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.

King Lear (Series 5 Episode 1)

First transmitted 19th September 1982

Michael Hordern rages against the dying of the light

Cast: Michael Hordern (King Lear), Norman Rodway (Earl of Gloucester), Gillian Barge (Goneril), Penelope Wilton (Regan), Brenda Blethyn (Goneril), Frank Middlemass (The Fool), John Shrapnel (Earl of Kent), Anton Lesser (Edgar), Michael Kitchen (Edmund), John Bird (Duke of Albany), Julian Curry (Duke of Cornwall), John Grillo (Oswald), David Weston (Duke of Burgundy), Harry Waters (King of France), Ken Stott (Curran)

Director: Jonathan Miller

Well it’s been a while and, if it’s any excuse, I’ve been extraordinarily busy with the last play I directed in Oxford – none other than a certain King Lear. So gosh and blimey it’s been interesting watching this production while a host of my own ideas have been bubbling around my head: always an interesting time to watch any production. Added to this, I’ve got some rather fond memories of watching this production during my A-Level studies, where several performances made a real impression on me – not least John Shrapnel’s Kent and Michael Kitchen’s Edmund.

So it’s interesting watching it again now, especially as I have now seen so many of the other films in this series – as well as all the rest of the productions directed and produced by Miller. This was Miller’s last production for the series and, apparently, it was not his first choice to work on it. He had directed a BBC version seven years prior to this – also starring Michael Hordern as Lear and Frank Middlemass as the Fool – and proposed merely showing that production again as part of this series. When that idea was rejected, Miller was commissioned to direct a new production. Being, presumably, pleased with many elements of his last production, Miller recast many of the same actors and then reset elements of the first production within some of the new staging ideas he had been experimenting with throughout the series.

From Troilus and Timon through to Antony and Cleopatra, Miller had increasingly experimented with stripped down, impressionistic sets that bring the focus into the acting. He set the plays themselves in increasingly non-realistic settings that stress the heightened emotions and events that occur. This style also worked to eliminate the clunking realism of earlier productions (Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It spring instantly to mind). The location used here is a deliberately wooden stage, almost reminiscent of the original Globe theatre. A black backcloth is used to establish the background (and no effort is made to suggest it is anything other than a cloth). The only other location used is a bare wasteland for the storm scenes, which is adapted into a sandy wilderness for the final battle. It’s deliberately bleak and spare for a production that stresses the harsh and violent world of the play. It’s matched by the Velazquez-inspired costumes, all of which are black and white with only touches of colour to thematically link characters (such as the white in the Fool’s facepaint mirroring the white in Cordelia’s).

The camera work also aims to make the action “up close and personal” with a proliferation of close-ups that zoom in on the actors’ (often impassioned) faces as if to pull the emotions out like teeth. The storm scene in particular relies on a series of prolonged close-ups of Hordern’s soaked face, while the Fool and Kent can be seen in the background. Gloucester’s blinding is largely framed from a reverse close-up on the Earl tied to a chair. A common shot is a side-on close up in which an actor speaks while a second actor stands (out of focus slightly) alongside them facing the camera – this is repeatedly used, perhaps to suggest a continuing sense of events being “witnessed” by others.

Even wider-angle shots, such as the final death of Lear, use framing and actor positioning to create a triangular “zooming in” effect, where the visual attention of the viewer is pulled down towards Lear at a focal point of the other characters in the scene. Of course this decision to use close-ups isn’t always effective: noticeably during the fight sequence between Edmund and Edgar, the entire fight is delivered in tight close-up on Edmund’s face. Sure this might give the feeling that we are judging Edmund – but it also means it’s rather difficult to tell what is going on (particularly as the fast paced movement makes it hard for the cameraman to keep up!). 

Perhaps this is part of the issue with the production itself: it feels like almost a greatest hits of Miller’s directing for the series, rather than him bringing a fresh new perspective to the series. While Shrew and Antony and Cleopatra seemed like fresh interpretations, this seems more like Miller reworking the play in response to ideas rather than other way around - something I was less aware of when watching it all those years ago.

Miller’s general design aesthetic is to integrate the motivations and feelings of the characters very closely, and this forensic style is equally clear in Hordern’s studied and well observed performance as Lear, which is packed with little details here and there. Indeed, Miller and Hordern’s intention to tightly analyse Lear throughout actually rather stacks the deck, particularly in the opening scene, towards exploring Lear’s mental strength (or rather weakness). From the first scene Lear is clearly struggling – he even seems momentarily confused and a little lost when entering the court scene, before seeming to remember what he is there for. 

