The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Series 6 Episode 4)

First broadcast 27th December 1983

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

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

Director: Don Taylor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

The Comedy of Errors (Series 6 Episode 3)

First transmitted 24th December 1983

Double trouble for Roger Daltrey and Michael Kitchen

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

Director: James Cellan Jones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

Macbeth (Season 6, Episode 2)

First transmitted 5th November 1983

Nicol Williamson and Jane Lapotaire go about the murdering of sleep

Cast: Nicol Williamson (Macbeth), Jane Lapotaire (Lady Macbeth), Tony Doyle (Macduff), James Hazeldine (Malcolm), Ian Hogg (Banquo), Mark Dignam (Duncan), John Rowe (Lennox), Gawn Grainger (Ross), David Lyon (Angus), James Bolam (Porter), Jill Baker (Lady Macduff), Brenda Bruce (First Witch), Eileen Way (Second Witch), Anne Dyson (Third Witch), John Woodnutt (Doctor)

Director: Jack Gold

It’s the nature of the slightly slap-dash planning of this series that, as we reach the final 10 or so films, the series has already covered most of the true classics of the cannon and is largely left with the Shakespearean equivalent of a few minnows. One of the few tent poles left is of course The Scottish Play, here finally working its way onto screen. This was hardly an unknown play to the viewing public, as the murderous Thane had already been brought to the screen several times, both on film and TV. Combine that with an unending parade of productions on the stage and so many schooldays memories, there can’t have been many people who didn’t already feel themselves familiar with this notoriously unlucky work.

Which is just as well really, as there is very little here that will add to anyone’s visual memory of the play. In fact it seems almost a crying shame that there wasn’t a more inventive production of this play, taking advantage of some of the more daring work that had come before. Of course, like Cymbeline, maybe this one just fades compared to the daring brilliance of Jane Howell’s Henriad but this is a rather flat and (whisper it) dull production of a play that is all about relentless momentum punctured by moments of introspection.

In fact it seems like a call back to the early days of the series, before the Miller influence. Where better to set a play set in a Dark Ages Scotland, but Dark Ages Scotland. The inventive playing with form and locations that Jonathan Miller used so well in, for example Antony and Cleopatra, is replaced with a straight placing of the play in its Braveheart style location. Layer on top of that the simple fact that few things look as dated to our 21^st-century eyes than a load of actors with big wigs and rough clothing trying to give us the impression of olden times. Throw in the low budget cyclorama backcloth and some unconvincing grassy knolls and you end up with a production that visually looks every inch of its 32 years of age, in a way none of the productions perhaps since Henry V have done.

Actually that is quite a major problem I had with this production. If you are going down the ultra-traditional route, then that needs to be reflected in your casting. Here the cast are uniformly, despite their tough costuming and dark ages chic, a collection of RSC stalwarts who look and sound like they have stepped straight from an elocution class into the fray of battle. Not one of them convinces as a warrior or soldier, fatally crippling (for me) the concept below the waterline. In name only does this feel like a warrior culture, or a society brimming with barely concealed violence: aside perhaps from Nicol Williamson in places, the rest of them seem overwhelmingly well mannered and (how else can I put it?) English. For a play that has embraced the Scottish setting so vividly, there isn’t a single damn earthy Scotsman in it. It’s a patrician feeling show, like watching members of the Raj stage a little production of the piece.

Which is a shame as there are some good ideas here, and Jack Gold clearly wants to tackle some of them head-on. Gold stresses the psychology of the play. In this he is helped enomously by Nicol Williamson’s trademark intensity. Once described as an actor who all but physically attacked the text until it revealed its secrets, Williamson goes at it here, his intense and visceral performance really pushing the idea of a Thane who was (to be honest) already suffering from some real issues, even before the witches pop up (in a lovely touch there is a hint of sadness in his voice when the witches disappear in A1 S3). What is a particularly nice touch in this performance is that Williamson’s Macbeth actually gives the impression of being an almost gentle soul at first, out of his depth in world affairs and meekly dependent on his wife and his friends, often nervously fiddling with his hands. (Hands are a slight motif in this production, with the camera focusing at points on hands before the actions they commit. For example, the camera follows Lady Macbeth and Macbeth into the dining room to greet Duncan, the camera zooming in on their hands then past them into Duncan. Even this, though, is a rather obvious choice for a play famous for hand washing and wringing from its female lead).

The shock of committing murder almost makes Macbeth catatonic at first. However, when he discovers the capability for wickedness within himself, then it’s a slow spiral of Macbeth nudging himself a step at a time to see how far he will go – reluctance and even anxious timidity when planning Duncan’s death give way to a real adamantine quality when planning the murder of the Macduffs. By the end he’s left hollowed out, almost darkly amused by the attack on his castle and the efforts of so many to kill him. It’s a fine performance that brings the largest degree of interpretative originality to the production.

