson (Henry VI/Priest), Brenda Blethyn (Joan La Pucelle), Antony Brown (Burgundy), David Burke (Gloucester), Michael Byrne (Alencon), Paul Chapman (Suffolk), Ron Cook (Third Messenger/Porter), Arthur Cox (Mayor/Sir John Fastolfe), David Daker (Reigner/Vernon), Brian Deacon (Somerset), Tenniel Evans (Bedford/Mortimer/French General), Derek Farr (Salisbury/Sir William Lucy), Julia Foster (Margaret), Derek Fuke (Captain/Servant), Alex Guard (Young John Talbot), Bernard Hill (York/Master Gunner), Paul Jesson (Second Messenger), Oengus MacNamara (Messenger/Second Servant), Joanna McCallum (Countess d’Auvergne), Frank Middlemass (Cardinal Beaufort), Joseph O’Conor (Exeter/Shepherd), Trevor Peacock (Sir John Talbot), Brian Protheroe (First Messenger/Bastard of Orleans), David Pugh (Mayor’s Officer/Watchman), Nick Reding (Keeper), Ian Saynor (Dauphin), Mark Wing-Davey (Warwick), Peter Wyatt (Woodville)

Director: Jane Howell

Well cards on the table – I have seen these Henry VI films before. In fact I’ve seen them a couple of times: I even owned them before I purchased this boxset. So I’ve got to say I was already of the opinion that these were some of the finest adaptations of Shakespeare I’ve seen done for television: and re-watching this first episode in the cycle, I’ve not changed my mind. If anything, having seen quite a few of the other films in the cycle, I’m even more impressed with the imagination with which this has been made.

Part of the interest in watching this series has been seeing the slow movement away from the failures of realism towards a more impressionistic style, often more reminiscent of theatre rather than reality. This movement reaches its peak in this second cycle of history plays. I think it’s often fair to say that this is triumphant, because this second cycle of history plays (covering the “minor Henriad” and Richard III) is the most enjoyable, accomplished and impressive production so far, the first to completely successfully marry the joy of live theatre performance with the technical advantages of television to create an experience that could not exist if did not use elements from both.

Most obviously no attempt is made at all to set this play in a real location. Instead the setting is a multi-coloured wooden set, looking rather like an adventure playground, with a raised cyclorama platform and a number of doors and exits around a large courtyard which, with some minor changes, shifts and alters into a variety of different locations but where no attempt is made to suggest that any of them are “real places”, as there were with interior sets in previous history plays. The brightly coloured setting, and the high octane running around and energetic nature of many of the performances is used to brilliantly suggest that this feud between Dukes and Earls is no more than children squabbling over who shall go next on the swings.

Within this setting, the director Jane Howell also chose to avoid the normal televisual convention of one actor for each part. Instead a company of around 30 actors take on all the speaking parts of the cycle, with several taking on multiple roles within this production. What is particularly effective is the intelligent doubling, with actors taking on roles that contrast and comment upon each other. So here we have Bernard Hill playing both York, the man destined to blow the kingdom apart, and the Master Gunner who literally blows up a group of English generals. Joseph O’Conor plays two very different father figures whose advice is rejected by Henry and Joan. Derek Farr’s heroic Salisbury is reincarnated as an honourable but weak Sir William Lucy. This also reflects over multiple productions: Ron Cook, later to play Richard III, appears as a messenger bearing news of doom in France and a hunchbacked porter to the Countess. On top of this the company all do double time as various lords, mourners, courtiers, servants and soldiers in the myriad crowd scenes that fill this production, mixing with an over 20-strong “second ensemble” of extras who play the various French and English soldiers throughout. It’s a brilliant added delight, particularly as each actor so skilfully presents their performances that each character stands alone: Tenniel Evans, in particular, seems markedly different in each of the three roles he plays.