Throughout the early scenes of the play, his Lear is twitchy and uncertain, almost nervous about standing still, as if uncertain or determined to keep moving forward so he knows where he is. Although this onset of senility is overplayed, Hordern does really capture a sense of childish, almost sulky, capriciousness in Lear – Cordelia’s famous “nothing” is met with stunned silence, before a temperamental explosion (and the division of the kingdom into two has a fantastic improvisational feel to it) which is echoed again in his fury towards Goneril in A1 S4 (which even seems to shock the Fool in its viciousness). What’s particularly interesting about the performance of Lear in his pomp is that he never seems too regal, but more like a self-important bank manager.

His Lear is capable of warmth – he is clearly close to the Fool (as seen in A1 S5 and during the storm sequence) – and is able to demonstrate affection to Regan in A2 S4 (even if it is grounded in manipulation) but he is also clearly equally capable of self-delusion. In A1 S5 he distractedly mutters “I did her wrong” (of Cordelia) before clearly dismissing the thought from himself. In A2 S4 he seems to persuade himself that Regan is pleased to see him (despite all evidence to the contrary in Penelope Wilton’s stony reaction) before angrily lashing out. It all builds towards the impression of a man teetering on the edge of from the start, tipping during his impassioned raging during the storm. 

Edgar’s mania mesmerises and inspires him to embrace the storm inside himself, with Lear increasingly becoming lost in broken conversation and mutterings, despite keeping an air of firmness. His madness is in fact laced through nicely with moment of calmness and reflection – “for I lack soliders” in A4 S5 has a particular sadness, as if remembering his lost knights. The cruelty is still there – the mocking of Gloucester’s blindness has an edge to it – but there is a clear continuation of underlying character traits in Hodern’s performance from sanity to madness – which makes it even more unnecessary for him to overplay the madness traits in the opening scene.

Recovering from madness, Hordern is gentle and apologetic, delighting in Cordelia’s presence. Hordern holds her tight and can barely let her go, his eyes rarely straying towards anything or anybody else in the scene. Hordern is also particularly strong portraying Lear’s grief at the death of this beloved child, mixing again moments of pained clarity with an almost dreamlike lack of understanding and acceptance of the events around him. Hordern’s performance makes a very watchable performance of this role – but it seems to lack something, maybe because Hordern himself is not naturally a ‘charasmatic superstar actor’, with his style better suited to character roles (such as in All’s Well That Ends Well) rather than a more ‘glamourous’ part like Lear. His style inverted rather better as Prospero than it does here as Lear. He’s watchable and touching at several points, but he is never quite as moving as the part perhaps requires.

Away from the lead, there are of course several other performances of note. Michael Kitchen has a great deal of charisma (if not depth of character or motivation beyond “he is a villain”) as Edmund, though today visually he bears more than a passing resemblance to Blackadder. His bastard is a cool and relaxed man, determined and intelligent, who makes himself believable with a low-key assurance. Kitchen frequently looks into the camera – notably when kissing Goneril – involving the audience in his schemes. He makes a firm contrast with Anton Lesser’s at first more highly-strung Edgar (he even needs to clash both swords for Edgar in A2 S1). 

Lesser however adds a great deal of development to Edgar from A3 onwards, his Poor Tom is intense and vulnerable (though a design decision to give him a Christ like appearance – including stigmata – definitely overplays it). Edgar himself becomes increasingly still, distant and devout, going from mortified pain at Gloucester’s fate to a monkish authority and even a touch of cruelty after the killing of Oswald. In the final confrontation between the brothers, Edgar wears a death mask resembling Gloucester (a nice touch), and Edmund’s authoritative assurance is broken into a desire to salvage something from his life.

Of Lear’s children, Gillan Barge and Penelope Wilton are little too close to villainous from the start, both nakedly selfish and deceiving from the opening scene. Barge’s Goneril is an aloof, imperial figure, with a sternness that only slightly cracks under Lear’s vicious verbal assault in A1 S4 (which even Kent and the Fool seem shocked by) though she tightly holds her hands throughout, and she allows a triumph on “Do you mark that” as Lear exits. She seems a colder, more controlled figure than Wilton’s Regan, who comes across here as more instinctive. Wilton does use her softness as a performer to good effect however, her concern for Gloucester in A2 S1 a nice parallel for the blinding that will come. In that blinding she seems fascinated by the violence her husband unleashes, while her love for Edmund later seems almost fanatical in its devotion. Brenda Blethyn’s Cordelia has a surface softness that hides an inner determination, though her prominent dressing in white is in its way as heavy handed as Edgar’s stigmata.

