Cymbeline (Series 6 Episode 1)

First transmitted 10th July 1983

Helen Mirren sleeps unaware of Robert Lindsay's presence

Cast: Helen Mirren (Imogen), Michael Pennington (Posthumus), Robert Lindsay (Iachimo), Richard Johnson (Cymbeline), Michael Gough (Belarius), Paul Jesson (Cloten), Claire Bloom (Queen), Graham Crowden (Caius Lucius), John Kane (Pisanio), Hugh Thomas (Cornelius), Geoffrey Lumsden (Philario), Geoffrey Burridge (Guiderius), David Creedon (Arviragus), Patricia Hayes (Soothsayer), Marius Goring (Sicilius Leonatus), Michael Hordern (Jupiter)
Director: Elijah Moshinsky

If you fancy an amusing few minutes, try sitting someone down and explaining the plot of Cymbeline to them. I guarantee, not only will you not be able to do it in less than 10-15 (long) sentences, but at the end of it the person you are describing it to will pull a face and say “What?”. Their second reaction will probably be “Perhaps I’ll give that one a miss then”. Which to be honest is probably a pretty fair reaction. Cymbeline is, to say the least, a bonkers, poorly structured play in which the words ‘problem’ or ‘obscure’, used often to describe its place in the Shakespeare canon, might as well be a euphemism for ‘bollocks’.

As a play it should really work – it’s practically a menage of all Shakespeare’s comedy plots featuring, as it does, lovers divided by a lie told by a bad man, a girl disguised as a boy, separated siblings, servants caught between loyalties, a distant father whose heart is softened by events etc. Throw in a few tropes from the tragedies – confusion over the death of a key character, a poison that is actually a sleeping draft, an uncaring central female figure, a battle that happens largely off-stage, an overcooked murder plan – and you end up with something that should be really entertaining, but is actually a bewildering mess.

Difficult to follow and to engage with (lacking both characters you can really invest in and a dynamic plot you can really get behind) it’s pretty hard not to come out of the play without a meh feeling. This feeling isn’t helped by this production of the play, which is possibly the driest and (whisper it) dullest of the series so far. It may well be a matter of personal taste, but what really strikes me about this film (particularly after the high-octane and dynamic history cycle) is how static and flat the camerawork is, with many scenes told with a simple single shot with minimal actor movement. This has often been the Moshinsky approach, with an approach heavily inspired by paintings – but this production lacks the visual strengths of All’s Well That Ends Well or the reinterpretative imagination of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

What it does offer is a rather cold and impersonal interpretation. Part of this is intentional – Britain is deliberately framed as a cold and wintery place, to contrast with a steamier Rome, but this chill hangs over the whole play with many of the performances themselves taken a softly-spoken, hard-faced approach that largely fails to engage the audience in the story and the emotions of the characters. Despite the supposed high-stakes for many of the characters (if you can work them out) there never seems to be any urgency or intensity behind the actions in the play. Instead the action plays out over a series of still, painterly images – you could watch much of this play in fast forward and have no trouble following the visual storytelling – with too many scenes delivered at a meditative, lingering pace. This is despite the efforts of an all-star cast, some of whom are only partly successful in getting any audience investment in their characters.

In fact the slow pace of this play is particularly striking, when you consider how much has been cut-out or rearranged by Moshinsky. Two scenes, both revolving around the Roman-Britain war (and sadly including the crucial battle scene) have been cut, along with several large speeches; and a number of scenes have ten or so lines trimmed from them, usually around the transition. In all, this is probably the most heavily cut production so far – which then makes the fact that the bloody thing still runs for almost three hours even more inexplicable. Now there are obvious reasons why some actors take their time – Robert Lindsay’s lingering appreciation of a sleeping Imogen does at least make sense character-wise – but too many scenes elsewhere are delivered without pace or urgency (Michael Pennington is particularly guilty of this). Combine this with the general coldness of the production and it makes it even harder to focus on the characters, while you worry about the numbing of your posterior.

