150 word review: AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT by Derek Jacobi

I have finally read Derek Jacobi's autobiography which I bought in 2013 at a signing session at the National Theatre.  When we finally got to the front of the queue, he threw his head back and declaimed in his best theatrical tone: "Good evening, gentlemen!"

I wish the book was as larger-than-life but it is infuriatingly placid; it's impersonal tone might be because it's ghosted, you can almost hear the click of the tape recorder at the end of each chapter.

Born and raised in wartime Essex, cosseted by his devoted mother and father, at times you wish he was given more of a hard time by life.  Oxford led to Birmingham Rep and later Olivier's National Theatre at the Old Vic.

I CLAUDIUS brought stardom and there have been more theatre and television successes but nothing here gives you insight into how it feels to live it.

Dvd/150: I CLAUDIUS (Herbert Wise. 1976, tv)

40 years on, the BBC series of Robert Graves' I CLAUDIUS shines bright with it's dazzling cast and Jack Pulman's witty, concise adaptation - a textbook example in bringing a sprawling novel to life.

Filmed on BBC TV Centre sets, budgetary constraints allow Herbert Wise to concentrate on the interplay between the characters - and what characters!

Derek Jacobi is outstanding as Claudius who, in old age, writes the history of the emperors in his Imperial family from Augustus to himself, along with the formidable women they married or were murdered by!  Stuttering, lame Claudius is the family joke but survives them all to bear witness.

Of course it's the monsters one remembers: John Hurt's psychotic Caligula and the equally dangerous Livia, sublimely played by Sian Phillips in one of the great television performances.

 
Brian Blessed's avuncular Augustus, Margaret Tyzack's stoic Antonia and Sheila White's lascivious Messalina are among the other treasures.

Shelf or charity shop? You must be as mad as Caligula to think I would part with this!