The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Series 6 Episode 4)

First broadcast 27th December 1983

John Hudson and Tyler Butterworth: Two regular Veronese guys just shooting the breeze

Cast: Tyler Butterworth (Proteus), John Hudson (Valentine), Tessa Peake-Jones (Julia), Joanne Pearce (Silvia), Paul Daneman (Duke of Milan), Tony Haygarth (Launce), David Collings (Thurio), Nicholas Kaby (Speed), Hetta Charnley (Lucetta), Michael Byrne (Antonio), John Woodnutt (Panthino), Frank Barrie (Sir Eglamore)

Director: Don Taylor

The BBC series moves into the home straight (just six left after this one!) and, as we head into the final episodes, it becomes clear just how haphazard a lot of the planning around the series was. Not only are the remaining plays (with the exception of Much Ado About Nothing and possibly Coriolanus) a bizarre collection of minnows, the runts of the Shakespeare litter assembled into a bargain bucket, but this ramshackle transmission order in no way reflects the composition order of the plays itself. As we head into many of the earlier or weaker (or both) works, there is no sense of Shakespeare’s skills developing and building on top of each other – more a sense of completeness for completeness’ sake, like a kid tracking down the last few stickers for a Panini Football Album.

This feeling is particularly clear in Two Gentlemen of Verona, almost certainly (by critical consensus) one of the first plays written by Shakespeare. As such, it’s packed with signposts for future Shakespearean developments and ideas that would be explored in greater depth in future plays. This could have been built into the plans for the series, perhaps allowing viewers to see more of the contrasts. However, it’s not the case, so this is more of an easter egg for those in the know.

As for those early ideas – where to begin? Julia herself combines elements of Rosalind and Helena (AYLI and All’s Well), both her in her plotline and personality. Her dissing of potential suitors with Lucetta has much in common with Portia and Nerissa in Merchant. Her role, disguised as a boy, to pass messages from the man she loves to the woman he loves has more than an air of Viola. Proteus is an embryonic Iachimo from Cymbeline and Bertram from All’s Well. Our lovers all end up swopping each other in a forest a la Dream. Launce foreshadows a range of clowns to come from Touchstone to Feste. The Duke of Milan is another reasonable authority figure. A Friar called Laurence is name checked. Eglamour is like some distant cousin of Aguecheek and Falstaff. Large chunks of the plot (lovers separated, authority figures coming between true love etc.) would be recycled throughout both drama and comedy in Shakespeare’s work.

So what about this production itself? Well again, like Comedy of Errors, it’s a rather mixed bag: a combination of good ideas, misfires and some stodgy acting. Anyway, let’s focus on the positives first. Don Taylor does a rich and intelligent job of directing this play. Taylor decided to film long takes with multiple cameras, editing between the different shots to tell the story visually. This actually works rather well, getting a good balance between the Jonathan Miller style (single takes, tracking shots for single shots) and the Jack Gold (and others) style of a more traditional master shot/reaction shot style. Taylor wanted to allow the actors to perform “in the moment” and to have the opportunity to grow and develop within the scene, which he felt would be harder to achieve without allowing the actors to just go for it as they would in the theatre or rehearsal room. This works very well with many of the actors in the performance, particularly Tessa Peake-Jones (of whom more later).

The setting of the play is also an interesting combination of the realistic and the more stylistic. Verona (our original location) is a logical, consistent location – reminiscent of many of the courtly sets we’ve seen in previous comedies, with its own clear geography. Milan, however, is a far more stylistic place, an almost bizarre world where the entire court is a perfect stereotypical romantic image. This works quite well for the increasingly extreme and bizarre actions of the play, but is perhaps a little bit too much for a modern viewer. Silvia cannot enter without being covered in confetti. Two romantic young men strike poses in the background of scenes (wait in vain for them to become part of the plot). Some rather creepy painted cherubs run around throughout many of the scenes. In a slightly heavy-handed touch two statues are entitled “Amour” (struck by an arrow) and “Fidelity” (not). Prefiguring what is about to happen? Not half. What does work well is that, with the arrival of the treacherous Proteus, a windy storm sweeps through this Eden-like courtyard – serpent in paradise anyone? However this all works fairly well (despite looking a little odd) and means that we get a sense of why Valentine and Proteus get so swept up in romantic feelings the instant they arrive in Milan. How could they not with all these prompts around them?

