The Tempest (Series 2 Episode 5)

First Broadcast 27th February 1980

Michael Hordern opens graves at his command in The Tempest

Cast: Michael Hordern (Prospero), David Dixon (Ariel), Pippa Guard (Miranda), Christopher Guard (Ferdinand), Warren Clarke (Caliban), Nigel Hawthorne (Stephano), Andrew Sachs (Trinculo), David Waller (Alonso), John Nettleton (Gonzalo), Derek Godfrey (Antonio), Alan Rowe (Sebastian)
Director: David Gorrie

I’ve always found The Tempest a strange piece of theatre. In some ways it’s a very tightly structured piece of work – Act 1 introduces all the characters; Acts 2 and 3 split them into clear groupings with two scenes for each (Prospero/Miranda/Ferdinand, the shipwrecked lords, Stephano/Trinculo/Caliban – with only Ariel moving between these matchings); Act 4 draws them back together in one long scene with Prospero and Ariel pulling the strings; and Act 5, in another long scene, ties everything up in a neat bow. It’s the only Shakespeare play I can think of that balances three simultaneous plotlines like this, and the economy with which it is done points out the Bard’s strengths as a narrative structuralist – something I think that often gets missed (not least because many of the plays are at point flabbily structured).

Now I think this bow is all too neat, but this is probably related to the fact I have twice played Antonio and never really felt I found a convincing reason for why he accepts losing his Dukedom, and I always found it puzzling that he offers no lines in the final scene to Prospero (not even to say sorry!) and falls back on cheap cracks about Caliban looking like a fish. However, that is a very personal note about this play. For the record I think Derek Godfrey does a decent job here, though he and Sebastian sometimes seem more like a pair of bitchy whiners than would-be murderers. But that’s partly Shakespeare’s fault.

In other ways this is a bizarre, almost dreamlike play with constant questions over whether what we are seeing is even real, strange inconsistencies in time (Ferdinand seems to have been labouring for days but only hours seem to go by for Stephano and Trinculo), and a vague message about forgiveness threaded through the play (although in other ways Prospero is quite the bully and tyrant). As with As You Like It, Shakespeare is playing with the ideas of theatricality by creating a non-realist dreamlike world, perhaps a tip of the hat to the fact that the Globe theatre company could never have created the actual island setting (and storm) that the play demands.

So creating the island in a TV studio should really work, right? Well no. Because again the set is an earnest attempt at creating a “real” location, but rather than going with bright colours and suggestions of a location on a budget, this island is a glum, muddy, shabby-looking papier-mache island, with the obligatory rocks, bushes and birdsong soundtrack, and so overlit that it appears as artificial and unmagical as possible. It’s all part of a painful earnestness around John Gorrie’s production that experiments with magic and special effects at certain moments, but settles for men in tights trudging around a fake beach. It’s flat and lifeless throughout and lacking in colour in every sense. Every scene is flatly shot from an “audience” prospective with no attempt made to exploit any of the potential visual interest of the rocky outcrops that form Prospero’s shelter.

As a director, John Gorrie seems at a loss with what to do here with the play, totally lacking the strong sense of place, narrative drive and visual style that he brought to Twelfth Night. This is clear throughout his failure to really exploit the special effects and editing tricks that TV has available to it. David Dixon’s Ariel disappears into thin air a few times (usually after a run and jump) and can be seen as a transparent spirit but that’s about it. He still moves normally (editing isn’t used to, say, make him appear at one side of the frame than at the other in quick succession) and in one strange moment he grows massive wings for no real reason.  It stands out in the mind as it is the only such moment in the play. It’s not helped by the decision to cover Dixon in bronze body paint and for him to deliver all his lines in a sing-song manner that quickly begins to grate.

The appearance of the rest of the sprites hammers home the problem. The spirits are either operatic singers or painted male dancers in loin clothes who (camp alert!) move erotically around their fellow actors and the table of food in A4 S1, all the while gurning their various emotions. These extended sequences look particularly feeble today, so used are we to far better done (and more interestingly filmed) group dances on Strictly Come Dancing. These sequences also go on for a quite considerable time (a good ten minutes throughout the production is given over to singing and dancing sprites), more than enough to start biting into any viewer’s interest.

