Henry VI Part 2 (Series 5 Episode 4)

First transmitted 9th January 1983

Bernard Hill's revolt causes chaos at the court in Henry VI Part Two

Cast: John Benfield (1^st Murderer/Ship’s Master), Peter Benson (Henry VI/Priest), Antony Brown (Walter Whitmore/Alexander Iden), David Burke (Gloucester/Dick the Butcher), Michael Byrne (John Hume/Pirate Captain), Anne Carroll (Duchess of Gloucester) Paul Chapman (Suffolk), Ron Cook (Richard Plantagenet/Peasant), Arthur Cox (Thomas Horner/Lord Clifford), David Daker (Buckingham), Brian Deacon (Somerset/Smith the Weaver), Tenniel Evans (Salisbury/Clerk), Derek Farr (Lord Say), Julia Foster (Queen Margaret), Derek Fuke (Simpcox/George Bovis), Alex Guard (Second Prentice/Michael), Bernard Hill (York), Paul Jesson (John Holland/George Plantagenet), Pat Keen (Margery Jourdain), Gabrielle Lloyd (Simpcox’s Wife), Oengus MacNamara (Young Clifford), Frank Middlemass (Cardinal Beaufort), Trevor Peacock (Sheriff/Jack Cade), Brian Protheroe (Edward Plantagenet), David Pugh (Peter Thump/2^nd Murderer), Mark Wing-Davey (Warwick), Peter Wyatt (Sir Humphrey Stafford)

Director: Jane Howell

The great thing about the Henry VI plays is they really lend themselves to being produced as a complete series, in a way that the more stand alone Richard II, Henry IV Part 1 and Henry V don’t. Not only do they have a consistent cast throughout (and reasonably consistent characterisation), but the plotlines of each play feed naturally into the next. Precisely because these plays lack the thematic complexity and structure of the later (greater) plays, which build to satisfying conclusions within their running times, these epic dramas create a single twelve hour sweep. So while the plays would make little sense performed alone, as a whole they can pack quite a wallop.

Which is definitely what happens here as this second episode in the “series” picks up almost exactly where the previous episode left off: Suffolk has arrived with Margaret, Beaufort and Gloucester still hate each other, York is still planning nationwide domination and Henry is still painfully useless. Our setting remains the same, but (not surprising, considering the slaughter that ended Part One) the playground location is now distinctly bashed and faded, the colours a shadow of what they were before, the wood and paintwork chipped and fading. It’s still the exact same set, but darker, grimier and more imposing, as if with the death of the noble Talbot and his son some of the light and hope has gone out of the world.

The costuming of is also darker, with the bright colours and decorative medieval flourishes of the armour and cloaks largely gone in favour of a browner, more muted colour pallet that gets darker as the play progresses. By the end of the play, as York’s army arrives dressed in stormtrooper black costumes, it’s clear the long night is coming to the world of the play. This faded effect masterfully contrasts the atmosphere of both the production and the play, with this middle chapter of the trilogy being the sudden breath before the deep plummet into civil war. There are some lovely hints of this destruction to come: not least in a scene where York’s young children (two of them future kings) gleefully knock over skittles decorated to resemble the lords at Henry’s court.

The atmosphere of the first half of this production is markedly different from the proceeding part. Alongside the subdued colours, the performance style of the actors is similarly calmer, cooler and more restrained. The glances towards the camera are considerably reduced, with the actors going for a far straighter style, avoiding many of the little touches of comedy that were seen in Part One. This is partly as well due to the enormous sense of dignity that David Burke brings to essentially well-meaning Gloucester, but also an attempt by Howell to give the production a change of pace – a relax from the frenticism of Part One and a contrast to the violence to come – to allow the audience to breathe, but also to give a sense of foreboding over the kingdom itself. It is a bit of a jerk after the fast pace of the previous play – and partly driven by the nature of the writing of the play itself, with its longer court sequences – but it works very effectively once seen as part of the overall piece. 

The other element that Howell brings out extremely well in the play is the growing sense of menace from the people themselves – a menace that will explode once Jack Cade fills the leadership void left by Henry and the other lords. The first half has moments of darkness and corruption simmering throughout. Michael Byrne is central to these moments (another inspired piece of doubling). First he appears as corrupt priest John Hume, chairing a perverse and twisted witch ceremony for Gloucester’s wife (an entertainment he gleefully confides to the camera is all a set-up anyway). Later he appears again as the leader of a punkish group of pirates, like the lost boys on speed, presiding over a mock-trial of Suffolk like a minister of Hell.