Taylor also uses music very well in this production – perhaps better than many of the other productions. In Verona, a minstrel plays poems by Shakespeare and his contemporaries as a series of songs: this works well, both as something for the cast to interact with and also to smooth the transition between scenes. This also carries across quite nicely to Milan, where the music complements the stylistic world that Taylor has created. Taylor also starts the play with a nice little prologue of Julia being wooed by Sir Eglamore and another (random) character (who never appears again). It’s fairly inconsequential but adds context to why Julia pretends not to love Proteus and adds some visual interest as Eglamore rolls out a parchment of his lineage and the other courtier pours money across the floor from some sort of bird house (especially as this allows some witty screen images of this mess being cleaned up in the next scene).

The setting, however, does get a little odd in the forest in the final scenes. For some reason, the forest is turned into a series of metallic columns, wrapped in tinsel and leaves, their tops stretching past the camera lens, with a bridge like platform throughout. This looks like what it sounds like. The cast apparently even described it as “Christmas in Selfridges”. Now I’m all for impressionism over realism in these things – but within a consistent idea. Does this post-industrial forest match up in anyway with the romantic world of Milan? Not at all. Is there anything else in the production that even remotely ties in with that? Nope. Does it look, for want of a better word, a bit crap? Yes it does.

Having said all that, there is quite an affectionate warmth in the production for the characters and the story. By and large, the shades of gray are avoided, and even the bad characters like Proteus aren’t really that bad – he’s more misguided. The comic characters actually come across fairly well. In particular, Taylor draws a very good performance from young Nicholas Kaby as an energetic and engaging Speed, full of wit and banter with a skilful precision in piercing the pretensions of his masters. Similarly Launce is brought to life extremely well by Tony Haygarth, who portrays what could be a dullard with a real sensitivity and gentle wit – and with a truly adorable dog I’ve got to say. Haygarth does a fantastic job with the long monologues of Launce (Taylor wisely I think doesn’t play these as comic set pieces, or encourage any business from the dog), giving Launce a slightly world weary nature, someone who is far more plugged into the stupidity and vanity of the world than many others in the play. Taylor also directs these moments with a real simplicity – and recognises I think that high energy comedy didn’t work very well in the aesthetic of this series.

The best performance of the lot however is Tessa Peake-Jones as Julia. It helps of course that she has the most interesting character in the play, and certainly the most complex, but Peake-Jones mines this proto-Rosalind/Helena for all the depth she can, finding a great deal of emotional truth in the role. Her tearful, raw reaction to witnessing Proteus woo Silvia is genuinely quite moving. At the other end of the scale, her early conversation with Lucetta has a real lightness and affection behind it, and her reaction to receiving (then ripping, then trying to gather up the pieces of) Proteus’ love letter is quite sweet – she playfully plays a harpsichord to try and distract Lucetta from her interest in it before falling on the letter with a passionate longing when left alone. Similarly you really feel her pain and anger when she arrives in Milan dressed as a boy – and the mixed feelings she has towards Silvia, a woman she has much in common with. It’s a very well thought out, heartfelt performance that really grows on you as the play progresses.

It’s unfortunate that this isn’t matched by the other three main members of the cast. Surprisingly, in amongst all this invention and confident handling of the play, the acting styles of Tyler Butterworth, John Hudson and Joanne Pearce all come across as at best old fashioned, and at worst disengaged and dully traditional. All three go for a very poetic, breathy reading of the text, where youth and inexperience are conveyed by delivering many lines with a high pitch and eagerness. What this fails to do, however, is deliver any real sense of character or personality in these people, instead making them into rather distant figures strangely devoid of passion despite the actions they are involved in.