Moshinsky does throw in a few flourishes, not all of which are completely successful. He gets a fair bit of play around using mirrors in conversations (the camera trains on one person, while the person they are talking to is seen in reflection in a mirror alongside them) although I’m not clear what this is supposed to contribute to interpretation, other than offering a neat visual trick. Similarly, a number of scenes are set around tables with characters lounging or sitting straight backed in chairs at the end of tables, behind tables, while the tables themselves host private discussions, formal negotiations, intense chess matches… Whether this is supposed to be some comment on the general themes in the play of an oppressive culture and a feeling of observation and spying trapping people in place, or just a neat echo of some of the Dutch masters (in particular Rembrandt), leaves me rather non-plussed though. The less said about super-imposed hawks duelling in the skies while Cloten and Guiderius fight to the death the better (terrible memories of Winter’s Tale’s Bear come storming back).

The sequence that works by far the best is Iachimo’s lecherous observation of the sleeping Imogen. Not only does Robert Lindsay land his performance just the right side of over-zealous panting pervert, but the camerawork adds a sensual steaminess and illicit naughtiness to the scene, as it gets in close to Iachimo looming (topless) over Imogen, the camera finally moving position to roam with Iachimo over the room and body. The glowing yellow light over the scene helps add in this sense of twisted eroticism. Moshinsky then effectively mirrors the scene later (this time replaying the scene as nightmare) with Imogen awaking with Cloten’s headless body, the camerawork being remarkably similar (starting with the same shot) and following Imogen’s inspection of Cloten’s corpse (which for reasons too obscure to explain she believes to be that of Posthumus) her heart-broken tenderness and trauma contrasted with Iachimo’s earlier lip-smacking enjoyment. They are two sequences that do offer something new – and do make a clear link between the two scenes, centering Imogen’s experience and helping to turn the atmosphere of this bizarre play into something resembling a twisted dream by its heroine.

But it still doesn’t redeem the production, which is cursed with less than completely successful performances in crucial roles. Michael Pennington, an intelligent and profound actor, does everything he can with Posthumus but plays the part so straight laced, brooding and with a dark intensity that not only do you find it hard to interest yourself in the part, it’s even a little unclear at several points what emotion he is going for (his A5 S1 speech is a perfect example of this – the growth of his guilt is rather hard to make out unless you actually read along with what he is saying). Helen Mirren really does her best with, in truth, a rather ropey role as Imogen, a character who keeps threatening to burst into life as a true heroine but consistently fails to do so. Mirren gives her a great deal of dignity and moral force, but also shades it with a hint of corruption – she is clearly tempted briefly by Iachimo – and far from a doormat, she explodes with anger at first when Pisano reveals Posthumus’ suspicious of her conduct, before a melodramatic pleading for death. Her later pain when she believes him killed is moving. But she hasn’t much to work with. Robert Lindsay excels in the bedroom scene as Iachimo, but outside of that offers little other than scowls and leers like a low-rent Iago.

Richard Johnson makes some small impact as gruff, bear-like Cymbeline – in fact his reading is enjoyable enough that it hammers home how little he is in the play. Claire Bloom does her best with the one-dimensional Queen (famously described as so thinly sketched she doesn’t even merit a name), although her brooding under-playing and softly spoken scheming does detract from her position as the play’s villain. Hugh Thomas’ Cornelius makes a good impression as an observant and arch doctor and Michael Horden and Marius Goring pop up for some stirring Shakespearean style cameos as the God Jupiter and a Ghost respectively (don’t even ask). Graham Crowden makes a nice impression as Luscius while John Kane does some sterling work as the loyal Pisanio. Geoffrey Burridge and David Creedon, however, make little or no impression as Guiderius and Arviragus (two characters so loosely defined by Shakespeare that I can’t really tell them apart).

The best performances though come from Paul Jesson and Michael Gough. Jesson adds a lovely comic touch as the arrogant, campy and self-obsessed Cloten, his pomposity and grandiosity forever undermined by a rhoticism. Constantly seen preening himself, out of his depth in the real world and a hopelessly incompetent wooer and fighter, he lights up a number of scenes by bringing a real comic energy and engagement to the production. At the other end of the scale, Michael Gough’s Belarius is not only brilliantly spoken but Gough brings a world-weary, pained expression to all his delivery, with hints of guilt at his stealing of Cymbeline’s sons, matched with a touch of anger at his betrayal. Of all the characters with sustained speeches, it’s his that really capture the imagination and Gough is the one who creates a character that feels real, with genuine emotions and motivations and a feeling of an internal life. It’s a performance that actually deserves to sit in a better play, never mind production – what would he have done with a Malvolio, Polonius or Gloucester? A real shame that this was his only outing in the series.

