Macbeth (Season 6, Episode 2)

First transmitted 5th November 1983

Nicol Williamson and Jane Lapotaire go about the murdering of sleep

Cast: Nicol Williamson (Macbeth), Jane Lapotaire (Lady Macbeth), Tony Doyle (Macduff), James Hazeldine (Malcolm), Ian Hogg (Banquo), Mark Dignam (Duncan), John Rowe (Lennox), Gawn Grainger (Ross), David Lyon (Angus), James Bolam (Porter), Jill Baker (Lady Macduff), Brenda Bruce (First Witch), Eileen Way (Second Witch), Anne Dyson (Third Witch), John Woodnutt (Doctor)

Director: Jack Gold

It’s the nature of the slightly slap-dash planning of this series that, as we reach the final 10 or so films, the series has already covered most of the true classics of the cannon and is largely left with the Shakespearean equivalent of a few minnows. One of the few tent poles left is of course The Scottish Play, here finally working its way onto screen. This was hardly an unknown play to the viewing public, as the murderous Thane had already been brought to the screen several times, both on film and TV. Combine that with an unending parade of productions on the stage and so many schooldays memories, there can’t have been many people who didn’t already feel themselves familiar with this notoriously unlucky work.

Which is just as well really, as there is very little here that will add to anyone’s visual memory of the play. In fact it seems almost a crying shame that there wasn’t a more inventive production of this play, taking advantage of some of the more daring work that had come before. Of course, like Cymbeline, maybe this one just fades compared to the daring brilliance of Jane Howell’s Henriad but this is a rather flat and (whisper it) dull production of a play that is all about relentless momentum punctured by moments of introspection.

In fact it seems like a call back to the early days of the series, before the Miller influence. Where better to set a play set in a Dark Ages Scotland, but Dark Ages Scotland. The inventive playing with form and locations that Jonathan Miller used so well in, for example Antony and Cleopatra, is replaced with a straight placing of the play in its Braveheart style location. Layer on top of that the simple fact that few things look as dated to our 21^st-century eyes than a load of actors with big wigs and rough clothing trying to give us the impression of olden times. Throw in the low budget cyclorama backcloth and some unconvincing grassy knolls and you end up with a production that visually looks every inch of its 32 years of age, in a way none of the productions perhaps since Henry V have done.

Actually that is quite a major problem I had with this production. If you are going down the ultra-traditional route, then that needs to be reflected in your casting. Here the cast are uniformly, despite their tough costuming and dark ages chic, a collection of RSC stalwarts who look and sound like they have stepped straight from an elocution class into the fray of battle. Not one of them convinces as a warrior or soldier, fatally crippling (for me) the concept below the waterline. In name only does this feel like a warrior culture, or a society brimming with barely concealed violence: aside perhaps from Nicol Williamson in places, the rest of them seem overwhelmingly well mannered and (how else can I put it?) English. For a play that has embraced the Scottish setting so vividly, there isn’t a single damn earthy Scotsman in it. It’s a patrician feeling show, like watching members of the Raj stage a little production of the piece.

Which is a shame as there are some good ideas here, and Jack Gold clearly wants to tackle some of them head-on. Gold stresses the psychology of the play. In this he is helped enomously by Nicol Williamson’s trademark intensity. Once described as an actor who all but physically attacked the text until it revealed its secrets, Williamson goes at it here, his intense and visceral performance really pushing the idea of a Thane who was (to be honest) already suffering from some real issues, even before the witches pop up (in a lovely touch there is a hint of sadness in his voice when the witches disappear in A1 S3). What is a particularly nice touch in this performance is that Williamson’s Macbeth actually gives the impression of being an almost gentle soul at first, out of his depth in world affairs and meekly dependent on his wife and his friends, often nervously fiddling with his hands. (Hands are a slight motif in this production, with the camera focusing at points on hands before the actions they commit. For example, the camera follows Lady Macbeth and Macbeth into the dining room to greet Duncan, the camera zooming in on their hands then past them into Duncan. Even this, though, is a rather obvious choice for a play famous for hand washing and wringing from its female lead).

The shock of committing murder almost makes Macbeth catatonic at first. However, when he discovers the capability for wickedness within himself, then it’s a slow spiral of Macbeth nudging himself a step at a time to see how far he will go – reluctance and even anxious timidity when planning Duncan’s death give way to a real adamantine quality when planning the murder of the Macduffs. By the end he’s left hollowed out, almost darkly amused by the attack on his castle and the efforts of so many to kill him. It’s a fine performance that brings the largest degree of interpretative originality to the production.

