King John (Series 7 Episode 1)

First transmitted 24th November 1984

Leonard Rossiter schemes in vain in King John

Cast: Leonard Rossiter (King John), George Costigan (Philip the Bastard), John Thaw (Hubert), Claire Bloom (Constance), Charles Kay (King Philip), Mary Morris (Queen Elinor), Richard Wordsworth (Cardinal Pandolph), Robert Brown (Pembroke), John Castle (Salisbury), Jonathan Coy (The Dauphin), Gordon Kaye (Duke of Austria), Janet Maw (Blanche), Phyllida Law (Lady Faulconbridge), Edward Hibbert (Robert Faulconbridge)

Director: David Giles

The final series of the BBC’s Shakespeare project kicked off with the producers surely well aware that, due to lack of foresight at the start, they were left with one whopper in Much Ado About Nothing and then four relative minnows in the Shakespeare pool – Pericles, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Titus Andronicus and King John. This is a shame since from this point on many of the issues with these productions are going to be about how well the director’s deal with flaws and problems in the plays themselves, rather than how they bring the plays to the screen – issues that I am not always confident that the directors who previously handled The Tempest and The Merry Wives of Windsor earlier in this series are going to be able to cope with.

King John is an odd play, with Shakespeare unsure what type of story he wants to tell here, or how he wants to tell it. The tone of the play zig zags oddly from almost light comedy into dark tragedy. John is a curiously peripheral character for large chunks of the play, struggling to impose himself on the action, as much as the actor must struggle to impose himself on the play. Time is telescoped as always, but in a scattergun and confused way, so that some events seem to happen in a few hours, others months apart. Characters take on great importance and then suddenly drop out of the action altogether. John is bad when the actions he undertakes are without defence – but Shakespeare seems obliged to present him as almost a hero when he defies the Catholic church and, that old Shakespeare bug bear, the French. It’s a difficult period of history to dramatise, so this is perhaps why Shakespeare feels more comfortable writing characters he effectively invented, principally of course Philip the Bastard, who gets all the best speeches and most of the best lines (if anything, John is a figurehead in his own play).

So that brings us to this production, which is a rather lifeless version of this rambling play that gets excessively bogged down in the earlier acts, in particular the long, long scenes that make up the bulks of Acts 1, 2 and 3. The production fails to really kick into gear into well into Act 4, instead developing into a series of scenes of speechifying, often under powered in delivery. Camera angles are kept simple, as well as editing styles, with direction favouring a straight combination of two-shot technique, with plenty of cuts back to the person who happens to be speaking at that time. There is a lack of inventiveness in any television technique or filmic language, with the decision instead to treat this as a very theatrical adaptation, possibly one of the most theatrical of the series. Occasional good ideas and interesting camera movements are few and far between.

The staging and design follows this up, with the style chosen for the different locations in the play (particularly outside locations) deliberately going for as non-realist a design as possible. The French locations are stylised exteriors, with the action taking place in front of huge backcloths covered in fleur-de-lis, absolutely no attempt made to suggest that we are ever outside in a ‘real’ place. The castles follow this design, with the stonework looking like exactly what it is – papier mache – and the exteriors of castle locations almost laughably wobbly in their woodenness. By contrast, interiors are detailed and carefully constructed to resemble real castles. Nothing wrong with this of course, but in a production that plays the action and the characters in as determinedly realist a way as possible, this looks odd – better productions have got away with non-realist locations, because either the action married with this, or the locations had been made so non-realist that there was never a feeling that we were meant to be looking at a real place. The inconsistency between interiors and exteriors doesn’t help with this.

Other creative and casting decisions in the play also don’t really work. Was it really necessary to have every single one of Cardinal Pandolph’s entrances (an underwhelming performance in any case by Richard Wandsworth, which doesn’t convey the Cardinal’s ruthlessness) accompanied by monastic chanting? This chanting keeps making clumsy appearances throughout the production, whenever the theme of religion rears its head. This production is also cursed with some of the weakest child actors we’ve seen yet in the series. The child playing Arthur is woefully unconvincing and fatally undermines what is usually the play’s best scene (Hubert’s planned blinding of Arthur) by failing to convey any sense of fear or anxiety (he’s not particularly helped by an underpowered John Thaw as Hubert). As a result, this scene, usually the emotional centrepiece of the play, is actually rather dull here. A second child performer pops up towards the end as Henry III and is equally ineffective.