It’s a shame because it actually starts rather well with the storm sequence, which has a filmic quality notably absent from the rest of the production – it’s by far and away the most exciting and well-filmed segment of the film. On close inspection, yes, this section is clearly as studio-bound as the rest, but it looks a hell of a lot better and, despite the camera work being pretty flat, it’s also visually very interesting.  There is a motif throughout the production of characters standing in close-up at edges of the frame, looking in towards the rest of the action. This seems designed to suggest a sense of the island being “full of noises” and an atmosphere of watching. Sadly this visual idea doesn’t carry across very well into the mood of the film, or in the use of Ariel and the other sprites (the main watchers) – so maybe it was a directorial flourish rather than an interpretative idea.

The performances also vary. We should start of course with Prospero himself. Michael Hordern stepped into the breach as a last minute replacement for John Gielgud after scheduling prevented the great man from appearing. Hordern gives a lot of vocal strength to his interpretation, making Prospero into a sort of retired university don, his weathered features nicely suggesting the years he has spent in harsh conditions on the island. He also brings some of the sharpness and testiness of a bitter old man to his interactions with others, as well as a possessive neediness over Miranda (the sequence in A1 S1 where Prospero effectively outlines the backstory and constantly asks her to affirm she is listening is very good). His Prospero is a country gentleman driven to fury against those who have wronged him, scolding them like a schoolmaster and imperiously ruling over events with the air of one born to the position. But he also brings a great little note of sadness at the end of the play, realising that, with the loss of his staff and the island, he has surrendered everything which made him unique – it leads in very nicely to the famous final speech, where Hordern breaks the fourth wall and addresses the viewer directly.

However, when it comes to his daughter, I’m not quite sure what he’s worried about to be honest. Real-life cousins Christopher and Pippa Guard are so lacking in chemistry that the chances of him undoing her “virgin knot” seem remote to say the least. Christopher Guard makes nothing of the part of Ferdinand, here an earnest but terminally dull young man with no sense of character. Pippa Guard wildly overacts as a simpering and wet Miranda, her performance painfully over-theatrical in both vocal mannerisms and gestures. Rarely has such a chaste pairing been seen on screen.

The shipwrecked lords also give similarly uninspired performances. Derek Godfrey and Alan Rowe do the best that they can with the complete lack of interpretative depth given to Antonio and Sebastian. John Nettleton’s Gonzalo is little more than a silly old buffer. David Waller gives a strikingly poor, disengaged performance as Alonso. Over-dressed in tights and period detail, the two scenes concentrating on this group fall totally flat.

So, for the first time in this series, it’s the comedy pairings that really work. Nigel Hawthorne brings an excellent bombastic quality to Stephano. He combines this with a great playful quality – in A4 S1 he even plays the “I begin to have bloody thoughts” line with a playful glee, as if revelling in new-found naughtiness. It’s a performance full of relish at assuming a position of grandeur and is actually funny – no mean feat in this series, as we have seen. Andrew Sachs backs him up nicely as Trinculo, although he does seem a little like an English Manuel. Warren Clarke’s tortured Caliban is a highlight however, bubbling with resentment in A1 S2 but also moved to tears at remembering Prospero’s past kindness, a fragile neediness in his character making his later joyous embracing of Stephano make sense.

This is a decent adaptation of a play that can often come across as slightly flat production, with many lightly sketched characters. There are some decent performances, but it’s muddily filmed and rather dull in places and lacks a real sense of drama. There are some solid performances but nothing outstanding, although Hordern, Hawthorne and Clarke do some good work. I’m not sure a film can be really made of this most theatrical of pieces, but I’m certain that a better fist of it can be made than this production.

Conclusion
Not going to win any new fans to the play, this ticks all the boxes but does so with such diligence you can almost picture the director and producer clasping a clipboard and pencil during filming. Not the worst film, but certainly not the best.

NEXT TIME: It’s the big one – Derek Jacobi returns to play the Dane (for what must have been the 700^th time in his life) in Hamlet.