Gold internalises a lot of this as well by making the majority of the supernatural elements things that Macbeth sees but we do not – so no Banquo’s ghost, no shimmering dagger, no image of spirits telling Macbeth of the future to come. Instead for each of these the camera trains in largely on Macbeth’s face. This is most effective in his second scene with the witches. Crouched under a stone altar in the wilderness, with his head above a steaming cauldron with the camera tight on Williamson’s face it’s unclear whether he is reacting to something out of shot – or whether the witches are simply getting him high on whatever is in that cauldron. When Banquo’s ghost comes a calling, the camera tracks back to give us part of the same view as the other lords in attendance have of Macbeth’s unsettling reaction to what – to us as well – is little more than an empty chair.

The focus on the psychology extends just as swiftly to Lady Macbeth. Jane Lapotaire’s reading is from the start overtly sexual – it’s very clear what sort of power she can exert over Macbeth from the start – and her cry to be “unsexed” is effectively portrayed by an orgasmic writhing on a bed, the camera positioned above her, Lapotaire directly addressing it, as if inviting us (as well as the devil) to join her. This works quite nicely for positioning Lady Macbeth as initially the person more in touch with an understanding of the world and what needs to be done – and also allows Williamson’s Macbeth to be part pupil, part horny shy teenager around her. Her sharp, domineering presence drives the remainder of the first part of the play. It’s an absence that is then sorely missed later on.

The energy she beings effectively start to drop off in the remaining part of the action, as the consequences of events begin to take effect. Suddenly from the coronation onwards she is a startled, anxious woman – clearly already aware that Macbeth’s heart has grown cold and hard. She is a woman now without a pace, who has lost the position she had to attain an empty prize. The sleepwalking scene after that is a formality – she’s dead already by this point, a frightened and startled woman openly scared of the man her actions have helped to create.

Well she might be, as this is a world of violence. The murderers set upon Banquo with a gusto, frantically stabbing him in a carefully concealed ambush, all sense of hesitation and doubt excised. In a nice touch, they themselves are then swiftly dispatched by a psychopathic Seyton, here introduced as the third murderer. Seyton then takes the lead in the slaughter of the Macduff children in one of the production’s most effective scenes. In a parody of a child’s game, the kid is pushed from killer to killer, confused and disorientated, until finally lifted of the ground and thrown onto Seyton’s waiting sword (needless to say this is all watched by a distraught Lady Macduff). After this the final battle seems quite restrained: Macbeth at first can barely contain his amusement at the idea that death might wait at the end of Siward’s sword, before fear and eventual defiance in the face of the raging Macduff.

The production also successfully establishes the idea that everyone watches everyone else. When Malcolm is proclaimed Thane of Cumberland, the camera focuses on each Thane in turn – all of them staring unsmilingly at Malcom. Is it any wonder he sees evil in men’s smiles? No surprise that an armed guard searches Macduff on arrival in England. Or that, after being proclaimed as King, Malcolm stares with nervousness with the rest of the assembled lords as Fleance walks forward to collect the crown. Again the camera cuts to each Thane in turn as their blank, unclear faces stare at him. Are they wondering if he will seize the crown? Are they pondering following him? Will the cycle start again? All options are open in this production.

So there is a lot of promising material here. It’s just a shame that it never really makes much of an impression on the viewer, and never really feels like it is breaking new ground in the way some of these other productions have done so. Nicely done as it is, it’s hardly unique to suggest the Scotland of the play is a land destined to have the witches continually drive it towards destruction (in this production they pop up at brief moments, but never in a sustained enough way to suggest a deliberate design decision). A large part of the lack of impact is linked to the supporting cast. Many of the parts in Macbeth are rather ill defined on paper, so rely on strong performances to create individual characters. This production though largely fails to deliver that – I can’t think of a single supporting performance that really lingers in the mind. Others, like Tony Doyle’s Macduff, are simply overdone. I can’t even picture Ian Hogg’s Banquo, which is itself an indictment. The production just never really comes alive at any point. Simply put I don’t care.

So what have you really got with this production? Some decent ideas, some good uses of the tricks of television (particularly with music, which it probably uses more effectively than others of the series). There are two decent performances in the lead roles, in particular Jane Lapotaire’s sensitive Lady Macbeth. But what this really is a perfectly serviceable, rather safe and traditional production of Macbeth, no different than a hundred other stage performances before it. You’ll get more or less what you expected when you opened the tin – and I can’t remember a production delivering so little in terms of imagination of a major work in this series since Hamlet.

Conclusion

Not exactly a disappointment, but also not a success. Nicol Williamson plays the Thane of gusto, Jane Lapotaire is terrific as the wife, there are a few flashes of interest but this production plays it overwhelmingly safe and, as a result, only really succeeds in making something incredibly bland and unexciting. Bearing in mind it was screened four years after the Ian McKellen/Judi Dench Macbeth, and that productions by Orson Welles and Roman Polanski were already in existence at the time, it’s hard to imagine this even getting in a top ten of on-screen Macbeth adaptations today, let alone anywhere near a top ten of this series. Not the worst, not the best, just a bit meh.