In terms of the themes of the play, one thing Giles really focuses on, and brings out successfully, is the importance and strength of mothers and the influence and control they have over their children. There are three mothers in this play – Lady Faulconbridge, Eleanor and Constance – and all three of them are clearly the driving forces behind their children, guiding their decisions and fulfilling their own ambitions and desires through those children. Giles shoots the mothers always in domineering positions, presenting them as constantly controlling and manipulating their sons, living and achieving their ambitions through them.  Constance speaks constantly for her son, and seems barely able to release her grip on him, constantly holding him in a domineering grasp. Lady Faulconbridge clearly controls her rather dullard son Robert and can see (and intends to enjoy) the clear advantages of the success of her bastard son Philip. Even Janet Maw’s Blanche clearly understands realpolitik.

This focus on mothers and sons is helped by impressive performances from these actresses. Mary Morris is a fearsome, ruthless, ambitious and intelligent Queen Eleanor, clearly positioned as the power behind her son’s throne. Throughout A1, Eleanor is a constant presence beside John, almost a co-ruler. Giles uses some intelligent cutting and reaction shots to keep Eleanor to the forefront of the action throughout A2, allowing the audience to constantly see how she is evaluating the consequences of the actions around her. Phyllida Law equally makes a lot of Lady Faulconbridge’s wisdom and clearly expresses the affection she holds Philip in. Claire Bloom gives another impressive performance in this series, her Constance developing from a forceful determination to achieve her son’s rights, through to a pained, desperation progressing into despair as his hopes and dreams fall apart. Many of the finest moments in A2 are dominated by her presence, and Constance’s overbearing determination.

It’s in the second half that the loss of these characters is felt, as the play moves towards a confusing see-saw of events as men fall back into doing what they do best – fighting and feuding. Robert Brown and John Castle do their best with rather nondescript roles as the primary English lords, but are not helped by some repetitive decisions both in writing and playing – we don’t need to see Castle’s Salisbury in tears in almost every scene to know that he is as conflicted at betraying his country as he was devastated at the death of Arthur. A4 and A5 may pump up the number of events, but the production presents them (admittedly not the finest dramatic sequences written by Shakespeare) as formless and shapeless. Watching this I had no idea what this production might be building towards – there is no real sense of drive, of a narrative or thematic point being made here. Instead events continue forward until they stop. This is even clearer in the end of the play, as the actors shuffle off (accompanied of course by monastic chanting) without any real sense that the production has concluded something or been about anything.

A part of this problem is George Costigan’s performance as Philip the Bastard. An almost entirely invented character, Philip is probably (if anyone is) the real lead of the play, the only character who addresses the audience, and the character from whose perspective we are invited to see much of the action. Costigan gives an intelligent and extremely well spoken performance, but for me it’s too underpowered and calm. I don’t really get from him a sense of the charisma the part needs – there has to be a reason why kings and peers of the realm start to listen to this upstart Bastard, and I’m not sure that is explained. Similarly, the progress that Philip makes towards decency and patriotism (is there a nicer Bastard in Shakespeare?) doesn’t really become clear either. Philip is the main lens through which the audience sees the play, and when his journey seems hazy, so does the play.

Which brings us to the title character. Just like with John Cleese in Shrew, the BBC went against the expected choice by hiring an actor best known for sitcoms to play the tragic lead. The impact is slightly lost today, largely because Rossiter is less well known today than Cleese – no episodes of Rising Damp on Netflix! – but he gives a very good performance here as a John, a weasly mummy’s boy unable to make a decision, prone to the snide remark and glance but crucially lacking any ability to inspire confidence in others. So he takes a slightly pathetic delight in little victories – like clasping the King of France’s hand in a crucial diplomatic moment – but then looks total at a loss at a major moment, as his lords rebel. His lords show little respect for him – at one point Salisbury grasps him by the shoulder and John hardly reacts – and he constantly shuffles on his feet when talking and whines like a child, refusing at one point to acknowledge Philip until he has kissed his hand first. It’s a decent performance that seems very true to the historical man (and also quite good casting for Rossiter). It’s a real shame that this was Rossiter’s last ever performance, as he passed away between filming and transmission.