Butterworth’s Proteus never for one second convinces either as a conniving opportunist or as a man so wrapped up in a sudden passion that he sadly feels the need to take on a number of terrible actions. John Hudson’s Valentine is a dull figure, despite some efforts to add some moments of comic timing to him (such as his reaction when the Duke reveals the rope ladder beneath his cloak with which he intends to steal away Silvia) – but Hudson adds no sense of energy to it. Scenes involving him and Joanne Pearce are terribly dull, with both actors concentrating so heavily on getting the beauty of the language across that they forget to really add in any performing. Joanne Pearce continues where she left off from Comedy of Errors with a flat performance.

It’s these lead characters that, in the end, undermine the production. Despite all the efforts of some in the cast – and I want to mention as well Paul Daneman who gives a terrific performance as a Duke of Milan who is clearly savvy to Proteus from the start – the lead characters (sketchily drawn on paper) are simply not particularly engaging or interesting. I can see how they could be – there’s more than enough plot here – and I feel like there should be a sharp, active, vital quality to the performances – these guys are young, a bit dumb and horny as hell – but you don’t get any sense of that at all in the production. It’s a completely sex-free production, which is bizarre since virtually every single scene is about love or lust or some combination of the two.

Which is a shame as this is a solid enough production with a good selection of ideas and concepts behind it, and it generally has a lot of charm. What I liked about it is that Don Taylor clearly has an understanding of what the play is about, and where it sits in the cannon of Shakespeare’s work. Most of the design ideas effectively service the plot and allow us to understand the tone of each scene and the mood of the production. Yes, some of these design ideas don’t work, and the lead actors are weak – but the production effectively evokes a world, and creates a mood of warmth and lightness that makes it enjoyable.

Conclusion

Despite some key flaws, this is actually a rather engaging production. It’s very hard not to get wrapped up in the story, and to enjoy the events of the show – particularly with Peake-Jones’ performance, which is the true stand out of the show. There are also some well-done performances from the supporting cast, in particular Daneman, Kaby and Haygarth. The design ideas by and large work quite well (with some key flaws) and there are plenty of enjoyable moments. Where the production fails however is in the three other leads, who fail to bring any real emotion, passion or interest to their characters, which weakens the production as it detracts heavily from the audience’s interest in their plot. This doesn’t completely undermine the production, but it is a real shame that better performances (or actors) couldn’t have been found for the leads of this otherwise interesting and quite likeable production.

NEXT TIME: Alan Howard lays into those pesky commoners in Coriolanus

The Comedy of Errors (Series 6 Episode 3)

First transmitted 24th December 1983

Double trouble for Roger Daltrey and Michael Kitchen

Cast: Michael Kitchen (Antipholus of Ephesus/Antipholus of Syracuse), Roger Daltrey (Dromio of Ephesus/Dromio of Syracuse), Suzanne Bertish (Adriana), Joanne Pearce (Luciana), Cyril Cusack (Egeon), Charles Gray (Duke of Ephesus), Wendy Hiller (Emilia), Ingrid Pitt (Courtesan), Nicholas Chagrin (Master of Mime), Sam Dastor (Angelo), David Kelly (Balthazar), Frank Williams (Officer), Marsha Fitzalan (Luce), Geoffrey Rose (Dr. Pinch)

Director: James Cellan Jones

I think the track record of the Shakespearean comedies in this series has been pretty well established: what works well in front of a live audience doesn’t always translate well to the screen devoid of that crucial audience interaction and the buzz of the actors feeding off the audience and vice versa. Which is to say that this is, despite a few flashes and odd bits of business, not the funniest production you are ever going to see. There are two main reasons for this.

Firstly, despite being easily the shortest play in the series, it still seems longer than it should, because it lacks energy and momentum. Too many scenes go on a fraction too long, not enough attempt is made to marry up the importance to the series of clarity and delivery of dialogue with the essential pace farce relies on. In particular, too much time is spent labouriously spelling out the various errors made by the characters, overegging the gags. As the momentum slips in the production, so the tightness of the comedy is affected, reducing the sense of audience immersion that farce needs. 