Howell’s direction of Part One uses the high energy of these performers to suggest that this play is positioned at the opening of one long descent into chaos and violence. Notably the first half is surprisingly light and playful, despite the huge numbers of battles. After the opening funeral scene the stage is brightly lit and the costuming chosen is a series of bright primary colours. The battles are represented throughout as almost keystone cops affairs, with actors – their faces plastered with childlike grins – run through doors and up ramps, waving swords and whooping with joy: as if war was all one big game. Which it’s easy to feel like it is within Shakespeare’s play, with the constant fast exchange of French cities, swopping sides as quickly as weathervanes in a strong wind. Even the clashes at courts between gangs of rival factions seem more like playground wrestling matches rather than events where actual killing and murder are not far off.

All this changes in the second half of the production, which is notably much darker visually, with the consequences of these wars starting to become more noticeable. Whereas battles in the first half were largely single take affairs, with crowds of extras running back and forth like balls at a tennis match, these later battles start to witness the cost of war. We see our first lifeless bodies of ordinary soldiers at the start of the act. By the fall of Talbot’s army, the battle is a series of quick cuts each showing some act of violence – bodies stabbed, throats slit, knives plunged into necks – and the pauses in the battle see the stage littered by bloodied dead bodies, with eyes staring sightlessly upwards.  Howell’s point being that this age of chivalry, of war being a great adventure, cannot last in a world where ambition and greed encourages men to be ruthless and uncaring for others. As men like York and Somerset take charge of the kingdom, it means the days of honourable adventurers like Talbot are numbered.

A montage of some of the violent images towards the end of the play

However, Howell also allows a lot of comedy to sit alongside this more serious intent: tellingly this production is far more amusing than any of the comedies made so far in this series. Comic imagery is used throughout to puncture the pretentions of the lords: a feuding Gloucester and Beaufort meet on hobbyhorse back, miming out the actions of riding on horseback, waving their swords at each other (this is also a tour-de-force of physical acting by Burke and Middlemass). The French lords are a collection of comic grotesques, alternately cowardly and argumentative (Michael Byrne stands out as a hilariously camp and prissy Alencon). Antony Brown’s uptight and cultured Burgundy finds himself totally out of place among the forthright English, at one point weakly forced to explain a joke to a bewildered Talbot (in a nice touch in the same scene he sits on a stool while all the English lounge on the floor, drinking from a glass while other swig from flasks). The countess’ attempt to capture Talbot ends in a comic tableaux of swords pointed at the defeated gentlewoman.

This sits beside a great deal of theatrical invention. Those who believe that “filmic technique” is largely a question of alternate head shots and edits rather than camera movements have claimed this is too close to a play. Far from it: Howell’s camera is a roving part of the action, moving in and out of scuffles and tracking key moments. In the courtroom scene of A3 S1, it moves in and among the lords of England, first during the court gathering and then through the manic action as rival factions of Gloucester and Beaufort fight each other in the courtroom. Tableaux are used effectively as well: before his final confrontation, Talbot’s soldiers form themselves into a defensive pyramid of swords with Talbot at the centre. Fast editing is used sparingly but effectively. Scene transitions are also very cleverly done: after meeting with Mortimer, York turns and charges through double doors – to emerge at the English court and in the next scene (Bernard Hill even allows a look of surprise to cross his face, another nice moment of both comedy and fourth wall breaking).

The main effect used for the camera is to use it as an active character and confessional for the actors. As in Howell’s Winter’s Tale production, actors frequently turn and address the camera to deliver their inner thoughts. What’s particularly imaginative about this, as in the previous production, is that this isn’t just used at obvious moments – speeches and asides – but that characters also use it in dialogues with other characters, and at select moments in larger speeches. It seems to work against the “rules” of film, but actually succeeds brilliantly as a bridge between theatre and film, acknowledging the viewer, but keeping us still at a distance. It also allows plenty of additional moments of comedy – particularly in duologues, as one character address the camera while the other stares at them, either confused or annoyed at the indiscretions. This is brought to its height in A5 S2 where Suffolk and Margaret meet for the first time and alternate in their addresses to the camera, moving all the time around each other (at one point side-by-side directing their dialogue into the camera) in a sequence that is both theatrical and filmic.