These good touches however are few and far between in what is a desperately disappointing production, dry, dull and flat and largely not worth the three hours of your time. After the history cycle it also seems a chronic step back, lacking in visual and filmic ambition. After the work Moshinsky had done on previous productions I expected a lot better of this production. Part of that though I am willing to chalk up to the play itself, up there now with Merry Wives as perhaps one of the worst (and certainly hardest to perform) in the canon. A lot of people claim that there are a number of parallels between the events in this play and the life of Edward de Vere, making it a strong part of the argument that the Earl wrote the plays. Well, as far as I’m concerned, he can have this one.

Conclusion

The play itself is a mess, but that doesn’t excuse what is a rather flat, dull and boring production, slow paced and generally lacking creative imagination or visual interest. With a cold and dry mood and an overwhelming running time, there isn’t much to grab the viewer’s interest, let alone keep it. Pity poor Helen Mirren that two out of three of her offerings were this and the appalling As You Like It. Not one for the desert island.

A Midsummer Night's Dream (Series 4 Episode 3)

First Transmitted 13th December 1981

Helen Mirren dreams of a donkey headed Brian Glover

Cast: Helen Mirren (Titania), Peter McEnery (Oberon), Brian Glover (Bottom), Phil Daniels (Puck), Robert Lindsay (Lysander), Pippa Guard (Hermia), Nicky Henson (Demetrius), Cherith Mellor (Helena), Nigel Davenport (Theseus), Estelle Kohler (Hippolyta), Geoffrey Palmer (Peter Quince), Don Estelle (Robin Starveling), Geoffrey Lumden (Egeus), Hugh Quashie (Philostrate)Director: Elijah Moshinsky

Well the series has certainly come a long way since we last saw Helen Mirren in one of these productions. Back then was of course As You Like It, one of the worst films ever made of a Shakespeare play, totally devoid of imagination, interpretation or film-making finesse. That’s certainly not the case in this production of Shakespeare’s lost classic, A Midsummer Night’s Nightmare.

Or at least that feels like what you’re watching. I certainly had trouble reconciling this production with any other version of the play I’d seen or been in. Moshinsky has already shown in this series that he has a strong visual sense and brings a fresh imagination to productions. Both come to the fore here, where Athens is a staid, strait-laced place sharply contrasted with the dark skies, brooding clouds and manic energy of the fairies in the forest. Far from a jaunt in the wood, here the lovers’ exploits seem more like a stroll through the outer reaches of Hell, with Puck as a punkish ringmaster and Oberon as a Heathcliffian bully.

In many ways, this dark, brooding take on a play usually performed as a straightforward crowd-pleasing comedy is a success. It’s certainly not what most people expect when they come to Dream – there can surely never have been a production of this play where there was less focus on comedy and laughs. At times, this has unfortunate consequences (bless ‘em, even the Mechanicals aren’t particularly amusing – more on them later) but elsewhere it works as a bold and refreshing new take on a familiar story, and an antidote to the saccharine interpretations many productions follow. Moshinsky’s main concept is to draw a very sharp division between the court of Athens and the chaos in the woods: one vibrant and alive, the other staid and stuffy.

Throughout the first scenes of the play, Athens is presented as a formal and structured society, in which talk and emotions are restrained and characters seem strapped into their formal roles. This all stems from the top, with Nigel Davenport’s Theseus a polite, authoritative and controlled ruler, like an army colonel ready to shoot anyone found guilty of shouting in the mess. Moshinsky’s only major hint of division is the formal division between him and Estelle Kohler’s prowling Hippolyta, Moshinsky framing their first scene with both on the opposite sides of the frame.

The lovers are similarly restrained, keeping their emotions in sharp check while in Athens. Lysander and Demetrius communicate their rivalry only with glances (or lack of them) and even in the heights of passion, Lysander only brings himself to hold Hermia’s hand. Even in the forest, before enchantment, their manners remain resolutely proper and upper-class. Helena gets the closest to breaking the ‘rules’ with some arch comments and complaints. The downside of this approach is that their scenes are (whisper it) slightly boring.

