Do3: Living with Princes

[french frank]

The culmination of 'Montaigne week' on Sunday 23rd. Stephen Wakelam's play, Living with Princes: "In 1588, the essayist and landowner Michel de Montaigne, set out on a journey round the troubled kingdom of France. He was on a mission - to reconcile the Valois King Henri the Third, a Catholic, with his likely successor, the Bourbon King of Navarre, a Protestant. It's high stakes: intensified Civil War the consequence of failure."

Montaigne is played by Roger Allam and Catherine de Medici by Jane Lapotaire.

It sounds like the Wakelam specialism of taking historical/literary figures and writing a drama round them. As a play, possibly more to Simon's taste than mine ...

[Angle]

I have to say that I am very much looking forward to listening to LIVING WITH PRINCES, having enjoyed all those plays of Stephen Wakelam which have been aired on Radio 4 over recent years.

The subject might not be original but this sort of play is a considerable improvement on the ever-present, unsatisfactory, always inadequately short adaptations which have taken the place of original radio plays in the minds of those in the BBC Drama Department. Oh, I forgot, perhaps, too, they are becoming over-fond of updating classic plays and stories, usually to the detriment of the original.

[aeolium]

I enjoyed this more than I expected to, not generally being a fan of modern historical plays. This one seemed more to use the historical structure mainly as a skeleton for character exploration (principally that of Montaigne but also the two Henrys). The dialogue was good and all the main characters well played, especially Roger Allam as Montaigne and Sam Dale as the king. Jane Lapotaire as Catherine de Medici was somewhat underused, and the character of the secretary was rather insipid - a pale Boswell to Allam's character. Somewhat surprisingly, the Duke of Guise who is a central character in the only other English play about this period that I know, Marlowe's The Massacre at Paris, makes no appearance here. It's a shame that that Marlowe play seems only to have come down to us in an abbreviated version as there are glimpses there of what it could have been.

I agree with Angle that it's better to have a play than an adaptation of a novel; the only regret I have is that today's playwrights find it easier to draw on the distant past for their inspiration, rather than the life of today. The events that Marlowe was writing about in The Massacre were of very recent date, and he was writing with much greater constraints on his freedom of expression than playwrights today.

[french frank]

Pretty much in agreement with that. In the end you have to judge it by what it is, and aims to be, rather than what it isn't and wasn't intended to be. So it's only personal taste that says it's not my favourite kind of play.

I did think it followed on well from The Essay portraits (as far as they went) and presented much the same man as we had already 'met'. And it picked out a fascinating moment in history too. Jane Lapotaire's Catherine well worth a play of her own, I thought. Peslier I thought was intended to be a bit of a foil for Montaigne and perhaps that's why he came over in contrast as 'insipid'. He was everything that Montaigne was not.

In the end, I prefer works that pose questions and leave you with haunting memories, inspiring you to explore further (as the Lamb play did for me) but this is Wakelam in his forte and he does it well (on R3 we heard the play about Shakespeare and the Two Men of Delft).
.

[DracoM]

I usually like Roger Allam, but he seemed just a trifle over-didactic to me, bit lapidary?

But as a commentary on Montaigne's career, setting it in a historical and cultural context with some clarity for someone as ignorant as me on the topic, I thought it informative - not sure about it being 'entertaining', but maybe I've got it wrong. As FF says, a matter of intention rather than outcome?

They rather rushed over the end of King / Guise a bit. I thought that they might have dealt with the supreme irony of the fates of each given what M had warned of, but time was pressing and it felt a bit edited / squashed at the end. I liked the Secretary - not insipid for me, merely professionally discreet.

[french frank]

but time was pressing and it felt a bit edited / squashed at the end.

Yes, two quick assassinations and it was Vive le roi!

[aeolium]

It wasn't helped on iplayer by having the ending run into the following programme by about 20 seconds, so you had to listen to the start of the Sunday Feature. Actually the two assassinations happen quickly and near the end in the Marlowe play too, but there is a lot more of a build-up in that.

I do think Roger Allam has a superb voice for radio and I enjoyed his performance without especially knowing (or caring) how accurate a portrait of M it was. In fact I preferred the play to the one about the Lambs which I thought a bit disjointed - and certainly didn't to me explore 'the connection between literary creativity and mental equilibrium'. But it was a pity that Catherine de Medici did not have a more central role as the mother of the King and Guise and mother-in-law of Navarre.

[french frank]

It wasn't helped on iplayer by having the ending run into the following programme by about 20 seconds, so you had to listen to the start of the Sunday Feature.

Ah, good to hear they had adjusted it! When I listened it stopped abruptly about 30 seconds from the end and I had to open the Sunday feature to hear the end of it ...

[DracoM]

My impression was that Jane Lapotaire was practically in the coffin, judging by how she sounded on air, so not sure how much more she coud have done! Historically, wasn't she a bit of a cow?

[french frank]

My impression was that Jane Lapotaire was practically in the coffin, judging by how she sounded on air, so not sure how much more she coud have done! Historically, wasn't she a bit of a cow?

Very detailed article on her in the Wiki.

Actually, then, she died a couple of weeks after Guise was assassinated. Dunno about a cow, but a very powerful woman as mother of three boy kings in the middle of civil and religious wars.

[Russ]

I usually like Roger Allam, but he seemed just a trifle over-didactic to me, bit lapidary?

Ooo, err, I had to look up 'lapidary' in the dictionary, but I know what you mean, Draco - there's something very 'knowing' in his voice character, but I found this suited Wakelam's narrative intention and style.

Btw, I lodged a complaint about the premature cut to the end of the programme on iPlayer, so hopefully they might fix it.

Russ

[Panjandrum]

I usually like Roger Allam, but he seemed just a trifle over-didactic to me, bit lapidary?

Lapidary? The only connection with stones I could see, were those which Montaigne seemed to spend much of his time passing!

[DracoM]

In the sense of rather over-weighted phrasing anjd delivery.

[tony yyy]

I'm even further behind than usual but I enjoyed this play a lot. It presented an interesting study of its central character and I thought the acting was good. Roger Allam's dialogue did make him sound rather as though he was dictating parts of his essays at times but that seemed appropriate. Not knowing anything about Montaigne, apart from what was in the previous week's essays (and I agree with those who thought they were a bit sketchy), or the period may have helped - it must be difficult to balance historical accuracy with the need to produce a drama.

I agree with aeolium in preferring this to the play about the Lambs, which I couldn't really see the point of.

[PatrickOD]

[QUOTE=aeolium;26530]

I agree with Angle that it's better to have a play than an adaptation of a novel;

I thought that this article might be of interest:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/0305/1224291372259.html