A range of some of the different camera addresses used in the production

Within such a parade of ensemble acting, all of the very highest standard (there is not a weak link in the cast), there are in this play a few key roles. Brenda Blethyn makes her sole appearance in the trilogy here as Joan of Arc, here imagined as a flirtatious, playful tomboy, a determined chancer who seems to only just be hiding her annoyance and satirical disdain for the French lords around her. Bouncing around with energy, waving her sword and easily besting English soldiers, she’s overflowing with confidence and certainty. Blethyn then contrasts this extremely well with the broken and terrified figure she becomes when “her spirits” abandon her late in the play and she finds herself sentenced to death. From arrogantly rejecting her lowly father, she moves to desperately pleading for mercy from the fire, her frantic cobweb of lies eventually exploding into contempt and fury when the sentence is not revoked. It’s a performance that packs in a great deal of fun and delight, mixed with serious emotion.

For the English, the leading character is Trevor Peacock’s Talbot: a blunt, straightforward soldier, honourable and plain-speaking who appears as a relic of an earlier age, a hangover from the age of chivalry under Henry V. A natural leader of men, he is at ease with the lords of England and adored by the soldiers.  Peacock also gives Talbot a certain modesty, a man who sees himself as merely the figurehead of English soldiery. What he also makes clear is that Talbot is a less than successful political and military strategist, someone who seems incapable of appreciating all the implications of a situation or of foreseeing possible outcomes. Instead he’s a simple man, with easy loyalties and open hearted. His affection for his son is warm and real, and his concern for him – and his pain when he falls in battle – comes from a genuine concern. His death here is also the death of honour in this world – reflected in the bloody imagery that sees so many soldiers die with him.

There are several other strong individual performances I’ve yet to mention. David Burke’s Gloucester is a decent, upright but proud figure, convinced of his moral certainty. His reactions to other characters and events (the sniggers he shares with Exeter in A5 S4 as conversation turns to Margaret are a perfect example of this) always ring true and are a frequent background delight. Frank Middlemass’ Cardinal Beaufort is openly venal, selfish and corrupt. David Daker (with two sizeable roles) draws sharp differences between the cold and proud Reignier and the loyal but aggressive Vernon. But the truth is all the cast shine at different moments in the production, and there is truly not a weak player in the ensemble.

This is sharply intelligent drama, expertly filmed and packed with wonderful moments of drama, comedy and imagination. It’s the sort of production that makes sitting through the weaker productions in the cannon worthwhile: and a testament to the project that it allows the minor plays like this to be brought so vividly to life.

Conclusion

Probably the best film so far in the series, directed with verve, embracing both the televisual and the theatrical. Thematically it creates a world that is just starting to change, with chivalry and honour beginning to give way to greed and chaos. The non-realist setting works brilliantly, avoiding the insummountable challenges of realistic filming (it would probably require a budget in the hundreds of millions) and makes the economies of scale and restrictions of television work to its advantage rather than against it. Similarly the decision to use an ensemble cast, to share so many roles out in an intelligent and well thought out manner, also works brilliantly. With a director on top form and not a single weak performance in the cast, this is the sort of production which, if it had been a theatrical performance, would be remembered as one of the landmark productions of this play. Best so far.

NEXT TIME: More Henry VI to come, this time with Trevor Peacock returning to wreak chaos as Jack Cade in Henry VI Part Two.

The Merry Wives of Windsor (Series 5 Episode 2)

First Transmitted 28th December 1982

Richard Griffiths tries his moves. Too bad they all know he's an idiot.