The second main reason is that, by and large, it is rather indifferently acted. To put it bluntly, while some actors try too hard to deliver comedic “turns” and mug to the camera in flashes of tedious “business” (often campy), others honestly seem to be slightly out of their depth. Even the performers who don’t fall into these two camps are underwhelming, as if they couldn’t quite click with the production, or couldn’t find the right tone. It’s unclear exactly why this is, but some elements don’t quite make sense. For example, Ephesus is clearly a laid back kinda place (mime groups and courtesans clearly have a lot of influence, and its citizens are warm and friendly). Since it’s clearly an easy going town, why is its Antipholos so up-tight and angry all the time?

It’s a sign that things haven’t been quite thought through into a coherent whole. Some of this blame probably needs to lie with James Cellan Jones who, despite some interesting touches, doesn’t have a consistent idea for the tone of the play. Which is not to say that some of the ideas are not rather effective, and it’s clear he wants to put on a production of the play that is a little bit more than just a straight comedic farce. From the start, Jones never lets the audience forget that the play is framed around an old man being sentenced to death for a trite crime, and the decision to have Egeon continually wondering around the set between scenes, forlornly searching for relief works very well to keep bringing us back to the serious issues under the surface.

But other ideas don’t quite work. Although I can see that some people would really hate it, I actually rather enjoyed the mime group at the start miming out Egeon’s story as he narrates it. It adds some visual interest to what is otherwise a massive slab of text, even though the mime group set about their work with the shallow smugness of overpraised young children. The introduction of the Master of Mime as a character suggests that the group are going to “see through” all this business from the start and they will be real presences throughout the production. But then they completely disappear (aside from a few beats between scenes) from the action, have no influence on events (other than making some disturbance in the final scene to allow the Syracuse versions to escape) and offer no commentary or chorus function. It’s always, I think, rather damning of flourishes like this if they only work once in a production – if you can’t integrate it all the way through, you are better going without it.

Then we come into the main comedy scenes themselves. Stanley Wells makes a rather interesting point about the play in performance, that it serves the production better to have actors who are not identical as it should be immediately clear to the audience at all times which of the twins they are watching at any one time. This is categorically not the case here. This is less to do with the fact that Kitchen and Daltrey play both versions of the characters, and more to do with the fact that they are wearing identical costumes (in itself this makes little real sense) and that the personalities of the two twins are too close to each other. You do see some clear variations in the final sequences in characterisation when they appear together (and the split screen work to have them appear side-by-side actually works rather well considering) but it’s not enough to really make it clear. I was pretty confused at points, especially with the Dromios – and when the audience is as unclear about what is going on as the characters, then a farce doesn’t work.

Of the two main performances in this, Roger Daltrey does an amiable job and makes a decent fist of playing the role. I read another review which describes his performance as “amiably amateur” which is pretty much on the money. It’s not bad, but he fails to differentiate at all between the two Dromios and he delivers all the lines with too much of a “comedy” acting style, as little more than thick yokels, gurning through a series of events. This noticeably fails to make the “find out countries in her” exchange anywhere near as funny as it should be, with a lack of comic timing and skill in delivery. He’s clearly pleased to be there, impossible to dislike and does not embarrass himself but is not really good enough for the part.

Michael Kitchen does a serviceable job as the Antipholi, with Syracuse as a laid back fun loving kinda guy, who can’t believe his luck to have women throwing himself at him and has a playful relationship with his Dromio. His frequent direct addresses to the camera are playful and engagingly light in tone, making Syracuse an enjoyable companion for the audience. His Ephesus interestingly comes across as an uptight bastard, a bad husband and a man openly enjoying a series of affairs (as well as, it is hinted, a quiet awareness of his sister-in-law’s possible attraction to him) who takes a sub-Fawlty delight in slapping Dromio around. Two decent performances, but nothing really special.

