DVD/150: ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL (Elijah Moshinsky, 1981. tv)

Ian Charleson appeared in three of the BBC Shakespeare productions - and they are all killjoys: Fortinbrass in HAMLET,  Octavian in ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA and Bertram in ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

Typical, his biggest role is in one of my least liked plays!

Twelve years ago, I saw ALL'S WELL at the NT and, while I enjoyed that production, I have stayed away from it since - until now..

Directed by Elijah Moshinsky, the design is based on Dutch artists like Rembrandt and Vermeer.

The austere design helps you focus on one of Shakespeare's most confusing plots...

When Helena cures the ailing French King with her late physician father's potion, he allows her the husband of her choice.  She picks the Countess of Roussillon's son Bertram who she unrequitedly loves - but he dislikes her.

Bertam escapes, setting her two impossible tasks before he will marry her - but he doesn't know Helena...

Shelf or charity shop?  Despite my dislike of the play, it's a keeper. Moshinsky doesn't really bring insights into the text and some of the performers rattle through their lines like broken photo-copiers, but the design works marvellously well and most of the actors deliver their lines like they actually understand the meaning behind the words.  Among the strong performances are Celia Johnson as the Countess, Pippa Guard as Diana who helps Helena thwart Bertram, Donald Sinden as the King of France, Michael Hordern as The Countess' friend Lafeu and of course, Ian - yes he is a cad but a marvellous role for him to shine in.  Sadly Angela Down as Helena cannot bring the character to life, and Peter Jeffrey's Parolles sub-plot is just a messy distraction.

DVD/150: ANNE OF THE THOUSAND DAYS (Charles Jarrott, 1969)

Here is the one to blame as ANNE OF THE THOUSAND DAYS made me a junior film buff.

I came out of the Kensington Odeon obsessed: Photoplay and Film Review magazines were bought, the souvenir brochure was pored over and the novelization was read continuously..and is still on my bookshelf.

You can never tell what film will set you off into buffdom, but when it happens it has you for life.

Charles Jarrott's film is 1960s historical drama at it's height and I still swoon at Margaret Furse's glorious Academy Award-winning costumes.

The script betrays it's stage origins and seems over-awed by it's characters but it's a world I can happily re-visit.

But it's the performances that I adored then and now: Richard Burton at his most charismatic as Henry VIII and the blazing intellegence and steely resolve of the magnificent Genevieve Bujold as Anne Boleyn.

Shelf or charity shop?  Reigning on the shelf as befits such a special film to me personally.  I would certainly like to mention the cello-like sorrow of Irene Papas as Queen Katherine and Anthony Quayle's over-reaching Cardinal Wolsey, along with a cast of dependable actors like John Colicos as the truly evil Cromwell, Michael Hordern, Peter Jeffrey, William Squire, and Nicola Pagett in a blink-and-you-miss-it role as Princess Mary.