Cast: Richard Griffiths (Sir John Falstaff), Judy Davis (Mistress Ford), Ben Kingsley (Ford), Prunella Scales (Mistress Page), Elizabeth Spriggs (Mistress Quickly), Michael Bryant (Dr. Caius), Alan Bennett (Justice Shallow), Tenniel Evans (Sir Hugh Evans), Simon Chandler (Fenton), Richard O’Callaghan (Slender), Bryan Marshall (Page), Nigel Terry (Pistol), Michael Graham Cox (Host), Gordon Gostelow (Bardolph), Michael Robbins (Nym), Ron Cook (Simple)

Director: David Jones

Oh dear. If ever there was a production to be shown to people to convince them that, y’know, this series is not for them it would be this one. As so often in this series, when the comedy comes calling, the series is reduced to looking dull, stretched and old fashioned, here with gurning actors and much forced jollity pulling us towards a seemingly long distant conclusion. I’ve tackled the problems of bringing Shakespeare comedy from stage to screen earlier when discussing Twelfth Night.  Here all the problems of this genre on screen come together with a brutal force.

First and foremost this is a painfully long production of what is a very slight and let’s be honest, a rather tedious play. Did something as slight as Merry Wives deserve an almost three hour run time? Can a production in which nearly all the actors seem to be keen to stress how stupid their characters are, hold our attention for so long? What we get here is something so old fashioned it could have been around since the 19^th century, and so dull that you’ll actually want to stop it and paint your walls so that you have something more entertaining to watch afterwards.

Of course a lot of the problems here lie with the play itself. Legend has it that Elizabeth I herself requested a play to see “Sir John” in love. If true, then this must be one of the first surviving examples of a play written for commission rather than the author himself actually wanting to write it. Crammed with feeble jokes, lame set pieces and obvious humour, Merry Wives doesn’t even feel like a “Falstaff” play – certainly not the Falstaff seen in Henry IV. As Harold Bloom put it, it’s almost like Shakespeare was ashamed of what he was doing and wanted to keep his creation away from this train wreck.

However, with the BBC committed to giving us the full text, there is no tightening of the production, no cutting of unnecessary fat from the bones, no trimming for pace to keep the slight plot moving forward. Instead scenes stretch on almost to the crack of doom. There is some mild rearrangement of the text, but the listlessness of the construction of the production and the strange lack of urgency throughout the film (despite so much furious mugging, it never feels like there is any rush to get anywhere) mean it just doesn’t grip the audience at all. I caved on this one. Sorry – I want to watch them all the way through, really I do. But man oh man this was so flipping, head bashingly dull and turgidly unfunny I had to watch some in fast forward. I cycled to work the other day and my bicycle fell apart, including the wheel falling off. Cost a fortune to fix and I walked to work. That was four times funnier than this crap.

Part of the problem of this listlessness can be found in the central performance of Richard Griffiths. His Falstaff is a childish idiot. No other way of really putting it. Of course it’s part of the play’s problem that Falstaff is a terminally stupid character who seems to believe virtually everything he is told, no matter how outlandish. What Griffiths is not is witty or charismatic or – strangely – energised. At key moments it feels like his performance is going to let rip into posturing, boasting, rage or frustration: but it never does. He always returns to a level, cool delivery of the lines, a low-key, gentle rendition of the knight as almost a worldly innocent. It’s a legitimate interpretation, but for a play that borders on a farce, having a central character who seems so slow and underpowered makes Falstaff quite a tedious figure, who seems to diminish in importance in the play. Griffiths as a performer seems more like a natural Bottom (and lord knows he would have done better than Brian Glover in the role) or a Sir Andrew Aguecheek  - a dreamer rather than the scheming rogue Falstaff tries to be in this play.

But then perhaps Griffiths brings it down because Ben Kingsley is determined to leave nothing in the changing room as Ford. Kingsley was a highly praised Ford on stage a few years before this was filmed with the RSC. Now, coming to the production a few months before he was to hoist aloft an Oscar for Gandhi, he clearly decided to repeat the performance, with no alteration, for the camera – letting rip as if the back of the stalls still needed to be reached. On stage I can imagine it was gripping, but on camera it’s simply overwhelming as every oversized gesture and vocal tic is practically forced down the eyeball of the viewer. In fact, the impression that is created is that Kingsley is keen to let us the viewer know that he far smarter than his stupid character – as if Ford was someone he was holding at arm’s length like an exhibit, rather than as a living, breathing person.