As mentioned earlier, John Shrapnel is probably a stand out as a dutifully loyal Kent, a man who seems almost incapable of self definition but can only see himself in relation to others (specifically Lear or Cordelia) rather than finding his own way. The disguising of Kent works very effectively and he also brings a great deal of gruff humour to several key moments, while his desolation at the play’s end is strikingly effective. Norman Rodway makes an arrogant Gloucester who only finds wisdom when it is too late. Frank Middlemass’ Fool is a mountain of vibrant anger and comic aggression matched with a childish vulnerability and self pity at key moments.

So overall, there are many qualities to be admired in this production. But stylistically it’s not a complete success, with its televisual craft occasionally getting slightly in the way of the story. Its reliance on the close-up at points obscures the story (most notably in the storm scene) with several moments losing the impact of the wider emotional experience of the characters. Miller’s decision to not use cut aways in the many scenes that feature large numbers of people on stage (but only a few talking at any particular point) does mean that some actors get lost in the shuffle in scenes. Similarly heavy handed acting and design decisions (stigmata and Lear’s dementia for starters) take things too far.

But that is to ignore the good stuff on the table here. Many of the performers are excellent, particularly Kitchen, Shrapnel and Wilton while Hordern certainly gives everything he has to his Lear, even if the effect at times doesn’t quite match up to how I personally might see the character, and even if he sometimes lacks the charisma the role might require. But the cut down design works quite well (even if it isn’t particularly visually interesting) and the bleakness of the play is mirrored well in the black and white costumes on display. As a display of intelligent interpretation of this most complex play in the cannon, it is certainly far more interesting than many of the other great tragedies in the cannon – better than Hamlet, perhaps a little much of a shadow of Othello. And that perhaps is the final issue: it feels like Miller is simply reworking or resubmitting previous ideas from old productions (both of this play and others) rather than bringing a true unique freshness to it as he did with The Taming of the Shrew.

Conclusion

A solid production with several exciting performances and design flourishes: but it feels a little like Miller on autopilot, as if the production was almost done to complete his contract rather than because Miller felt he had something fresh, new or interesting to bring to the play. If it’s true that he wished to simply retransmit his original television production from a few years before, perhaps he felt that remounting the same production in the style of Othello and other productions was the next best thing. So, despite the good things here, it feels like a wasted opportunity, and a shame that a different director in the series – an Elijah Moshinky or Jane Howell – didn’t get a chance to put their own spin on the play. It’s still up there with the better of the productions, but it could have been better.

NEXT TIME: Richard Griffiths’ gets into all sorts of bother with other people’s wives in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

All's Well That Ends Well (Series 3 Episode 3)

First Transmitted 4th January 1981



Angela Down, Celia Johnson, Ian Charleson and Donald Sinden play unhappy families

Cast: Angela Down (Helena), Ian Charleson (Bertram), Celia Johnson (Countess of Rousillon), Donald Sinden (King of France), Michael Hordern (Lafew), Peter Jeffrey (Parolles), Rosemary Leach (Widow), Pippa Guard (Diana), Robert Lindsay (First Lord), Dominic Jephcott (Second Lord), Paul Brooke (Lavache), Kevin Stoney (Stewart), Nickolas Grace (Solider), Valentine Dyall (Astringer), Terence McGinty (First Gentleman), Max Arthur (Second Gentleman)

Director: Elijah Moshinsky

First off it’s been a huge break – so please blame the fact that I bought a house in the interim and basically didn’t have time to sit and watch a whole Shakespeare play and then write it up. Don’t even mention the problems I’ve had getting the internet reconnected. Anyway, I finally found the time to watch the third production of the Jonathan Miller years – All’s Well That Ends Well, directed by what would become a series regular: Elijah Moshinsky.

Straight off the bat I have to say I really enjoyed this production, despite not knowing the play very well at all. The first thing that will strike anyone watching this is the extraordinary visual beauty of the film. It’s an incredibly rare thing to say about a television production of the time – particularly one shot on the harsher, grainy medium of video rather than film. This strong visual sense is expertly combined with an acute and intelligent analysis of text and characters that has quickly become the hallmark of the Jonathan Miller era.