In contrast, the fairies are a cocktail of frenetic movement, heightened emotions and youthful exuberance (literally so in many cases, as children take on most of the roles), led by two exceptional, dynamic performances from Helen Mirren (laying her Rosalind well and truly to rest) and Peter McEnery (an absolute revelation). Oberon and Titania themselves are casual, sensual characters, comfortable with physicality and willing to let their emotions play out very publically – very different to the Athenian lovers.

Moshinsky lets his painterly eye run riot with the fairyworld, giving it the look of a combination of Rubens and the Dutch masters. Rembrandt is a particularly strong influence, with a series of remarkably strong images of Titania in bed particularly reminiscent of the master. The purple sky and dark greenery of the forest add contrast to the more restained and formal compositions of Athens. Oberon’s entrance – a wild haired, open-shirted figure on a horse – gives him the appearance of a classic romantic figure. Mirren herself has the looks and dressing of a classical heroine in flowing white. Their otherworldliness is further heightened by the echo-effect added to a number of their lines in A2 S1. Moshinsky uses a series of fast-edits and intelligent lighting tricks to give a sense of unceasing action to the fairy world.

Mirren’s Titania is simply superb, one of the best performances of the part I have ever seen. She gives Titania a depth that makes her the relatable half of this relationship. Mirren’s performance of Titania’s famous speech in A2 S1 is a masterful reading, conveying anger, frustration and a hint of sadness and always compelling. Compared to the human characters, she is full of human emotions and demonstrates far more empathy. She also manages to avoid making Titania seem like either a fool or a victim of a cruel joke. It’s a very skilled and ‘real’ performance by a wonderfully talented actress.

McEnery’s Oberon is a logical partner to this: a passionate man with anger just below the surface, dangerously uncertain as to whether he will laugh or kill the person he is talking to. McEnery’s clipped vocal style is perfect for this imperious interpretation that positions the character as very much not of this world. With Puck he is in turns tender and amused, then angry and violent (at one point holding his head underwater as punishment).  He is the perfect figurehead for the chaos the other fairies gleefully embrace and propagate throughout the play, each of them bringing a frame-skirting energy to their every move.

Phil Daniels adds an edge of menace to the earthy Puck, taking a wild and whooping delight in his mayhem, like one of the lost boys. His athleticism has been mentioned above, and is shown particularly well in his gulling of the lovers, as he appears suddenly in a series of unusual positions and angles in relation to the four Athenians, in some cases taking on an almost demonic physical control of their bodies. At other times he approaches them – especially Hermia – with a youthful curiosity. By the end of the play, as the fairies frolic in Theseus’ palace, he becomes a ring-leader, brushing aside table placements and driving on the other fairies to greater shows of disruption.

So in this fairy-dominated production how do the human characters fare? Not well. The lovers are very dull. Moshinsky’s decision to only allow them to show any real life when under the fairy spells works for the concept, but makes the bulk of their action tedious to watch. The decision to have the lovers speak many of the lines in A4 S1 at the same time does create a fine impression of the turmoil in their relationships at this point, but also (considering the static way most of the scene is shot) suggests Moshinsky was either still aiming to draw a contrast between human and fairy or that he wanted to get the scene over and done with.

Either way, the lovers remain hard to like. Lindsay does his best, but Pippa Guard is as forgettable here as she was in The Tempest, Nicky Henson gives gruffness but little else as Demetrius and the decision to make Helena as plain, spinsterish and unattractive as Cherith Meller is here is a ridiculous over-intepretation of some of the lines in the play (and ignores the clear reference that she is considered as attractive as Hermia). Saddled with a restrained acting style, they are an almost complete failure here, dull as ditchwater, their scenes ripe for fast forwarding. Moshinsky’s far more static shooting style for the lovers actually works well for watching in fast-forward to be honest – admire the composition for A1 S1, but read the lines in advance so you know what they’re saying. You’re not missing masses doing so believe me.

The mechanicals fare little better. With the decision to focus the energy on the fairies and to keep the human characters as restrained and subdued as possible, they are filmed as statically as the lovers and often deliver as restrained a performance style. They are, quite frankly, not funny at all. There is no energy or humour to the final performance of their play or the rehearsals. Their characters remain largely ill-defined. Geoffrey Palmer’s Quince is a good example of the problem here: his performance was (allegedly) a parody of the Director-General of the BBC at the time – but 20 years later the joke is completely lost and the performance falls totally flat.