Rossiter gives us a firm centre for this production, but even he gets a bit lost in the dully handled speechifying that makes up most of the flat first half. A2 in particular seems to go on and on as more and more hot air covers the destiny of the crown, and the dark comedy of this offer and counter offer scene gets lost in the crush. It’s just not plain interesting enough for anyone to care – and there doesn’t seem to be enough tension or indeed anything really at stake during this long sequence. This then means that once things start to happen in A4, the audience doesn’t have a sense of tension exploding, or pay off from a build earlier. Instead, it remains a faithful but rather flat rendition of a weak play that takes the audience nowhere in particular.

Conclusion

A decent lead performance, and some impressive supporting performances, can’t make up for what remains a rather disappointing and empty production of one of Shakespeare’s weaker plays, that largely lacks real narrative thrust and never really feels like it is going anywhere. Instead, events continue until there are no more events, and material that could have real emotional impact instead meanders past, lost in dull debate and a few too many underpowered performances in crucial roles. Stylistically and filmically, it also doesn’t really work – too bright, too colourful, not visually inventive enough or done with enough dynamism. Disappointing.

NEXT TIME: Mike Gwilym sails the seven seas as Pericles.

Richard II (Series 1 Episode 2)

Richard II

First transmitted 10th December 1978





Jon Finch and Derek Jacobi lay the foundations for civil war in the poetic opening to Shakespeare's history cycle

Cast: Derek Jacobi (Richard II), Jon Finch (Henry Bolingbroke), John Gielgud (John of Gaunt), Charles Gray (York), Wendy Hiller (Duchess of York), Mary Morris (Duchess of Gloucester), David Swift (Northumberland), Clifford Rose (Bishop of Carlisle), Charles Keating (Aumerle), Richard Owens (Mowbray), Janet Maw (Queen), Jeffrey Holland (Surrey), Jeremy Bulloch (Henry Percy), Robin Sachs (Bushy), Damien Thomas (Bagot), Alan Dalton (Green), Jonathan Adams (Gardener)

Director: David Giles

 

The second production in the series is a starrily-cast Richard II.  And what we get here is a very skilled, professional attempt at capturing this play on screen. As a play, Richard II demands a sense of scale, colour and pageantry – and perhaps, therefore, it’s one of the hardest to convey from a 4 by 3 box in the corner of a room.

 

The faithful adaptation style from R and J is continued here, with the setting exactly in period and adhering very faithfully to mainstream critical interpretations of the play. Forced by budget and house style, this is a chamber piece, a well acted conversation placed in a series of rooms or meetings at camps and tents in dead of night. When the film does move into a daytime ‘exterior’ sector, for the trial by combat in A1 S3, this is easily the least successful scene of the production, with some concessions made to the spectacle of the moment but the camera unable to move from close-ups (for fear of exposing the unrealistic set) to help create a sense of scope and tension. But what this film does know is what it can do with in its limits, and it does them very well. As a costume drama this is a very well made example of 1970s British television.

 

Giles’ direction is faithful and unimposing, using careful camera moves and framing to communicate the story simply and clearly. His focus is very much on character and performance. The direction aims at creating a claustrophobic world in which the psychology of the drama and the characters is established as keenly as possible. This more intense, focused drama plays to Giles’ strengths and it’s telling that he is far more comfortable when dealing with the more intimate scenes, which are constantly more visually interesting and dynamic than the crowd scenes. It’s rather odd – and has a big impact on the success of the opening scenes, which largely consist of large group scenes. Compare the flatness of A1 S1 with the far more dynamic and engaging two-hander in A1 S2. It’s a very telling contrast to the more ‘large scale’ R and J with its large cast of extras – here extras, when they appear, are almost shoved to the edges of the frame, as if to avoid distracting the eye as much as possible. Giles is a highly experienced studio director, and his experience working with a few actors on a close set is really clear here.