This is pretty much the case for every other male performance in the play: aim big, aim high, aim dumb. Let’s laugh at each character in turn, as if this was a Shakespearean Hi-de-Hi. When even seasoned actors like Michael Bryant get in on the act then you know you are in trouble. Alan Bennett can count his lucky stars that a bizarre wig and beard render him almost completely unrecognisable (bar the famous voice) as Shallow (in fact it feels like he just wants to get the whole thing over and done with). Can you even begin to relate to any of these idiots? With no straight man or sense of reality hanging over anything, how can you care about what happens? Where is the intelligence of a Feste or the depth of a Benedick?

So the people who come out of this well are the women. Prunella Scales and Judy Davis make a good fist of the scheming wives, revelling in their deceptions. Davis in particular has a minxy glee that is very alluring and what energy this production has is almost completely down to her. The stand out performance though is Elizabeth Spriggs – mainly because she is practically the only performer in the play that seems to want to treat her character with some measure of respect, and who seems to suggest some intelligence exists in her. Her selfishness and sharpness as she cons virtually every other character in the play, makes her actually interesting and one of the few performers the audience can root for.

This parade of grotesques are  led through their paces in a series of duff comedic set pieces, nearly all of which go on far too long to be either impressive, amusing or really watchable. David Jones seems to have little natural flair for comedy, confusing loud for funny and dumb for charming. Where he does seem comfortable is throwing money up onto the screen with an impressive interior set and location that recreates the look and feel of Shakespeare’s Stratford, each house taking on an elaborate interior that reflects different elements of Shakespeare’s birthplace. The exterior locations – big fields and village squares – are much less convincing, but that’s about par for the course for the series. So it is impressive to look at, and the camerawork to explore this set is well done.

But the actual scenes themselves aren’t. Throw on top of that a terribly slow and mis-shaped staging of the final deception scene. Why in the name of all that is holy the costume designer decided to go for a Ku Klux Klan look for the child fairies is a complete mystery. In fact, the final sequence plays like a rather sinister build-up to a lynching, as if Wicker Man style, these villagers were preparing to sacrifice the poor fat knight in some pagan rite rather than have a bit of fun at his expense. Needless to say, the scene is about as funny and engaging as getting your hand slammed in a door.

So there you go. A director with little eye for comedy lets a lot of actors rip with barely any control with a script that is not very good in a production that reverentially stretches out over nearly three hours. The one or two moments that are amusing are totally lost within this morass of tedium. Why this really doesn’t work in the end is that there is no warmth here, no sense of affection for the characters. They are merely jokes and punchlines, not human beings. There is no sense of respect for them in the actors or the directors. Baldrick may be an idiot, but Tony Robinson has both respect and affection for him in his performance: the actors here just think these characters are almost beneath their interest.

And I don’t just blame David Jones and the cast. I put one of the largest fingers at you Shakespeare. This is crappy hackwork at best, as if Salman Rushdie tried to write a farce, but still wanted to us to know he was the smartest man in the room, rather than caring whether we enjoyed it or not. So welcome then to one of the worst films in the series, married to one of the worst scripts Shakespeare ever wrote. Poor, poor, poor stuff.

Conclusion

Another total duffer of a comedy though you can’t polish a turd if you are going to treat it as if it has literally dropped on your head from heaven. Elizabeth Spriggs alone probably emerges with reputation fully intact. Everyone else just looks happy to have got out of a contractual obligation – kinda like the Bard himself. Not good.

NEXT TIME: Back on the history treadmill with the first part of the Henry VI trilogy.