But first the visuals. Hard to believe it, but this was Moshinsky’s first ever work on film or television. Now apparently this was the secret behind its success – Moshinsky simply didn’t think, in the way of a more experienced TV director like John Gorrie, “this can’t be done” about the more complex, naturalistic lighting he wanted – he asked and his team strove to deliver it. Moshinsky wanted to create a feeling of scenes being lit by natural light, sometimes a few candles, and to allow shadows and areas of darkness to be created. His inspiration for this was the paintings of the Dutch masters – in particular, to my eyes, Rembrandt – though he was also inspired by a (to me) lesser known artist called Georges de la Tour, from the same era who was heavily inspired by Carravaggio.

The lighting team on the film – and credit must go to John Summers, the director of photography – duly went to work to create the sort of effects more experienced directors would have been trained to believe too difficult and time-consuming to attempt. The effect is extraordinary throughout, with extensive use of silhouettes, and scenes artfully framed and composed to form striking visual tableaux. The willingness to feature darkness on the screen, while bathing the action in a warm candlelight effect introduces an intimacy to the drama, making the action very personal. The inspiration of paintings can be seen throughout – the lords at the King’s sickbed bear more than a resemblance to Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson; later the soldiers appear strikingly similar to The Night Watch; baroque imagery is used throughout for Helena and the women of the play.


This strong visual sense rings out through all the scene set-ups, each established with a skillful painterly eye, without ever appearing sterile or over studied. There is even room for a little tip of the hat – in A4 S3, while the lords Dumaine speak, a clear collection of Holbein and Rembrandt inspired “artistic metaphor objects” can be seen on the table before them. This painterly feel also serves to make a virtue of the studio bound locations – such effects could never have been created outside, but the visual skill never makes the action feel cramped or claustrophobic. Excellent use of mirrors throughout allow both scope to be added to small sets, and also suggest a commentary on the differences between projected image and actuality - tellingly, Parolles and the King are the characters seen most often in mirrors.

Moshinsky also makes excellent use of the camera, here a prowling part of the action, moving around scenes – particularly strikingly used in A3 S7 as the camera pans around a scheming Helena to slowly reveal the other characters listening to her. Such camera work also serves to demonstrate character notes – in the example above stressing both Helena’s leadership qualities, but also her slight distance from those around her. Later, at the play’s conclusion, a Helena POV shot allows the viewer to soak in the reactions of each of the characters at her return from the dead.

Of course the visuals would never be so successful without Moshinsky and his team undertaking a concentrated interpretation of the text itself. Most strikingly, both Helena and Bertram are presented as (to varying degrees) somewhat selfish and unwise characters, neither as clever or as noble as they at first appear. Helena’s infatuation with Bertram is demonstrated as being as thoughtless and self-obsessed as Bertram’s own later seduction of Diana – both of them show very little interest in the thoughts and feelings of the object of their affection in their attempt to gain possession of them. Is it any wonder that Bertram looks so sullen at being tied – against his will – in marriage to Helena?

This underlying theme of selfishness and a grasping, elitist control over the world is demonstrated throughout. Parolles may be a swaggerer and a braggart, but really he only reflects the conduct and actions of those around him – and indeed is quick to condemn them when given the opportunity. This atmosphere all stems from the King, here a power-crazed sexual pervert, strongly suggested to be suffering from veneral disease of some sort, grooming the young French lords to follow in his (dirty) footsteps. He takes what he wants and orders and controls the lives of those around him like they are his playthings. Is it any wonder these same lords think it “sport” to kidnap and perform a mock execution on Parolles later? The roughing up of Parolles – and the outrage of the bullies as their own faults are unwittingly told to them by their victim – is systematic in a world where the rich look down on the poor. Even Lafew, more kindly than the rest, has a clear idea of the “natural order of things”.

The sex running through this production is very pronounced. It’s more than heavily implied that a healthy dose of “rumpy-pumpy” is a key part of Helena’s cure for the King. Diana may have contempt for Bertram, but is more than aware of how to use her coquettish charms to get what she needs from him in a highly sexualized seduction. Lavatch – on the surface a comic part, but here played like some sinister backstairs servant – has a particularly sinister speech about love. Bertram is virtually a working hormone in the second half of the play. Even Helena makes decisions based on her own lust for Bertram, and is happy to perform the “bed trick” in order to cement her position over him. It’s a selfish society and the characters reflect these values – they are all, to degrees, only interested in getting what they want and have little regard for the feelings and  desires of others.