 

This production makes motions towards a more complex interpretation than the first film in the series. Before the first line of the play, Richard pauses outside the court and seems to draw breath and compose himself, preparing himself to publically take on the role of King or readying himself for a difficult confrontation. It’s strongly implied in Act 1 that Richard is behind the death of Gloucester that sparks the events of the play, a small point but one which informs a lot of Jacobi’s performance (and his cool, dismissive reactions to Mowbray) and Owens’ anger and disillusionment as Mowbray. The nature of ruling is also explored, with Richard shown as more interested in lounging around getting massages than involving himself in the business of running the country. This is a sharp contrast with Bolingbroke who is rarely seen not sitting surrounded with papers, with a hands-on style of ruling. Points like these illustrate a desire to develop an interpretation of the play, although these are kept very low key and subtle and not allowed to intrude too heavily on the actors’ performances.

 

Which is in no way a weakness, because this production has some hugely successful performances. Derek Jacobi is one of the most intelligent classical actors alive, and he brings all the focus of that intelligence to this production. Reflecting the nature of the play, his performance splits Richard into two distinct phases with the flip coming during Act Three. At first Richard is a smiling tyrant, an uncaring man convinced of his own divine certainty and seemingly incapable of understanding other people. Throughout, he treats Bolingbroke, Gaunt and especially Mowbray with a lightness and imperious cheerfulness, and a cruel streak is shown throughout with his openly giddy and joyful reaction to Gaunt’s death and his appointment of York as his deputy, which Jacobi plays almost like a private joke. He’s the sort of man who airily knocks four years off Bolingbroke’s banishment on a whim and breezily talks about his “uneasiness” before smilingly banishing Mowbray for life.  It’s clear why so many lords feel so little regard for him.

 

This then flips expertly from Act 3, as Richard’s world comes crashing down, with Jacobi delivering a rollercoaster of challenging line readings and widely oscillating emotions. In A3 S2 alone he goes from imperious confidence through, in-turn, mad-eyed certainty, despair, rage, impotent fury, heartfelt anguish, tears, desolation, resignation, self-realisation and finally a kindling of humility and humanity – all within about ten minutes of screen time and never feeling forced or misplaced. Jacobi’s Richard is being re-born during this sequence and realising he is not a god but a man who “needs bread as you do”. This sequence continues in Act 4, a tour-de-force deposition scene, with Richard torn between bitterness and the fixed neutrality of a man compelled to do an unpleasant duty. This tension only explodes once offered a list of his ‘crimes’ by Northumberland, bringing out a burst of pain and defiance at the turn-coats that surround him, but without losing his developing sense of humanity. It’s quite something to take a character so unsympathetic in the opening hour and make him someone the audience really roots for. It is performances like this that justify the BBC’s decision to chase down the big name actors.

 

Jon Finch is a great match for him as a controlled and faintly sinister Bolingbroke, giving his performance a physicality that makes him an imposing threat from the start. If Richard is a tyrant in the sense that he doesn’t really care about the country or the people in it, Bolingbroke wants to control everything and everyone – and doesn’t have a problem with judicial murders (poor Bushy and Green) or quietly (with plausible deniability) ordering royal assassinations.  There’s a touch of masculine cruelty about him – he’s probably the first Bolingbroke I’ve seen to turn “rain on the earth my waters” into a piss joke.

 

The best supporting performance here surprisingly comes from Charles Gray’s York, a well meaning, morally upright but ineffectual old buffer, almost drifted in from Wodehouse, out of his depth when dealing with strong wills like Bolingbroke and Northumberland and constantly a few moments away from tears. He may be disgusted by Bolingbroke’s actions in A2 S3 but still feels compelled to offer him a shelter for the night and raises token objections in A3 S2 but still sit on a tribunal to condemn two innocent men. By A5 S2 he needs to get drunk to tell his wife about Bolingbroke’s coronation and Richard’s imprisonment. It’s a lovely pen portrait of a weak man in a position of responsibility and influence, blown from pillar to post by those around him.