King Lear (Series 5 Episode 1)

First transmitted 19th September 1982

Michael Hordern rages against the dying of the light

Cast: Michael Hordern (King Lear), Norman Rodway (Earl of Gloucester), Gillian Barge (Goneril), Penelope Wilton (Regan), Brenda Blethyn (Goneril), Frank Middlemass (The Fool), John Shrapnel (Earl of Kent), Anton Lesser (Edgar), Michael Kitchen (Edmund), John Bird (Duke of Albany), Julian Curry (Duke of Cornwall), John Grillo (Oswald), David Weston (Duke of Burgundy), Harry Waters (King of France), Ken Stott (Curran)

Director: Jonathan Miller

Well it’s been a while and, if it’s any excuse, I’ve been extraordinarily busy with the last play I directed in Oxford – none other than a certain King Lear. So gosh and blimey it’s been interesting watching this production while a host of my own ideas have been bubbling around my head: always an interesting time to watch any production. Added to this, I’ve got some rather fond memories of watching this production during my A-Level studies, where several performances made a real impression on me – not least John Shrapnel’s Kent and Michael Kitchen’s Edmund.

So it’s interesting watching it again now, especially as I have now seen so many of the other films in this series – as well as all the rest of the productions directed and produced by Miller. This was Miller’s last production for the series and, apparently, it was not his first choice to work on it. He had directed a BBC version seven years prior to this – also starring Michael Hordern as Lear and Frank Middlemass as the Fool – and proposed merely showing that production again as part of this series. When that idea was rejected, Miller was commissioned to direct a new production. Being, presumably, pleased with many elements of his last production, Miller recast many of the same actors and then reset elements of the first production within some of the new staging ideas he had been experimenting with throughout the series.

From Troilus and Timon through to Antony and Cleopatra, Miller had increasingly experimented with stripped down, impressionistic sets that bring the focus into the acting. He set the plays themselves in increasingly non-realistic settings that stress the heightened emotions and events that occur. This style also worked to eliminate the clunking realism of earlier productions (Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It spring instantly to mind). The location used here is a deliberately wooden stage, almost reminiscent of the original Globe theatre. A black backcloth is used to establish the background (and no effort is made to suggest it is anything other than a cloth). The only other location used is a bare wasteland for the storm scenes, which is adapted into a sandy wilderness for the final battle. It’s deliberately bleak and spare for a production that stresses the harsh and violent world of the play. It’s matched by the Velazquez-inspired costumes, all of which are black and white with only touches of colour to thematically link characters (such as the white in the Fool’s facepaint mirroring the white in Cordelia’s).

The camera work also aims to make the action “up close and personal” with a proliferation of close-ups that zoom in on the actors’ (often impassioned) faces as if to pull the emotions out like teeth. The storm scene in particular relies on a series of prolonged close-ups of Hordern’s soaked face, while the Fool and Kent can be seen in the background. Gloucester’s blinding is largely framed from a reverse close-up on the Earl tied to a chair. A common shot is a side-on close up in which an actor speaks while a second actor stands (out of focus slightly) alongside them facing the camera – this is repeatedly used, perhaps to suggest a continuing sense of events being “witnessed” by others.

Even wider-angle shots, such as the final death of Lear, use framing and actor positioning to create a triangular “zooming in” effect, where the visual attention of the viewer is pulled down towards Lear at a focal point of the other characters in the scene. Of course this decision to use close-ups isn’t always effective: noticeably during the fight sequence between Edmund and Edgar, the entire fight is delivered in tight close-up on Edmund’s face. Sure this might give the feeling that we are judging Edmund – but it also means it’s rather difficult to tell what is going on (particularly as the fast paced movement makes it hard for the cameraman to keep up!). 

Perhaps this is part of the issue with the production itself: it feels like almost a greatest hits of Miller’s directing for the series, rather than him bringing a fresh new perspective to the series. While Shrew and Antony and Cleopatra seemed like fresh interpretations, this seems more like Miller reworking the play in response to ideas rather than other way around - something I was less aware of when watching it all those years ago.