The ladies in their lives are equally a mixed bag. Suzanne Bertish is probably a little too shrewish as Adriana, which then makes her coquettish hinting at sex being an after dinner treat for Syracuse slightly out of whack with the rest of her characterisation. She does however handle the longer speeches well, and there is a good sense of her pain and frustration at Ephesus’ obvious lack of faith and that her own anger stems from genuine feelings she has for him. She also gets some good moments of comic business, particularly when angrily preventing a Dromio from tidying away the contents of a table. Joanne Pearce though is flat out bad as Adriana, delivering her lines with a sing-song observance of the pentameter and failing to add any depth to the character – I suspect her simpering delivery is not meant to suggest she is having an affair with Antipholos of Ephesus, as I at first read it. Ingrid Pitts is embarrassingly oversexualised as the courtesan, Marsh Fitzalan makes no impression as Luce.

The older actors emerge slightly better. Charles Gray can of course now deliver this sort of thing standing on his head, and his Duke is a reasonable authority figure and humanitarian with the expected lecherous tone (very much Gray’s calling card now). Wendy Hiller adds an authority as Emilia (although the decision to accompany all her entrances with a Hallelujah chorus is as clunky as it sounds) as well as a touching sweetness. The acting honours of the production goes to Cyril Cusack as Egeon who not only brings a real depth of feeling and fatherly longing to his opening speech, but provides a large degree of emotion to the final scene – Egeon is probably the only character in the play that consistently works throughout and makes coherent sense.

The characters and acting are a mixed bag, but there are some nice touches here. As mentioned, several of the actors address the camera at key moments, which certainly makes some of the events more engaging, even if it doesn’t really help us understand them any better. Some of the small comedic performances and “near misses” work very well – in particular a moment at the end of A3 S2 when Antipholus of Ephesus witness his brother leaving his house and confusedly stares at the wine in his hand with a shake of the head – work very well, far better in fact than the overly played physical comedy (I’ve already mentioned the sub-Fawlty bashing of Dromio – never good to remind the viewers of far superior comedies than this).

The set itself is actually quite an impressive thing, playfully making no real attempt to present a “real world” instead reducing Ephesus to a carefully constructed single square, its floor made up of a wonderfully presented map of Greece, and bright primary colours dominating the surroundings and the buildings, giving the impression of an almost fairy tale background. How this ties in with the decisions around Egeon and the harking back to his sad state I’m less clear about – but it certainly makes the drama visually interesting. The split screen work to bring both sets of twins on screen at the same time is actually rather impressive considering the technical limitations of the time.

But the problem remains that I’m just not clear in the end exactly what sort of story is actually being told here. When it tries to be a comedy, it often goes for it far too much to actually be funny. When it focuses on the framing story, it never builds the mood enough to be actually moving. It’s a noble attempt at doing a farce with serious undertones on screen – but it just never clicks into place. Perhaps the core problem is that, deep down, this is too reverent to the text, willing to sacrifice the pace of the comedy to make sure that all the dialogue is delivered crystal clearly for the sponsors, as if the team were worried that to do anything less would be to insult the playwright.

The main problem is that all the stuff that works best is “televisual” and all the stuff that brings the film down is the “Shakespeare” stuff – and I think that is rooted in the fact that James Cellan Jones seems to lack real knowledge or experience with Shakespeare, making him uncertain how to play the dialogue or the plot. The camera flourishes work very well, and the idea he has about Egeon is good – but he basically seems to feel the actual dialogue is not going to be the source of any humour so never manages to bring any of it out of the performers. He then makes this worse, by instructing the actors to deliver it with clarity and respect rather than any comedic energy – a fatal flaw that holes the production beneath the waterline.

Conclusion

Some decent directorial flourishes and a few effective scenes and jokes basically get lost in what is overall probably a rather mediocre production – never outright bad, but often just slightly off beat, off tone or just missing being truly funny. With a lack of pace, too many scenes that outstay their welcome and a mixed bag of performances, where every good performer is matched by a sub-par one, this is a production that isn’t quite brave enough to cut loose from the text and really embrace making this comedy effective for film.

NEXT TIME: Tyler Butterworth and John Hudson are Two Gentlemen of Verona on the road for fun and romance.