NEXT TIME: The Who’s Roger Daltrey gets tackled up in The Comedy of Errors. Yes you read that right.

Henry V (Series 2 Episode 3)

First Transmitted 23rd December 1979

David Gwillim prepares to summon up the blood

Cast: David Gwillim (Henry V), Alec McCowen (Chorus), Clifford Parish (Exeter), Bryan Pringle (Pistol), Tim Wylton (Fluellen), David Buck (Westmoreland), Thorley Walters (King of France), Keith Drinkel (Dauphin), Julian Glover (Constable of France), Trevor Baxter (Canterbury), Jocelyne Boisseau (Katherine), Brian Poyser (Gower), George Hower (Sir Thomas Erpingham), David Pinner (Williams), Brenda Bruce (Mistress Quickly), Jeffrey Holland (Nym), Gordon Gostelow (Bardolph), John Abineri (Ely), Garrick Hagon (Mountjoy), Robert Harris (Burgundy), John Saunders (Orleans). John Bryans (Bourbon), Pamela Ruddock (Queen Isabel), Anna Quayle (Alice), Rob Edwards (Bedford), Martin Smith (Gloucester), Roger Davenport (Clarence), Rob Beacham (Warwick)

Director: David Giles

 

Very few Shakespeare plays have such a filmic legacy as Henry V. The two most famous cinematic interpreters of the Bard – Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh – have both acted and directed in productions of the play and it is the Shakespeare role arguably most readily associated with them. Each of the films is strikingly different, but both are imaginative productions of the play and stand up to repeated viewings as well as being excellent films in their own right. The question for any other filmed production of the play is quite simple: is there any point watching this again when you could be watching one of those productions? In the case of this film, the answer is a definite no.

 

To be fair, at the time of the making of this production, Branagh’s film was still 10 years away. Never the less, this is so old fashioned in its filming, acting and use of music (and in some scenes it is so ham-fistedly made) it may as well be 20 years when comparing the two to each other. What is a fair comparison is contrasting it with Olivier’s marvellous spectacle of high budget and imagination. And it doesn’t stand up to that either. In fact I think this production verges on the tragic, it’s such a missed opportunity.

 

For the very first time ever in this series the director goes for a non-realistic approach but, for whatever reason, it doesn’t quite work. The most effective sequence is the opening. Alec McCowen’s well-spoken chorus emerges from a blackened studio facing the camera, before lights come up in the studio to reveal an artificial court scene (a suggestion of walls) and a series of actors in freeze. Ely and Canterbury complete their plotting in a small church, and turn smoothly to walk straight into the royal throne room, created by a change of lighting in the set and the sudden reveal of other actors. It’s a high point in the production’s non-realist approach. The video below shows this sequence.

 

 

 

 

The problem is that this is a half-hearted attempt. I wanted this to stay on an obvious soundstage, with locations merging into each other and to make no attempt to persuade us we were outside. But events become a little too real. As soon as we are in France, the grass on the floor, the solid blue backdrop and the stone walls look too much like attempts to create the same realist feel as the Henry IV films. Harfleur feels like a set we are not meant to think is a set rather than a creative use of soundstage limitations.  Not only that, but the excellent movement of the Chorus between scenes is gradually dropped. McCowen may appear suddenly as a French lord at the end of A3 before walking into darkness, but by A5 it’s just become a simple cut away to his face.  It’s hugely disappointing after the quiet inventiveness of the start. Instead, by going with a more realist approach for most of A3 and A4, memories of the invention of Olivier’s film (moving from the Globe to a location and back again) come straight back to the viewer. And it’s not a flattering comparison. It makes this production look like a pale copy – as one reviewer said “the borrowed robes of Olivier”. Rather than use the budget and location limitations as a strength, they become a crippling weakness.

 

The invention returns slightly in A5 with the French court created by suggested walls and free-standing tapestries on a soundstage. The French courtroom looks great as a fleur de lis decorated room (floor and all) but it’s also got a clear outline and structure, more so than the earlier English court. The final sequence reverses the opening (the chorus walks from the still action into darkness) but it feels like something went wrong here with the plans of the director and designer (reportedly it ended up looking far more realist than either had intended). It’s a massive disappointment.

 

And Henry V is a play that needs invention: because it is so Henry-dominated, it takes a lot of work (and a very strong cast) to make any of the rest of the parts make an impact. That’s reflected in what happens here. No other actor other than David Gwillim really registers with the viewer – certainly none of the other English lords (for instance Rob Edwards, very good in Part 2, completely passed me by as a presence) who are barely characters. Clifford Parish makes a solid impression as Exeter, but David Buck continues to default to shouting as Westmoreland. For the rest, they are just interchangeable county names.