Brian Glover’s Bottom is part of the problem. As well as not being funny enough, I think it is an example of miscasting – Glover’s working class credentials as an actor are too well drawn, he lacks the classical background the part needs in order for the parody of classical acting and thespian self-importance to really work. For me, he also doesn’t convey enough of the sense of wonder Bottom must surely feel at the fairy world – his reflections on it after its disappearance are underplayed and restrained. It’s a performance that never really comes to life as a leading figure in the play, a little too quiet and lacking in the sense of a frustrated artist finally being allowed to live his dreams. The scenes with Titania and Bottom feel like missed opportunities, and Bottom himself feels like far less of a dominant character in the play than he usually does.

These weaknesses are by and large self-inflicted wounds, necessary side effects of the creative decisions taken by Moshinky as part of the production. It’s a testament to him that he manages to do something different with this most over-performed of the plays (and one I’ve never really quite warmed to either). The fairy material has rarely been done better, but the more conventional comedy moments have rarely been less engaging than here. Similarly, the human characters are left short-changed by the camera’s focus on making the fairy characters the sole source of dynamism in the production. It makes for an interesting interpretation for old hands, but is highly unlikely to convert new audiences to Shakespeare. Watch the fairy bits but skip past everything else – there is nothing to see here.

Conclusion

Fantastic performances by McEnery and Mirren and some wonderful inventive direction of the fairies, combined with some brilliant painterly touches in the camerawork are the main strengths here. But this is an unfunny production that stalls dramatically as soon as it gets anywhere near the human characters, so wedded to its decision to play them as stolid and constrained that it’s hard for the viewer to develop any real interest in them at all. It’s a unique and imaginative production, but not exactly complete entertainment.

NEXT TIME: It’s that man Michael Hordern again – this time giving us his King Lear.

As You Like It (Series 1 Episode 3)

As You Like It

First Transmitted 17th December 1978

 

Helen Mirren goes for a stroll in the Forest of Arden and makes us join her

Cast: Helen Mirren (Rosalind), Brian Stirner (Orlando), Richard Pasco (Jacques), Angharad Rees (Celia), James Bolam (Touchstone), Tony Church (Duke Senior), Clive Francis (Oliver), Richard Easton (Duke Frederick), Victoria Plunkett (Phebe), Maynard Williams (Silvius), Marilyn Le Conte (Audrey), David Lloyd Meredith (Corin), Arthur Hewlett (Adam)

Director: Basil Coleman

 

In many ways this production of As You Like It is what led to the existence of the whole series of Shakespeare plays. Producer Cedric Messina, scouting Glamis Castle for another production for Play of the Month, believed it was the perfect location to film the play. On the basis of this proposal Messina then put forward the idea to “film the lot”. So it’s a shame that the production that kicked it all off is such an utter and complete disaster from start to finish.

I hardly know where to begin with the things that are wrong with this dull, inert, poorly acted tedious production. How could something filmed entirely on location look so much more stilted and old fashioned than anything studio-bound? It’s easy to blame dodgy 1970’s BBC equipment for the truly appalling sound quality (large chunks of the dialogue are near inaudible) and the static and unimaginative camera work, until you think that later that year the BBC filmed the landmark Tinker, Tailor, Solider Spy. Surely someone, somewhere dropped the ball on this? Was this the cheapest equipment and crew the BBC had on hand?

 

It’s this quest for realism that destroys this production. Putting the disastrous technical work aside, As You Like It is not a play that responds well to a realistic approach. The forest of Arden is a place more akin to magic realism. In the forest characters seem to wander freely around, don’t seem to actually live anywhere, some see their personalities change completely and events of the first Act are left so far behind that most of them are dealt with in throw-away speeches in the final scene. Basically As You Like It is set in an entirely “unreal” almost dream like world. So if there is one thing you don’t want to do, that’s shoehorn it into a realist setting.