But that’s nothing compared to the people themselves. Throughout the opening half of the production, the people are quick to follow a convincing leader and always ready to resort to violence at the slightest prompting. The groundwork is laid with the Simpcox scenes, with the people blindly following “the miracle”, totally lacking the ability to appreciate the deception practised upon them. The violence at the heart of the ordinary man grows from there: in A2 S3 the meek Peter snaps in the “duel” with his master and beats him to death. At the end of A2 S4, as the Duchess of Gloucester is led away, the camera cranes up to focus on the unruly mob sadistically rejoicing in her despair. In A3 S2 the mob charges on following Warwick and Salisbury’s lead, even chanting their single lines in unison together – comic yes, but also showing their essentially sheeplike nature. But the ferocity of their aggression towards Suffolk – the atmosphere of a lynch mob shocks even him – immediately shows their danger if harnessed. Harnessing that no-one in Henry’s circle seem interesting in doing.

All this explodes with the arrival of Jack Cade. Trevor Peacock plays Cade as a sadistic, grotesque version of Talbot, with all his nobility and selfless love for England replaced with greed and a fiendish delight in death and destruction. His Cade has all the leadership skills and rabble-rousing abilities of Talbot – but horribly misapplied. Howell even stages his scenes as parodies of Talbot’s inspiring speeches, with Peacock lazily clambering monkey-like up to the heights of the stage, legs swinging down as he encourages his men. As the violence promoted by Cade grows, Howell transposes Cade’s grinning face over the shots of looting, murder and devastation. The violence Cade unleashes is shockingly real – fires, book burnings, soldiers rocked back and forth and then speared on swords, bodies mutilated, lynchings – which serves as a real contrast to the black comedy of Cade’s attitudes (jokes about killing lawyers and the evils of writing etc.).

This serves to stress the bubbling current of violence that is running throughout the kingdom, from top to bottom. Just as the lords are brutally planning to murder each other, so the people need only the slightest encouragement and endorsement before they are happily ripping bodies apart, burning towns and laughingly beating a man to death. Cade’s lines acknowledging he himself is trapped by the forward momentum of violence ring particularly true here. Howell’s direction shows that Cade is just an opportunist at the right place at the right time – the swiftness with which he is abandoned, yet another indicator of the mob’s lack of loyalty and their readiness to follow the rising sun. But it's violence from top to bottom - numerous severed heads litter scenes, like grim bookmarks.

The violence exploded by Cade is both a continuation and an expansion of the growing reality of death from Part One. All the lords eagerly plan violent deaths for each other, and (with the exception of a horrified Beaufort when confronted with Gloucester’s corpse) all seem very comfortable with the consequences of their actions. So devoid are they of any sense of loyalty and decency, that they constantly ally themselves with long-term enemies to dispose of short-term ones: in particular York, who happily colludes in the destruction of Gloucester with Buckingham and Suffolk. Poor Gloucester, at the centre of much of this conspiracy of the first half, looks as pained and bewildered by this joint enterprise as you would expect – in particular a pained shock crosses David Burke’s face when York (who he previously championed) turns upon him, matched only by his pain when Henry strips him of his staff. Like sharks, the lords turn on anyone displaying weakness – Somerset coolly avoids a fallen Suffolk, Margaret further savages a struggling Gloucester. Is it any wonder the people they rule over are the same? The destruction these attitudes will lead to culminates in the final image of the play: a triumphant York and his sons celebrate their victory in battle, leaving a depressed Salisbury – the one decent man at court – to turn back and (in a POV shot) see the mangled corpses littering the field of battle.

The impact of the violence and chaos Cade and later York bring to the kingdom, seems earned precisely because the first half of the play is delivered in a far more controlled and formal way (both in the playing and the more traditional  film making decisions, avoiding the unusual like direct camera address). By allowing the earlier courtroom scenes to take on a more sombre, foreboding mood – with simmering arguments, political manoeuvrings but a slower tempo in delivery – and encouraging the actors to stage their arguments in a more overtly “Shakespearean” manner, with the threat of violence running underneath each scene but only rarely allowed to escape, the tension has been effectively screwed tight, ready to burst in Part Three. And the violence in the final battle of St Albans is grotesque here, with soldiers brutally murdering each other. A decision to reinforce blows (particularly in the one-on-one battles between key characters) with slo-mo editing and camera work does seem more than a little dated today, but the essential impact of the brutality after the restraint of the opening (and in contrast to the more cartoony tone of Part One) is hugely effective.

