Pericles (Series 7 Episode 2)

First Transmitted 8th December 1984

Mike Gwilym and Amanda Redman are lost in the Mediterranean in Shakespeare's rambling epic

Director: David Jones

Cast: Mike Gwilym (Pericles), Edward Petherbridge (Gower), Juliet Stevenson (Thaisa), Amanda Redman (Marina), Norman Rodway (Cleon), Annette Crosbie (Dionyza), Patrick Godfrey (Helicanus), Patrick Ryecart (Lysimachus), Patrick Allen (Simonides), Clive Swift (Cerimon), Trevor Peacock (Boult), Toby Salamn (Pandar), Lula Kaye (Bawd), Nick Brimble (Leonine), John Woodvine (Antiochus), Edita Brychta (Antiochus’ daughter), Gordon Gostelow (Fisherman), John Bardon (Lord/Fisherman/Sailor), Christopher Ravenscroft (Knight/Gentleman) 

With this adaptation of Pericles, the series moves well and truly into the ephemera of the completed works. Pericles is now widely accepted as a collaboration between Shakespeare and the pamphleteer George Wilkins. Wilkins contributed large chunks of the first two acts, with Shakespeare believed to have polished those and written the remaining three acts. This makes it rather like reading a book written in collaboration by John Grisham and Salman Rushdie. 

Pericles itself is a rather strange play and I’m not sure this, at times painfully long, adaptation completely gets to grips with it. Again, completeness is probably the enemy here: a braver production would have hacked much of Acts 1 and 2, especially as the story (proper) doesn’t actually begin until Act 3. The downside of this is that it would have reduced Pericles himself into a Cymbeline-like character, but as he is hardly the most enthralling personality ever shown on the stage, this arguably would have been no great loss.

Acts 1 and 2 meander from episodic adventure to episodic adventure, with Pericles visiting a dizzying array of different locations around the Mediterranean. The opening acts concern his unearthing incest in Antioch, returning to Tyre only to flee assassins, then sailing to Tarsus where he saves a city from starvation. He is then shipwrecked on Pentapolis where (disguised as a penniless knight) he wins a joust, the respect of King Simonedes and the love of his daughter Thaisa. Written out like that it should be compelling, but (certainly in the production) the action is terminally dull. Poorly shaped characters speak at each other rather than engaging in active conversation, and the constant switches of location and story line prevent us from growing attached to the characters or interested in their fates. Similarly, Jones introduces far too many minute-filling interpolations, including a never-ending dance at Pentapolis. The Antioch scenes do use slow zooms and long shots well to demonstrate both the isolation of Pericles and his danger from the incestuous King and his daughter, but this isn’t enough to make it dynamic or especially interesting.

By contrast, the second half of the production (and I felt this even before checking who wrote what!) is both far pacier and much more focused. Thaisa is presumed to have died in childbirth while at sea and her tomb cast into the sea (it washes up on Ephesus and luckily she turns out to be fine!). Pericles leaves his newborn daughter Marina in Tarsus (for reasons never really explained) and doesn’t see her for 16 years. After that time, Dionyza (wife of the ruler of Tarsus) arranges for Marina to be murdered – but she is kidnapped by pirates before the deed is done and sold to a brothel in Mytilene. There she keeps her purity by the virtue of her virtue and becomes famous. Pericles, believing her dead, eventually arrives in Mytilene and there is a great reconciliation, before a vision sends him to Ephesus for a second reconciliation with his wife. Far from the bitty and uninvolving events of Acts 1 and 2, with their constantly revolving series of characters and locations, the second half of the show introduces a consistent set of characters and four clear locations, each with a distinctive purpose.

So this is a production that inherits and falls victim to the weaknesses of the original material. Jones’ direction also declines to introduce much pace to the production. We’ve already mentioned the long dance scene, but that’s not even the worst offender. A good ten minutes is given over to Cerimon’s waking of Thaisa from the dead – a prolonged wordless sequence largely spent watching Cerimon rub Thaisa’s wrists. Any sense of urgency about saving a life is missing completely. Too often, the pace drains out of the production. This also isn’t helped by Edward Petherbridge’s sing-song performance as the narrator Gower – beautifully spoken as the semi-Irish lilt Petherbridge chooses might be, it lacks a real dynamism, meaning Gower’s regular interpolations frequently slow the production down. It’s a shame as, when the plot really gets going, and particularly once Amanda Redman’s Marina arrives, – there is a lot of merit and interest here – it just consistently seems to get lost.

What Jones and his design team do do well is to make each of the play’s myriad locations visually distinctive. Each location has its own style and colour scheme, meaning that, in those parts of the play that move swiftly from place to place, the viewer always knows where they are and where the characters we’re watching are from. Tyre, Pericles’s home, uses cooler blues and marbled, dark hallways. Antioch is a sandy, robed, yellowing place with shady glens. Tarsus has classic Eastern architecture with white robes. Pentapolis is a grand Greek interior. Ephesus has a real sense of heat, sandy and white. Mytiline a more brownstone residential city. The visuals of each location, and the clothing of its inhabitants, makes each immediately clear – despite the whirligig plot you are never confused by it.

Our six locations (from top left): Antioch, Tyre, Tarsus, Pentapolis, Ephesus and Mytilene

The Gower narrative sections are also skilfully illustrated to add a bit of visual interest . Petherbridge’s delivery may not be the most lively or engaging, but the events he relates are frequently played out behind him in delicately staged dumb shows by the actors. This instantly makes sections of the play that could otherwise be quite dry into something a little more dynamic and interesting to watch. Petherbridge is also often introduced into the scenes immediately before his narrative, in the background of the shot, to tie Gower a bit more into the action as an omniscient chorus or narrator. But too often these Gower interludes only really slow down the action rather than enlighten it (at one point the character even apologises for speaking at such great length) – and I’m not sure the production gets around this much.