 

Other performances are less successful. I was less persuaded by Gielgud’s Gaunt, who (similar to his Chorus in R and J) speaks the lines perfectly but with a strange absence of feeling (his farewell to Bolingbroke is notably unmoving). He delivers the famous speech of the play expertly with a teary emotion but I felt he was slightly miscast, that Gaunt needed a bit more of the earthy, domineering quality that Finch’s Bolingbroke has. Most of the rest of the cast only have small moments to shine, but Richard Owens is a fine Mowbray, Clifford Rose makes a lot of a few small moments as a militant Carlisle and, after a shaky start, David Swift is a bull-like, unsubtle Northumberland. For Star Wars fans there is a chance to see Boba Fett actor Jeremy Bulloch without helmet as an energised Henry Percy. I was less keen on Charles Keating’s underplayed Aumerle, and cuts to the Queen’s already small part mean Janet Maw arrives almost too late to make any real impression.

 

There are some unusual cuts in this play. Most of A2 S2 is removed, making the arrival of Bolingbroke in the country actually a little unclear. Cutting the opening of Act 4 leaves the fate of Bagot a plot-hole. A combination of trims and underplaying in A3 S3 undermines the impact of the gardener’s scene. If they wanted to make cuts, some trims to A1 S1 and S3 – both static talking shops in this production – would have been a far better choice. There are also several moments in the play that, to be honest, don’t really work. I’ve already mentioned the pacing errors in the opening scenes, but Giles doesn’t really solve the strange ‘comedy’ sequence of Act Five involving the York family pleading against each other over the fate of Aumerle. An attempt is made at playing the comedy of the moment, but it feels even more out of place with the rest of the play (and pity Wendy Hiller that this is her only appearance in the project). Bolingbroke’s exasperated final reaction shot here also doesn’t work at all.

 

But plenty of things work well. Giles does a lot with creative framing and character movement. Throughout the film, Richard constantly ascends and descends raised platforms, moving from solitary positions then bringing himself down to the same level as his subjects (some examples can be seen in the images above). There is also some lovely use of York, placing him fairly consistently at the front of the frame, almost as a chorus for scenes, suggesting not only his isolation from Bolingbroke and his followers but also his status in this production as the most sympathetic and humane of the characters and the viewers’ window into the action.

 

The finest directorial decision is the delivery of Richard’s final monologue in A5 S5. The speech is split into five chunks, with each chunk prefaced by a cut of Richard in a new position in his prison cell, using a visual shorthand to show both the passage of time and the completion of Richard’s long journey into self realisation. In each the camera drifts slowly but tellingly in towards Richard, stressing his own introspection and his claustrophobic isolation. It’s a very clever way of using a small set and a truly cinematic way of interpreting the speech and something that could not be done on stage, and it works very effectively, creating one of the production’s highlights. But these are unobtrusive flourishes in some very unfussy visual direction.

 A montage of the different positions and placements used for Richard's final speech

I found this blog more challenging to write than the last, possibly because I expected this – particularly after the poorly paced opening scenes – to be a dry shadow of the later Rupert Goold-directed Hollow Crown version. But this manages to hold its own. It’s not completely perfect, but in terms of acting and drama it’s a major step-up from Romeo and Juliet and, in its decision to focus on exteriors and night times, it uses the restrictions of studio filming far more to its advantage. Also, while Giles might have less flair as a director, he has far more ideas about the play and about how to work with actors and direct smaller scenes, which on the whole is more important than Alvin Rakoff’s flair. I have to say I really enjoyed this production and would definitely watch it again.

Conclusion
Some very impressive acting (particularly a stunning lead performance from Derek Jacobi) and unobtrusive direction make up for some poorly paced scenes to create a pretty impressive stab at producing a small-scale spectacle of a play. Not everything completely works, but there is enough here that succeeds to make this entertaining and moving viewing. Well done BBC!

Next up: Helen Mirren and James Bolam go frolicking in the forest of Arden in As You Like It.