Alongside all this excellent thematic material, Howell again uses doubling to great effect. Antony Brown plays the destroyer of the antagonist of the both the first half (Suffolk) and the second (Cade) as first a scowling sinister Whitmore, then an urbane middle-class Iden. David Burke – triumphant as the noble Gloucester in the first half – returns as Dick the Butcher, Cade’s lieutenant, a man as cynical and destructive as Gloucester was old fashioned and principled as Henry’s lieutenant. Arthur Cox plays the bragging Horner who pompously boasts of York’s ascendancy, then returns as the rigidly proud Clifford, preaching the inevitability of Henry’s permanent ascendancy. Trevor Peacock is the most obvious doubling, his performance as Cade a skilful “mirror universe” version of Talbot, as a charismatic thug and murderer. Most of the rest of the cast can be spotted filling out the crowd of Cade’s supporters. The sense of the ensemble is not only really refreshing, but continues to allow excellent opportunities for sly commentaries on roles.

Among the rest of the cast, Peter Benson comes into his own in this part as an outrageously weak and passive Henry, his soft-toned, almost melodic, verse speaking perfect for a man who practically lies down like a doormat for the rest of the court. Often filmed from above or at tight angles that zoom in and out to stress his isolation from the others, Benson is a hand-wringing child throughout this play. From his vacant smiles in A1 S1 at the loss of France, through his starting at a trumpet call in A1 S3, he is consistently ignored or fobbed off by his lords (Beaufort and Gloucester in A2 S1 practically talk over his peace-making attempts) he is man unable to impose himself on anything, who only stares balefully as Gloucester is arrested. Even in his rage against Suffolk, he comes across as a weak man, hopelessly out of his depth. Benson is perfect at embodying this weakness with an air of sympathy and Howell effectively places him often at the back of the frame, a puny childlike man sitting on a throne, dwarfed by the powerful characters around him.

The real “lead” though of Part Two is probably York, brought to life as a quiet, calm, scheming Machiavel by Bernard Hill. Hill brings a brutish, earthy authority to York’s “man of the people stance” while simultaneously presenting the would-be-king as a cold snake, seething with rage and bitterness. What he also does well is explore some of the doubt in York – a man who several times halts and doubts the wisdom of his actions. Although on the surface a man who says what he means, he is also full of low cunning – scheming at the destruction of Gloucester in A1 S4 – even openly grinning to the camera at his own lack of principle. His authoritarian air is also clear in his brow beating of Salisbury (with physical force, at points) into siding with his plan to destroy Gloucester.

There are of course other strong performers. Tenniel Evans excels as Salisbury, possibly the last decent man left at court but one who is too weak to actually stick to his principles. Frank Middlemass’ Beaufort is so full of puffed-up pride, it’s a shock to see him deflate so quickly when actually confronted with the results of his murderous wishes. Mark Wing-Davey’s Warwick grows in authority and confidence. The one performance that doesn’t quite work is Julia Foster as Queen Margaret, who comes across far too harsh, angry and one-note throughout the opening half of the play (particularly in the scenes where she is required to flirt with Paul Chapman’s slimy Suffolk), like a shrill housewife rather than a woman who will dominate the war to come with her force of personality. There is not enough softness there, and scenes such as Suffolk’s departure suffer slightly as a result. It’s a performance that just feels too stagy. However, it is a style that works far better for the scenes of battle and fury that occupy the second half of the play.

But that’s one very small criticism of another outstanding production in this sequence, which continues to bravely reinvent the rules of the series and to shed new, and fascinating, light on these overlooked plays. Civil war is the hell ahead of the country now - Alexander Iden's horrified look at the camera speaks volumes for the deaths and destruction that this war will unleash. It's a horror that hangs over the whole production - the grip anticipation of what will come in Part Three.

Conclusion

Not quite as fun as Part One, but packed with great ideas, skilled performances and some wonderful moments, this both expands and deepens the world Howell has created for this production and again draws outstanding performances from its ensemble cast. The gear shift in tone from Part One is jarring at first (and a bit of a shame) but an essential pause for breath in the long term scheme for the series, and serves to highlight and give depth to the bubbling resentments that are set to explode in the second half of the play and in the rest of the series. Definitely keeping the game up!

NEXT TIME: One final part of Henry VI to come, this time with Ron Cook moving to the foreground as the sinister Richard in Henry VI Part Three.

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.

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.