Henry VIII (Series 1 Episode 6)

First Transmitted 25th February 1979

John Stride brings the Merry Monarch to life despite the best efforts of Shakespeare

 

Cast: John Stride (Henry VIII), Timothy West (Cardinal Wolsey), Claire Bloom (Katherine of Aragon), Ronald Pickup (Thomas Cranmer), Barbara Kellerman (Anne Bullen), Julian Glover (Duke of Buckingham), Peter Vaughan (Bishop Gardiner), Jeremy Kemp (Duke of Norfolk), Lewis Fiander (Duke of Suffolk), John Rowe (Thomas Cromwell), John Bailey (Griffith), John Nettleton (Lord Chamberlain), Nigel Lambert (Sir Thomas Lovell), David Rintoul (Lord Abergavenny), Oliver Cotton (Earl of Surrey), John Rhys-Davies (Capucius), John Cater (First Gentlemen), Roger Lloyd-Pack (Second Gentlemen)

Director: Kevin Billington

 

Everyone seems to believe that Shakespeare wrote a play about Henry VIII, but there are very few people who seem to have read, let alone seen, the play – including me. Its plot and themes were a total mystery to me so, for the first time this series, I sat down to see a play for the first time rather than watch an interpretation of something I was already familiar with. Which makes a change from Measure for Measure which, if anything, I knew too well going into it!

 

The play itself is an unusual one. For a start, it is matter of debate about who actually wrote it (no not that stupid Oxford debate!). The play is believed to be a collaboration between John Fletcher and Shakespeare (which means Fletcher’s agents should probably have words with the BBC), with Shakespeare usually given credit for the start of the play, the second half of Act 2 and parts of Act 3 and 5. Which probably means it is more a Fletcher play than Shakespeare, though some argue Fletcher was touching up Shakespeare’s work (notably scholars link most of the good bits with Shakespeare working with Fletcher and the duller parts as Fletcher alone. Make of that what you will). Anyway, I’ll call the author Fletchspeare here to make it easy.

 

Written either at the end of, or shortly after, the reign of Elizabeth I, the play offers what we would call today a “sanitised” version of one of the most turbulent few years of British history. In this play, Henry is not to blame for: his divorce (instigated by Wolsey), the execution of any of his lords (who turn on each other) or his relationship with Anne Boleyn (which happens mostly off-stage). The Reformation is barely mentioned, though there are dark murmurings of “Popish” corruption around Wolsey and Cranmer is accused of heresy.

Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn are both presented sympathetically as loyal and faithful subjects (quite a coup!). Lords conspire against each other but only Wolsey and Gardiner are really guilty of anything. The later execution of many of the key figures in the play goes unmentioned and unhinted at. Fletchspeare is very much aware they were writing about very recent history to be presented to descendants and relatives of the featured players. This was not the time for comments as critical of historical figures as are found in the other history plays.

 

 

What an almost totally unknown play does though is to give a director and production team a clean slate – no worries about people having their perceptions shaped by other productions. Filmed entirely on location, including Hever Castle, Leeds Castle and Penhurst Castle, many of which were directly linked to (or the actual locations of) the action in the play. In comparison to the ghastly As You Like It, here the location shooting is expertly managed and of the highest possible quality, with the camera work and editing complementing the performances to create a world of courtly intrigue and clashing egos. Lords prowl down corridors and congregate in corners to whisper bitterness and conspiracy, the camera catching their breath forming in clouds from their mouths.

 

Extensive thought has clearly gone into framing and camera movements, with lower angles and wider lenses in the court room scenes allowing the full impact of these Tudor rooms to be felt on camera. By making such smart work of the location shooting, the pageantry of the play largely takes care of itself, allowing Billington to push front and centre the political machinations that fill the play. And he’s right to stress the acting, because this has one of the finest casts in the series.

 

In many ways, John Stride has the least interesting of the three lead roles. Compared to what we have seen in other versions of this story, the play presents Henry very much as he would have wished to be seen – a bluff, charming man quick to anger and to forgive with a keen sense of loyalty and justice. Stride brings this Holbein element of Henry very well to the screen but also laces his interpretation with subtle shades of a darker personality. At first Henry seems a dupe, willingly believing Wolsey’s plots. However, it becomes clear he is a ruthless man not wishing to appear ruthless – careful cuts to Henry during the trial scene stress his colder nature. At other points – in particular his treatment of the council and Cranmer in Act 5 – he seems as cool a manipulator as the Duke in Measure for Measure. Stride even works in anger and disappointment at the birth of Elizabeth (definitely not the intention of the play!). It’s a clever, sly interpretation of the part that gives it greater depth than Fletchspeare’s dialogue actually allows.