 

None of the French lords stand out either, despite actors as strong as Julian Glover, Thorley Walters, Garrick Hagon and Keith Drinkel filling the parts. Tim Wylton’s Fluellen raises the odd smile, but is far too broad for my liking. Despite Bryan Pringle’s best over acting, Pistol feels like a faded photocopy of Falstaff. Only very small moments from the support cast make impressions: Brenda Bruce gives a wonderful, emotional delivery of her eulogy to Falstaff and her sad “adieu” straight to camera is one of the few moving moments. Keith Drinkel’s terrified Dauphin during Agincourt is also a nice touch I haven’t seen before. Gordon Gostelow gives his finest performance in the series as a sweet Bardolph. But that’s really about it.

 

The lead performance though does merit some praise. Way back when watching Part 1 I thought Gwillim was doing something very different with Henry – making him a lighter, less charismatic figure, perhaps even more of a natural follower than a leader. It’s an interpretation that has carried through to here. This is easily the most softly spoken Henry V you are ever going to see. Gwillim’s Henry listens carefully to all advice when considering the invasion of France. He moves lightly and calmly with a smile through his troops, projecting calm and ease – as if there was nothing of any concern about to happen. He carefully uses emotion to win people to him – tears are in his eyes on “shall be my brother” in A4 S3 – and he is relaxed enough to encourage men to laugh at the gates of Harfleur. He only rarely shows anger (such as at Montjoy and at Williams) and is self controlled enough to play a Falstaffian game of pretence with the traitors in A2 S2.

 

The impression you get is a man who did not necessarily want to be king, who had to learn what it means to take on responsibility and duty. He had to try to wear it lightly to stop it crushing him. During his speech before Agincourt he is in genuine pain and sheds tears of regret at the simpler life he has lost. Gwillim plays Henry with more self-doubt and reluctance than I’ve seen from another actor before. It’s a logical progression from the carefree young man of the start of Henry IV Part 1. The price paid of this style of performance is that the big speeches lack the impact that they normally carry. But it’s a very interesting reinterpretation of a famous role – and allows Gwillim to put himself at the opposite end of the spectrum from Olivier’s godlike interpretation.

 

But unfortunately it is at the centre of a very flat production, hideously overlong. Of all the ‘great’ plays, Henry V is possibly one of the weakest, and the decision to remove virtually none of it here (the only really noticeable cut is the deletion of Henry’s threats to the citizens of Harfleur) makes this production a bum-numbing three hours, with too many dreadfully unfunny scenes featuring Pistol antics and leeks left in.

 

For Agincourt, Giles’ delivers his worst battle scenes so far (and the idea of a film of this play including virtually no actual fighting in it is hard to believe) and the empty green ground and blue skies end up neither suggesting a non-realist setting or providing any visual interest. Dramatically the worst of the history productions so far, with lines delivered in profile during long exchanges in scenes lacking drive or purpose. It’s a play with some of the most famous rhetoric in the English language, but it has almost no oomph, no va-va-voom. Part of this is a deliberate decision – but if a production of Henry V doesn’t push some of those buttons at least some of the time, then what is it actually for?

 

This could have been balanced out if more attempt had been made to tackle the subtle, underlying criticism of the war games that kings play which Shakespeare threads through the play. Henry’s war causes no end of death and wipes out his old friends. He threatens hideous vengeance on Harfleur (threats which are cut here) and shows no hesitation in ordering a massacre of prisoners. But these events lack impact – nothing is made of them. They don’t shed light on kingship they just merely seem to happen. Gwillim’s performance of a quieter King would have been a great opportunity to explore the cost of the king from all this death and destruction – but it just doesn’t happen.

 

Even the great scene with Williams and Henry falls flat – there isn’t the sense of a common man (unknowingly) pointing out the logic flaws and ambition of the king, or of Henry having to deal with this. Giles never really confronts Henry with the implications of his actions, or allows the drama to question the cost of Henry’s decisions or his potential selfishness or aggression. Any material of that nature comes solely from Gwillim’s more low-key interpretation.

 

This production clearly wanted to do something different within the restrictions of the series. It’s actually quite admirable that they tried something so artificial on television. But it doesn’t have the courage of its own convictions and doesn’t bring enough interpretation or interest to the play.  I thought from the opening moments I might be in for something special, but instead this is a disappointment.

 

Conclusion

The first time this series has gone for non-realism and artificiality but the production is largely a failure with mediocre direction and acting (outside David Gwillim). In a world awash with Henry V films it doesn’t offer anything new. I can’t imagine this ever being anyone’s favourite film of the play and it falls short of the high spot of Part 2 and the good work in Part 1.

 

Next time: It’s with a small sigh of relief that I move away from these history plays (five out of the first ten! I love the plays but I need a break…) and look forward to Felicity Kendal cross dressing in Twelfth Night.