 

But that’s what happens here. By trying to make Arden a real place, with real people, it makes the events and actions of the play almost completely absurd. By trying to impose a sense of geography and setting the action in a relentless parade of clearings (it doesn’t help that this forest seems to have more clearings and fields than trees) you can’t help but start to impose a real world logic on events that on stage you would just accept. Does the Duke really just sleep on the ground as this drama suggests? Why do people just seem to walk around the forest? How big is this forest? How can some people keep walking into each other but some never met? The more realist the approach, the more you focus on the plays (admittedly feeble) plot. Where is the drive here? What are the characters doing?

 

This is hammered home by the listless, lifeless delivery of the most of the actors in the production, and the complete lack of pace and drama that the director, Basil Coleman, has invested in any of the proceedings. This is such a straight reading (and I literally mean reading) of the play, that there is no interpretation at all. What is it about? What motivates the characters? What are their goals? By giving no directorial drive or interpretative energy, the play defaults into a serious of tedious conversations, the lack of drama accentuated by the aimless walking around or lying around on the floor that the actors have been directed to do while delivering the lines. They look so unbothered by what they are saying, and so little affected by any events of the play, that the viewer is left feeling “well if they don’t give a toss why the heck should I invest anything in this?”

 

Strange directorial choices abound. At one point Celia turns directly to the camera and announces “I like this place” as if she is promoting Thomson Holidays. A bizarre ABBA-esque music video quality is given to the final appearance of the lovers, as they dance down a hill dressed in white, intercut with all the other actors staring straight into a slowly elevating camera. Celia and Rosalind play a game of tennis with what look like cricket bats. Early on Le Beau is framed at the end of an alley of trees with his head totally obscured. The actors frequently stand in lines, probably because the camera couldn’t move (there are no prolonged tracking shots at all that I can recall). A flourish of having actors heads fill half the screen in close up while another character talks behind them is abandoned after the first half an hour.

 

And it’s long. Dear god, it’s long. When a production of As You Like It leaves in the sequences where pages sing to Touchstone (heresung by two eminently smackable child actors) you know you are in trouble. But then this scene comes so late in the play, it will only be the die-hard fans and suckers like me still watching. When this play is this dull you realise how many of the scenes until around Act Four basically revolve around characters telling each other things that are happening elsewhere or have already taken place. All comedy is lost in the languid delivery – it wasn’t until A4 S1 that I felt even slightly inclined to smile. It’s a slow, stately, appallingly unfunny meandering production of what can be a very meandering play.

 

I’d love to excuse the actors, but many of them are equally to blame. Helen Mirren is a great actress and does her best, but really her performance is nothing to write home about – you’d certainly not realise watching this that Rosalind is one of the greatest female roles in English literature. Fighting against the elements her delivery is often one note and rather shrill. There are small touches of comedy that might work on stage but are just lost in the outdoors. There isn’t really a sense of the character’s wit or brains until late in the production – for the first two acts she’s almost sullen. Anghared Rees is plain annoying as Celia. Brian Stirner is an uninspiring and dull Orlando – it’s never clear what anyone would see in him. James Bolam seems so keen on people taking him seriously as a Shakespearean actor that he neglects to bring any variance or interest in his delivery, going for a sing-song rendition that makes Touchstone irritating rather than engaging but disreputable.

 

On the positive side, Richard Pasco gives an intelligence and Bergmanesque quality to Jacques. Clive Francis as Oliver is the only actor who delivers his lines as if he is in some sort of drama and is easily the most engaging thing in the production. Dave Prowse (Darth Vader himself!) gives a sweet west-country cameo as Charles the wrestler.

 

But that’s about it as far as positives go. This is as a lame, old-fashioned, dramatically empty, imagination free version of the play. It embodies the very negative reputation this series has. It’s the sort of thing that, if shown to a teenage English class, would have them smacking the next balding man from Stratford they meet. It’s completeness alone that got me to the end. If you want an idea: for the previous two productions I filled four pages of my notebook with observations and comments about the play. With this I did just over two pages. And most of those were simply to state how dull it was. From the awful beginning to the cringe worthy ending, this is possibly the worst film of Shakespeare I have ever seen. I’ve seen it now. You don’t have to.

 

Conclusion

Quite simply the pits of the world. So awful it will make you never want to see the play again, never mind this production. The only good note is nothing, literally nothing, in this whole box set could ever be as bad of this.

 

NEXT TIME: Returning actors Richard Pasco and Charles Gray find themselves in Ancient Rome for Julius Caesar.