Dvd/150: AN AGE OF KINGS (Michael Hayes, 1960, tv)

With current Shakespeare productions full of gender-fluid casting, set in abattoirs or Carnaby Street, it's a pleasure to see the BBC's landmark 1960 fifteen-part series of The History Plays, from RICHARD II to RICHARD III, all the more remarkable for being broadcast live.

Yes, the performances are declamatory but at least the verse is spoken correctly.  In those pre-NT / RSC days, the cast were drawn from companies like Birmingham Rep, OUDS and The Old Vic; remarkably they are used as a proper rep company, playing different roles throughout the series - that would never happen now.

Particularly memorable are Sean Connery (Hotspur), Angela Baddeley (Mistress Quickly), Hermione Baddeley (Doll Tearsheet), Robert Hardy (Henry V), Judi Dench (Princess Katherine), Eileen Atkins (Joan d'Arc), Mary Morris (Queen Margaret), Julian Glover (Edward IV) and Paul Daneman (Richard III)... and a shock seeing Violet Carson (pre-CORONATION STREET) as Richard III's mum!

Shelf or charity shop?  I can see myself stepping back in time to experience the nervy, live-action performances again - i'faith.

 

 

 

RICHARD II / AS YOU DESIRE ME

It sounds like the start of an odd love letter but it in fact heralds the fact that I have done two theatre trips with Mr. Guy Thomas in the past week.

Last Thursday was RICHARD II at the Old Vic which finally saw Kevin Spacey delivering a performance worthy of that stage's history. Although not one of the most poetic of Kings - and I think some of the speechs could have done with more introspection and less tart snittiness - he really excelled in the deposition scene where his cry of anguished frustration "I have no name" was all the more powerful for seemingly coming from nowhere. He was ably supported by Ben Mles whose Bolingbroke slide smoothly into power after his exercise in regime change in a strangely Blairite manner. There was excellent support from Julian Glover as John of Gaunt as well as Oliver Cotton and Peter Eyre.

Tonight we saw Pirandello's AS YOU DESIRE ME at the Playhouse Theatre with Kristin Scott Thomas and Bob Hoskins, slickly directed by Jonathan Kent. I had seen the film starring Greta Garbo yonks ago so knew the story - Elma is an amnesiac singer in a Berlin cabaret, one night she is followed by a man who tells her that she is in fact Lucia, the wife of an Italian count who had disappeared from their villa in WWI when she was raped and kidnapped by some German soldiers. Bored by her decadent life as a mistress to a violent writer she goes to Italy where she is greeted by the count, her aunt and uncle. 

Four months later she agrees to meet her sister who had regretfully allowed the missing woman's death certificate to be signed. However what was at the heart of that decision was who gained control of the villa, as it was part of the wife's dowry on her death it reverted to her sister. Is Lucia really Lucia or is she simply being used as a pawn? When her ex-lover Santer arrives at the villa with an insane woman who can only speak the name of the aunt the whole question of identity is blown apart.

Sadly it reads and lives in the mind better than it does on stage - at 90 minutes it still seemed padded and repetitive. However it was worth seeing for the livewire performance of Scott Thomas - almost bursting out of her slinky 30s dresses with frustration of not knowing who she is. Hoskins was strangely muted as Santer but there were memorable performances by Margaret Tyzack and John Carlisle as the woman's older relatives.