Do3 Sun 2 April: Pericles

[french frank]

Next Sunday's Drama on 3 is Pericles, Prince of Tyre. And this is a new production. Has Radio 3 ever broadcast it before?

A pretty weird play, assumed to be partly by Shakespeare. Willard White takes the part of John Gower.

[Flay]

We had Pericles in 2008.

This appears to be a different version

[french frank]

We had Pericles in 2008.

This appears to be a different version

So we did. I missed that:

"A multicultural cast, world music and the poet Benjamin Zephaniah." Sounds like the previous regime … . This is definitely a new production.

[french frank]

I'm afraid I have found this a bit hard going. It's not a play I was familiar with (and I'm still not). A collaborative effort, apparently, between Shakespeare and AN Other, probably the disreputable George Wilkins.

I'm looking forward to Richard II tomorrow for a bit of light relief

[aeolium]

Finally caught up with this, having been otherwise engaged for several weeks. I find the play frustrating as there is simply far too much plot, a lot of it covered in narration (might it have been better as a dramatic poem?) and some tedious scenes, such as that of the knights' jousting tournament and Marina's brothel scenes. Perhaps the joint authorship resulted in some disjointedness and loose endings - the Antiochus incest scene was almost unnecessary since the fate of Antiochus and his daughter is only revealed in an aside late in the play (as is the fate of Cleon and Dionyza). But like Cymbeline the play does have very powerful recognition scenes in its denouement, and they came across very well in this production.

I thought the principal roles were well performed, though Willard White whom I've so admired in opera and song was somewhat ponderous as Gower. There was some incongruous music deployed at times (Scott Joplin's The Entertainer?) but I think the main disappointments resulted from the rambling and episodic nature of the text.