Angela Down, a great choice for Helena, brings a wonderful put-upon, self-sacrificing air to the role, which here is subtly inverted to suggest a disguise behind which lurks a far more selfish and manipulative personality. Her coldness and aloofness distance her from contemporaries in subtle ways – obviously from the more immature Bertram – but also give her a natural authority and control over the Widow and Diana. She also clearly has no qualms over manipulating the lecherous King with her body. Throughout the play she shows little interest in understanding Bertram – only once, when he angrily refuses the forced marriage does she seem to express any regret at her decisions, as if it never occurred to her that he might be unhappy at having marriage forced on him. Far from painting her as an angel, she is clearly a deeply flawed person and Ian Charleson’s sullen Bertram – while clearly not worthy of the affection lavished on him by her – surely has a point about being furious about being forced into a loveless (and what has a good chance of being) unhappy marriage.

Her coldness contrasts very well with Peter Jeffrey’s dandified, swaggering braggart Parolles, a generally harmless chancer perfectly happy to bumble along as a carefree hanger-on. Interestingly there is no hint of maliciousness to him – he is a man using what skills he has to get a foot on the ladder. His clashes with Lafew – a very boisterous performance from Michael Hordern, perhaps his best work in the series so far – may have moments of outrage in them (and Parolles goes to draw his sword at least once) but seem almost more like a game than a war. Where Helena’s manipulation is subtle, Parolles’ is played openly and simply, almost innocently. After his humiliation, Jeffrey embraces Parolles’ determination to be one of the few characters to no longer wear a face, but to be what he is – in his case a Dickensian beggar, kowtowing to his masters for favour. It’s a very engaging performance. It also serves as an interesting contrast with Helena – they are both using Bertram and others, but Parolles is open and honest about it, where Helena seems unwilling to admit it fully even to herself.

 

This is a very strong cast of actors. Celia Johnson probably gives the stand-out performance as a worldly-wise, kindly and gentle Countess, who takes a humane interest in those around her and exudes a motherly warmth – she is perhaps the most forgiving and generous character in the production. Pippa Guard is far better here than in The Tempest, making Diana a clever flirt but also giving her a moral force. Donald Sinden does verge towards a theatrical ham, but his clever interpretation of the King as a sex-crazed old man, still gleefully recalling trysts past, does bring a very interesting new vision to the play – and also ties in well with making the King more of a tyrant than other productions have done. Michael Hordern is a stand-out as a vigourous Lafew, worldly-wise but not an innocent. Robert Lindsay again stands out in a small role as a bullying Lord. All the characters fit very naturally into the interpretation of the play Moshinsky has created.

Some subtle cuts are made to the text – in particular all the scenes featuring the Duke of Florence have been deleted – to bring the focus tightly into the family drama Moshinsky wants to show, while still allowing the clashes of this family to reflect a wider society. Moshinsky brings out these themes of selfishness and lack of self-awareness extremely well – it’s suggested that Helena and Bertram learn very little over the course of the play or even really develop as characters, with the ending narration by the King being very open to interpretation (and he clearly also has his eye on Diana). Bertram and Helena may kiss, but is Bertram still responding to the pressure from others? Has Helena learned anything about forcing love on another? Clearly not as the old “bed trick” is the only reason Bertram reaffirms their marriage.

This is an intelligent and fascinating production of the play – in fact the sort of production that elevates the play straight up your list of “favourite Shakespeare plays”. It’s still a little known work, but this production really finds a depth and interest to it. Which of course makes it a credit to the series – and also a tribute to television. A lot of the very subtle work in this production could not have been created on the stage and the use of intercutting, close-up and camera movement – as well the gentle underplaying of some scenes – really uses the benefits of the medium. Moshinsky was quite some find, and it’s exciting to see what he may come up with next.


Conclusion
This is probably the best calling card for the series so far – actually the best. Only Taming of the Shrew I think gets close enough to touch it. It’s an adult, creative, intelligent interpretation, beautifully filmed and fantastic to look at. Coupled up with strong performances across the board – this must be the best cast assembled yet – it’s no surprise this received several awards. It’s certainly the best one to show people if you are trying to persuade them to watch the rest of the series!

NEXT TIME: I'm looking forward to it as we hit Jane Howell's controversial Winter's Tale Production. Those on the know are not favourable. Let's see shall we see?

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.