When the production allows its narrative to have a bit more momentum, it also manages to carry an impressive amount of emotional heft. The imagined death of Thaisa in a storm at sea is movingly presented and draws some fine performances – it’s easily Mike Gwilym’s most effective moment. Similarly the build towards the reunion between Marina and Pericles is both very well staged – an effective intermixing of POV shots and close-ups – and draws the viewer into the relationship between the two characters. The second reunion between Pericles and Thaisa carries slightly less weight – but this is largely the fault of the play rather than the production.

In fact the plotline following the adult Marina is very well done indeed. This is also in large measure due to Amanda Redman’s excellent performance in the role. Marina is a very difficult part to play – a woman so pure, innocent and perfect that even in the role of prostitute she is able to persuade men to renounce lechery. On paper, it’s a character largely devoid of dramatic interest or tension. However, Redman brings a great deal of intelligence, determination and cunning to the role: Marina has a huge strength of character and is never the victim in the play. She understands the situation she is in, and Redman plays her as a woman with a shrewd and fast judge of character, swiftly able to identify strengths and weaknesses of the person she is talking to and to adjust her approach to manipulate them effectively. Far from a sweet flowery innocence, you get a sense of a woman who understands the world extremely well and how to get what she wants out of it. Redman turns a reactive near-victim into the most effective and proactive character in the play.

It’s a performance that really motors the play – and it fills a void that Mike Gwilym isn’t quite able to do in the first half. Pericles is part wanderer, part romantic maverick – Gwilyn doesn’t quite have the charisma and dynamism as a performer that the part demands. As an actor he is very well spoken and fiercely intelligent; he makes Pericles instantly believable as the strong king and decisive ruler, but he doesn’t quite convince as the swaggering adventurer who can win Thaisa’s heart, or the chance taker who inadvertently unmasks covert incest in the Antioch plotline. Gwilym just isn’t quite magnetic enough as a leading man to carry the first half of the drama – you keep wanting a little more life and energy from him. His line readings are beautiful, but he’s not the romantic lead the part needs to be. 

A young Juliet Stevenson is impressive as the naïve and tender Thaisa, her intelligence as an actor (similar to Redman) adding a confidence and sexiness to a character who, on paper, is potentially quite bland. Stevenson has a real breathless quality in her performance. Jones and his designers work hard to give her and Pericles a complementary appearance late on. She is saddled with the dull staging of her recovery-from-illness scene, but brings  her now-established excellence as a performer. A large part of the impact of the final resolution comes from her quiet emotion.

The rest of the cast is a wonderful who’s-who of players from earlier in the series – it’s actually very nice to see them all again! Most of them are in cameo roles but produce excellent work. Norman Rodway brings a sharpness and animation to Cleon – later collapsing into a sense of being trapped and powerless after his wife’s actions. Annette Crosbie as his wife Dionyza manages to make the character’s bizarre sudden transformation from caring mother to murderous evil aunt fairly logical – she creates a decent spark of bitterness and a clear sign of insecurity early in Dionyza. Patrick Godfrey makes Helicanus a stand-up guy. Patrick Allen is a playfully gruff Simonedes. Trevor Peacock is surprisingly quite funny (considering the series’ track record with comedy) as whorehouse employee Boult. Clive Swift is saddled with the worst part as Cerimon, but does a decent job. Special mention must also be made of Patrick Ryecart, here cast much more effectively as the rakish Lysimachus than he ever was as Romeo.

For the new cast, there are fewer standouts. John Woodvine makes a good impression as the regal, cruel and controlling Antiochus – these scenes have some decent tension in them, drily handled as the Antioch section of the production is. Nick Brimble gives a decent turn as reluctant assassin Leonine. For the rest of the production, a number of the supporting roles use a small company of 5-6 actors. This makes for an interesting rotation of actors but I’m not quite sure if there is any particular reason for it within the world of the production, in the way that (say) the Henry VI productions used doubling. Here I suspect it was to cut a few costs, but when you have a decent-enough company it’s nice to see them rotating through various lords, fishermen, knights and gentlemen.

David Jones draws out some good performances in some decent settings, to create a version of the play that (eventually) has a real sense of story and a genuine emotional force to it. The problem is that he is hamstrung for too long with the flaws of the actual play. He often fails to make strengths out of the play’s itinerant structure, at some points making it worse by allowing the pace to drop and introducing overlong sequences, such as dances or medical cures. But when the production reaches a single consistent story – and introduces and explores its principal characters – it starts to come to life. It takes too long to get there, but it handles some of the play’s problems well and although it fails to bring the first half to life it still manages to create some emotional force and engagement by its end. 

Conclusion

This is a decent production of a very difficult play, with some very strong moments and some good performances, in particular from Amanda Redman who steals the show as Marina. However, there are some weaknesses, often in the pacing which too frequently slows down to accommodate time-consuming “set piece” moments that add very little indeed to the plot. Mike Gwilym also lacks a certain charisma that the title role needs in order to really bring the character (and the play) to life. But despite some flaws, the second half effectively stages the story of the play and eventually lead to a reconciliation scene that is quite moving. Some moments of wit and humour lighten the tone as well. While this is not a perfect production, it’s not a perfect play – and this is a pretty good stab at bringing it to life, far superior to Jones’ previous offering in the series, The Merry Wives of Windsor.

NEXT TIME: Robert Lindsay and Cheri Lunghi bicker and fall in love in Much Ado About Nothing.

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.