 

Alongside him, Timothy West’s Wolsey is like a venal company director crossed with an eminence grise, brought low like some shabby Robert Maxwell by a dodgy embezzlement scheme that he clumsily reveals himself. West is an exceptional Shakespearean actor and is on top of his game here. Wolsey, as written, is a small, mean man but West makes him a tragic figure, struggling to control great events but unable eventually to bend them to his will. When his power is broken, West moves through confusion, doubt, concern, fear and acceptance before sharp defiance towards his enemies. His final speeches have a real sense of nobility about them that West is careful not to introduce earlier – his Wolsey is a man that finds inner nobility after the loss of its outer trappings. West was nominated for a BAFTA for his work here and well deserved it.

 

 

Awards should also have found their way to Claire Bloom, who gives a sublime, poetic reading as Katherine of Aragon, a devout and holy woman, dutiful to her King and her people. It is clear why her obvious quality and regal bearing wins such devotees but also why it drives her apart from her husband. But Bloom also lets us see the grieving, sad woman under the surface of the pride, particularly in A4 S4 on her deathbed, weeping at the loss of her child and deeply feeling the pains of her life. The scenes between Wolsey and Katherine – the strongest written characters in the play – sizzle and are clear highlights. You end up wishing Fletchspeare had written a lot more of them.

 

Away from the three leads, there is really not a weak link in the cast. Jeremy Kemp’s Norfolk is a gruff natural number two. Julian Glover’s initially arrogant, impassioned Buckingham becomes a condemned man resigned to his fate. Ronald Pickup’s Cranmer is a wonderful mixture of naivety and cunning. Peter Vaughan’s Gardiner is a serpentine bully, a swaggering power player. Sylvia Coleridge is a delightfully gossipy Old Lady. There are other excellent performances and several actors who fill out smaller parts and would later come to greater prominence – David Troughton, Oliver Cotton, John Rhys-Davies, David Rintoul, Roger Lloyd-Pack – are all excellent.

 

What Billington’s direction does well is subtly present this play as almost a boardroom drama, full of aggressive alpha male shareholders pushing their own agenda. This is particularly clear in the interrogation of Cranmer by the council, but it’s a theme that’s introduced right from the first scene with three lords conspiring in a corner against Wolsey, a visual style that is repeated throughout the play. Wolsey even appears several times at a desk like a Chairman of the Board. Various court officials carry mounds of paper between meetings. Over all this, Henry presides like a majority shareholder, allowing himself to be swayed by others as fits his purposes.

 

Billington also makes extensive use of triangular shot arrangements to visually demonstrate these inward looking, conspiratorial conversations. Characters are frequently framed either between or either side of other characters in close-up (some examples of this are shown below). The use of the gentlemen as a type of chorus on the actions also works very well, with the camera following them via cross cutting and tracking shots, contrasting nicely with the more careful framing of the lords, to help suggest their more common backgrounds.

 

Technically this is certainly the best made of the films so far, with location shooting actually adding to the impact of the story. It’s got some of the best acting of the series and is directed with a great deal of competence (though the move out of the studio setting restricts certain camera moves seen in the best directed of these films Julius Caesar and Romeo and Juliet). In fact the main thing wrong with this is Fletchspeare. There are some fine moments and very good lines, but the play itself is carefully edited, politically-tinged history. It’s a bit like making a film about Margaret Thatcher and never really mentioning the miners’ strike (hang on – Hollywood actually did that!).

 

But then it comes down to what this is. We all know Henry VIII (and several other plays in the canon) have problems in their writing, structure and development. The question here is: does this production rise above the limitations of the source material? And the answer is, in this case, yes it did. It’s a very strong ending to the first series of Shakespeare plays. And it’s probably the best production of this play you are ever going to see (if you ever have a chance to see one).

 

Conclusion

Despite a weaker script, this is a hugely successful production – perhaps one of the best so far in the series – that uses wonderful acting, accomplished technical work and some great acting to create perhaps the only version of this play that will ever be filmed. If the series was for nothing else, it was to bring productions like this to life. And West and Bloom in particular are sensational.

 

NEXT TIME: We’re into series two as Anthony Quayle brings Falstaff to life in Henry IV Part 1, kicking off the first Henriad of the series.