Gold internalises a lot of this as well by making the majority of the supernatural elements things that Macbeth sees but we do not – so no Banquo’s ghost, no shimmering dagger, no image of spirits telling Macbeth of the future to come. Instead for each of these the camera trains in largely on Macbeth’s face. This is most effective in his second scene with the witches. Crouched under a stone altar in the wilderness, with his head above a steaming cauldron with the camera tight on Williamson’s face it’s unclear whether he is reacting to something out of shot – or whether the witches are simply getting him high on whatever is in that cauldron. When Banquo’s ghost comes a calling, the camera tracks back to give us part of the same view as the other lords in attendance have of Macbeth’s unsettling reaction to what – to us as well – is little more than an empty chair.

The focus on the psychology extends just as swiftly to Lady Macbeth. Jane Lapotaire’s reading is from the start overtly sexual – it’s very clear what sort of power she can exert over Macbeth from the start – and her cry to be “unsexed” is effectively portrayed by an orgasmic writhing on a bed, the camera positioned above her, Lapotaire directly addressing it, as if inviting us (as well as the devil) to join her. This works quite nicely for positioning Lady Macbeth as initially the person more in touch with an understanding of the world and what needs to be done – and also allows Williamson’s Macbeth to be part pupil, part horny shy teenager around her. Her sharp, domineering presence drives the remainder of the first part of the play. It’s an absence that is then sorely missed later on.

The energy she beings effectively start to drop off in the remaining part of the action, as the consequences of events begin to take effect. Suddenly from the coronation onwards she is a startled, anxious woman – clearly already aware that Macbeth’s heart has grown cold and hard. She is a woman now without a pace, who has lost the position she had to attain an empty prize. The sleepwalking scene after that is a formality – she’s dead already by this point, a frightened and startled woman openly scared of the man her actions have helped to create.

Well she might be, as this is a world of violence. The murderers set upon Banquo with a gusto, frantically stabbing him in a carefully concealed ambush, all sense of hesitation and doubt excised. In a nice touch, they themselves are then swiftly dispatched by a psychopathic Seyton, here introduced as the third murderer. Seyton then takes the lead in the slaughter of the Macduff children in one of the production’s most effective scenes. In a parody of a child’s game, the kid is pushed from killer to killer, confused and disorientated, until finally lifted of the ground and thrown onto Seyton’s waiting sword (needless to say this is all watched by a distraught Lady Macduff). After this the final battle seems quite restrained: Macbeth at first can barely contain his amusement at the idea that death might wait at the end of Siward’s sword, before fear and eventual defiance in the face of the raging Macduff.

The production also successfully establishes the idea that everyone watches everyone else. When Malcolm is proclaimed Thane of Cumberland, the camera focuses on each Thane in turn – all of them staring unsmilingly at Malcom. Is it any wonder he sees evil in men’s smiles? No surprise that an armed guard searches Macduff on arrival in England. Or that, after being proclaimed as King, Malcolm stares with nervousness with the rest of the assembled lords as Fleance walks forward to collect the crown. Again the camera cuts to each Thane in turn as their blank, unclear faces stare at him. Are they wondering if he will seize the crown? Are they pondering following him? Will the cycle start again? All options are open in this production.

So there is a lot of promising material here. It’s just a shame that it never really makes much of an impression on the viewer, and never really feels like it is breaking new ground in the way some of these other productions have done so. Nicely done as it is, it’s hardly unique to suggest the Scotland of the play is a land destined to have the witches continually drive it towards destruction (in this production they pop up at brief moments, but never in a sustained enough way to suggest a deliberate design decision). A large part of the lack of impact is linked to the supporting cast. Many of the parts in Macbeth are rather ill defined on paper, so rely on strong performances to create individual characters. This production though largely fails to deliver that – I can’t think of a single supporting performance that really lingers in the mind. Others, like Tony Doyle’s Macduff, are simply overdone. I can’t even picture Ian Hogg’s Banquo, which is itself an indictment. The production just never really comes alive at any point. Simply put I don’t care.

So what have you really got with this production? Some decent ideas, some good uses of the tricks of television (particularly with music, which it probably uses more effectively than others of the series). There are two decent performances in the lead roles, in particular Jane Lapotaire’s sensitive Lady Macbeth. But what this really is a perfectly serviceable, rather safe and traditional production of Macbeth, no different than a hundred other stage performances before it. You’ll get more or less what you expected when you opened the tin – and I can’t remember a production delivering so little in terms of imagination of a major work in this series since Hamlet.

Conclusion

Not exactly a disappointment, but also not a success. Nicol Williamson plays the Thane of gusto, Jane Lapotaire is terrific as the wife, there are a few flashes of interest but this production plays it overwhelmingly safe and, as a result, only really succeeds in making something incredibly bland and unexciting. Bearing in mind it was screened four years after the Ian McKellen/Judi Dench Macbeth, and that productions by Orson Welles and Roman Polanski were already in existence at the time, it’s hard to imagine this even getting in a top ten of on-screen Macbeth adaptations today, let alone anywhere near a top ten of this series. Not the worst, not the best, just a bit meh.

NEXT TIME: The Who’s Roger Daltrey gets tackled up in The Comedy of Errors. Yes you read that right.

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.