Miller’s general design aesthetic is to integrate the motivations and feelings of the characters very closely, and this forensic style is equally clear in Hordern’s studied and well observed performance as Lear, which is packed with little details here and there. Indeed, Miller and Hordern’s intention to tightly analyse Lear throughout actually rather stacks the deck, particularly in the opening scene, towards exploring Lear’s mental strength (or rather weakness). From the first scene Lear is clearly struggling – he even seems momentarily confused and a little lost when entering the court scene, before seeming to remember what he is there for. 

Throughout the early scenes of the play, his Lear is twitchy and uncertain, almost nervous about standing still, as if uncertain or determined to keep moving forward so he knows where he is. Although this onset of senility is overplayed, Hordern does really capture a sense of childish, almost sulky, capriciousness in Lear – Cordelia’s famous “nothing” is met with stunned silence, before a temperamental explosion (and the division of the kingdom into two has a fantastic improvisational feel to it) which is echoed again in his fury towards Goneril in A1 S4 (which even seems to shock the Fool in its viciousness). What’s particularly interesting about the performance of Lear in his pomp is that he never seems too regal, but more like a self-important bank manager.

His Lear is capable of warmth – he is clearly close to the Fool (as seen in A1 S5 and during the storm sequence) – and is able to demonstrate affection to Regan in A2 S4 (even if it is grounded in manipulation) but he is also clearly equally capable of self-delusion. In A1 S5 he distractedly mutters “I did her wrong” (of Cordelia) before clearly dismissing the thought from himself. In A2 S4 he seems to persuade himself that Regan is pleased to see him (despite all evidence to the contrary in Penelope Wilton’s stony reaction) before angrily lashing out. It all builds towards the impression of a man teetering on the edge of from the start, tipping during his impassioned raging during the storm. 

Edgar’s mania mesmerises and inspires him to embrace the storm inside himself, with Lear increasingly becoming lost in broken conversation and mutterings, despite keeping an air of firmness. His madness is in fact laced through nicely with moment of calmness and reflection – “for I lack soliders” in A4 S5 has a particular sadness, as if remembering his lost knights. The cruelty is still there – the mocking of Gloucester’s blindness has an edge to it – but there is a clear continuation of underlying character traits in Hodern’s performance from sanity to madness – which makes it even more unnecessary for him to overplay the madness traits in the opening scene.

Recovering from madness, Hordern is gentle and apologetic, delighting in Cordelia’s presence. Hordern holds her tight and can barely let her go, his eyes rarely straying towards anything or anybody else in the scene. Hordern is also particularly strong portraying Lear’s grief at the death of this beloved child, mixing again moments of pained clarity with an almost dreamlike lack of understanding and acceptance of the events around him. Hordern’s performance makes a very watchable performance of this role – but it seems to lack something, maybe because Hordern himself is not naturally a ‘charasmatic superstar actor’, with his style better suited to character roles (such as in All’s Well That Ends Well) rather than a more ‘glamourous’ part like Lear. His style inverted rather better as Prospero than it does here as Lear. He’s watchable and touching at several points, but he is never quite as moving as the part perhaps requires.

Away from the lead, there are of course several other performances of note. Michael Kitchen has a great deal of charisma (if not depth of character or motivation beyond “he is a villain”) as Edmund, though today visually he bears more than a passing resemblance to Blackadder. His bastard is a cool and relaxed man, determined and intelligent, who makes himself believable with a low-key assurance. Kitchen frequently looks into the camera – notably when kissing Goneril – involving the audience in his schemes. He makes a firm contrast with Anton Lesser’s at first more highly-strung Edgar (he even needs to clash both swords for Edgar in A2 S1). 

