The Comedy of Errors (Series 6 Episode 3)

First transmitted 24th December 1983

Double trouble for Roger Daltrey and Michael Kitchen

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

Director: James Cellan Jones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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.