DVD/150: RETURN TO CRANFORD (Simon Curtis, 2010, tv)

It's time to revisit Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskill's Victorian Cheshire village, where modernity threatens to arrive by the advancing railway.

It is 1844, two years on from the previous series, and the Cranford matrons still have much to gossip about, like the arrival of two new families: prosperous Mr Buxton, his son William and ward Erminia, and widowed Mrs Bell with son Edward and put-upon daughter Peggy.

 

Miss Matty, the gentle heart of Cranford, introduces the families where Peggy is an instant hit with the Buxtons, particularly William.

 

The railway stops five miles from Cranford as the land ahead is owned by Lady Ludlow, but when she dies her profligate son Septimus arrives and quickly signs her whole estate to the railways for cash.

 

Mix together thwarted lovers, an unexpected marriage, a derailed train, a runaway schoolboy, an Italian magician, and a Christmas waltz and you have a worthy sequel.

Shelf or charity shop? Joining it's predecessor on the shelf.  Sue Birtwhistle and Susie Conklin's production is slightly more sentimental as it was shown as part of the BBC's Christmas programming but the quality of the production and adaptation by Heidi Thomas from several Gaskill novellas is excellent.  Once again Simon Curtis' remarkable cast blend into a seamless ensemble: Judi Dench, Julia McKenzie, Imelda Staunton, Lisa Dillon, Francesca Annis, Tim Curry, Emma Fielding, Jim Carter, Alex Etel, Rory Kinnear, Jonathan Pryce, Tom Hiddleston and a luminous Jodie Whittaker all shine.

 

 

Dvd/150: THE HOLLOW CROWN: HENRY V (Thea Sharrock, 2012)

The last in the the BBC Shakespeare series THE HOLLOW CROWN is HENRY V which also brings to an end the chain of events covered in the Henriad.

HENRY V takes up where HENRY IV ended and, although both had different directors, luckily the same actors play the same characters so there is a natural continuity between them.

Tom Hiddleston moves effortlessly from HENRY IV's carousing Prince Hal to the commanding HENRY V making it easy to understand his sudden bursts of rage as coming from him trying hard to stamp his authority.

Ben Power's fine adaptation does have some odd omissions: Henry's execution of the traitorous lords, the killing of the pages by the French which leads to Henry ordering the deaths of his prisoners, and the non-execution of Nym.

Thea Sharrock's subdued film is enlivened by performances by Julie Walters, Paul Ritter, John Hurt and Mélanie Thierry.

Shelf or charity shop?  Joining his fellow Kings on the shelf...

Dvd/150: THE HOLLOW CROWN: HENRY IV PARTS 1 & 2 (Richard Eyre, 2012)

The second in the BBC trilogy of Shakespeare History plays are the two parts of HENRY IV, adapted and directed by Richard Eyre with a clarity that makes them gripping viewing.

Henry IV faces an uprising led by Lord Northumberland who had helped him overthrow Richard II.  Henry is envious that Northumberland's fiery son Hotspur would make a better heir to his throne than his son Hal who spends his nights roistering with the lowlifes in Eastcheap and in particular with the drunken rogue Lord John Falstaff.

Hal's killing of Hotspur at the Battle of Shrewsbury changes the King's opinion but which father figure will Hal finally acknowledge?

Fine support from Joe Armstrong as Hotspur and Julie Walters as Mistress Quickly underpin superb performances from Jeremy Irons as Henry and Tom Hiddleston as Hal.

But above all is Simon Russell Beale's quintessential Falstaff: vain, angry, lyrical, sly and finally heartbreaking.

Shelf or charity shop?  Enthroned on the shelf!

The Popcorn Play

A week or so ago I had a totally new theatrical experience.  Constant Reader I hear your cry "But what can that be?"  Well, I have finally been to see a NT Live screening.  And what a strange experience it was.

 

NT Live has been running for nearly five years but I have put off seeing one as the previous broadcasts have either been productions I have seen previously onstage or wasn't interested.  But here we had an interesting cast - Tom Hiddleston as Coriolanus, Deborah Findlay as Volumnia and Mark Gatiss as Menenius - in a play that I had wanted to see again after having seen Ralph Fiennes' film version in 2012.  I was curious as to how to classify this: film or theatre?  But I boiled it down to the question "Would I chomp popcorn during a play?" So, film it is.

 

The Brixton Ritzy was packed with an interesting mix of older punters with glasses of wine and younger, media-types with bottles of wine.  Can you see a connection?  You could see we were the first-timers as we had bottles of Pepsi-Max.  There was an odd, jittery atmosphere in the auditorium as the screen showed us the Donmar audience taking their seats interspersed with 'trailers' for upcoming screenings (Owen shut his eyes during KING LEAR as we are seeing it actually onstage this week) and an introduction from Emma Freud.

 

To be honest I'm not sure what I should be talking about: the screen experience or the stage production. As a screen experience, the first thing that struck me was how strange it was to be seeing what the theatre audience was experiencing but with none of the inherent atmosphere you get, especially in such a small auditorium as the Donmar.  It was also odd at the end to have the actors take their bows to rapturous applause while we sat gawping.  My friends Sharon and Eamonn were seeing it in a cinema in West London and, again, it was odd to text her in the interval to chat about the theatre production we were watching but be miles apart!

 

The actual production was interesting but by the middle of the second act I had started to weary of it's sameness.  Was it because I was not actually there that I felt that?  Maybe.  Tom Hiddleston certainly gave an excellent performance, charismatic and nicely shaded.  During the play you feel Shakespeare becoming more and more fascinated with his lead character to the detriment of others and to be honest there were some very dodgy supporting performances here.  There is a real dearth of good supporting performers these days but I enjoyed Elliot Levey's duplicitous politician Brutus, happily engineering Coriolanus' downfall with his cohort Sicinia.  Oh yes, Sicinius has been given a sex change and is played by Katherine Schlesinger for no real reason but to up the actress rate and for the two nasty senators to share a snog.  Schlesinger actually was good but it reared unhappy memories of the transgender casting in the National's EDWARD II.

 

Hiddleston was better matched by Mark Gatiss' Menenius and Deborah Findlay's Volumnia.  Gatiss gave a fine performance as the peace-making senator who runs out of excuses for Coriolanus' behaviour and is ultimately let down by his friend while Findlay was in excellent form as Caius' mother Volumnia. 

 

A woman who has channelled all her ambition into her son, Volumnia is the one person Coriolanus cannot refuse and constantly pushes him: to become a senator, to suck up to the crowd and with the Senators, but who also seals his fate when she convinces him to turn back from over-running his native city of Rome.  Frustratingly, this climactic scene came across as flat and one-note, again leaving me to wonder was that the fault of Josie Rourke's direction or for the fact that the tension was dissipated by not being in the same room as the actors.  It certainly didn't have the power or the subtlety of playing that Vanessa Redgrave brought to the role of Volumnia in Fiennes' film.  The role of Virgilia, Coriolanus' wife is one of the least interesting of Shakespeare's women especially as she is over-shadowed by the character of Volumnia, but I liked the weary sadness of Birgitte Hjort Sørensen.

 

 

I'm not sure the NT Live thing is something I would do too often but it is an excellent initiative to make these theatre productions truly national events.