Lesser however adds a great deal of development to Edgar from A3 onwards, his Poor Tom is intense and vulnerable (though a design decision to give him a Christ like appearance – including stigmata – definitely overplays it). Edgar himself becomes increasingly still, distant and devout, going from mortified pain at Gloucester’s fate to a monkish authority and even a touch of cruelty after the killing of Oswald. In the final confrontation between the brothers, Edgar wears a death mask resembling Gloucester (a nice touch), and Edmund’s authoritative assurance is broken into a desire to salvage something from his life.

Of Lear’s children, Gillan Barge and Penelope Wilton are little too close to villainous from the start, both nakedly selfish and deceiving from the opening scene. Barge’s Goneril is an aloof, imperial figure, with a sternness that only slightly cracks under Lear’s vicious verbal assault in A1 S4 (which even Kent and the Fool seem shocked by) though she tightly holds her hands throughout, and she allows a triumph on “Do you mark that” as Lear exits. She seems a colder, more controlled figure than Wilton’s Regan, who comes across here as more instinctive. Wilton does use her softness as a performer to good effect however, her concern for Gloucester in A2 S1 a nice parallel for the blinding that will come. In that blinding she seems fascinated by the violence her husband unleashes, while her love for Edmund later seems almost fanatical in its devotion. Brenda Blethyn’s Cordelia has a surface softness that hides an inner determination, though her prominent dressing in white is in its way as heavy handed as Edgar’s stigmata.

As mentioned earlier, John Shrapnel is probably a stand out as a dutifully loyal Kent, a man who seems almost incapable of self definition but can only see himself in relation to others (specifically Lear or Cordelia) rather than finding his own way. The disguising of Kent works very effectively and he also brings a great deal of gruff humour to several key moments, while his desolation at the play’s end is strikingly effective. Norman Rodway makes an arrogant Gloucester who only finds wisdom when it is too late. Frank Middlemass’ Fool is a mountain of vibrant anger and comic aggression matched with a childish vulnerability and self pity at key moments.

So overall, there are many qualities to be admired in this production. But stylistically it’s not a complete success, with its televisual craft occasionally getting slightly in the way of the story. Its reliance on the close-up at points obscures the story (most notably in the storm scene) with several moments losing the impact of the wider emotional experience of the characters. Miller’s decision to not use cut aways in the many scenes that feature large numbers of people on stage (but only a few talking at any particular point) does mean that some actors get lost in the shuffle in scenes. Similarly heavy handed acting and design decisions (stigmata and Lear’s dementia for starters) take things too far.

But that is to ignore the good stuff on the table here. Many of the performers are excellent, particularly Kitchen, Shrapnel and Wilton while Hordern certainly gives everything he has to his Lear, even if the effect at times doesn’t quite match up to how I personally might see the character, and even if he sometimes lacks the charisma the role might require. But the cut down design works quite well (even if it isn’t particularly visually interesting) and the bleakness of the play is mirrored well in the black and white costumes on display. As a display of intelligent interpretation of this most complex play in the cannon, it is certainly far more interesting than many of the other great tragedies in the cannon – better than Hamlet, perhaps a little much of a shadow of Othello. And that perhaps is the final issue: it feels like Miller is simply reworking or resubmitting previous ideas from old productions (both of this play and others) rather than bringing a true unique freshness to it as he did with The Taming of the Shrew.

Conclusion

A solid production with several exciting performances and design flourishes: but it feels a little like Miller on autopilot, as if the production was almost done to complete his contract rather than because Miller felt he had something fresh, new or interesting to bring to the play. If it’s true that he wished to simply retransmit his original television production from a few years before, perhaps he felt that remounting the same production in the style of Othello and other productions was the next best thing. So, despite the good things here, it feels like a wasted opportunity, and a shame that a different director in the series – an Elijah Moshinky or Jane Howell – didn’t get a chance to put their own spin on the play. It’s still up there with the better of the productions, but it could have been better.

NEXT TIME: Richard Griffiths’ gets into all sorts of bother with other people’s wives in The Merry Wives of Windsor.