BBC Shakespeare: The Hollow Crown, BBC2 / BBC HD

[Nick Armstrong]

I thought it was worth creating a thread for members' reactions, views and opinions on this major new series, which has received promising previews e.g. http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-rad...akespeare-bbc2

Looking forward to the first, Richard II, one of my favourite plays http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00s90hz

(Recording it, due to Wimbledon-based distractions.... )

[aeolium]

I thought it was a very good production, visually impressive with many arresting images yet still bringing out the poetry in the work. A strong cast spoke the verse well (apart from imo Patrick Stewart, going right over the top in Gaunt's dying speech to Richard), and Wishaw as the king and Suchet as the Duke of York stood out. I was not sure about the casting of Rory Kinnear as Bolingbroke, fine actor though he is; he seemed to convey more irresolution than ruthlessness, though he was wonderfully expressive in the scene in which Richard has to resign the crown. The cuts from the text were well-judged, though in a filmed production like this one, the transition scenes depicting action without words for me broke up the rhythm which in a staged or radio performance can be so important. Richard's death, visually echoing the painting of St Sebastian's martyrdom which we saw at the start of the work, was one of several thoughtful touches by the adapters of the work.

I'd like to see this again

[BBMmk2]

Inded it was very enjoyable to watch. Alas poor John of Gaunt.

[eighthobstruction]

Historically John of Gaunt is an extremely interesting and important personage well worth researching if anybody fancies doing that....an integral person linking many other great players in Eng History of this period....(and the start of the Wars of the Roses)....

Would like to know where the locations were....lovely....

The Act with Richard presented like an Aztec or whatever the reference was....(when Bol' confronts him on his return) was very ivocative (but of what I cannot recollect)....

Enjoyed this !

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Historically John of Gaunt is an extremely interesting and important personage well worth researching if anybody fancies doing that....an integral person linking many other great players in Eng History of this period....(and the start of the Wars of the Roses)....

Not least Geoffrey Chaucer, of whom he was the patron (and, later, the Brother-in-Law).

[eighthobstruction]

Didn't know that....

[Anna]

Would like to know where the locations were....lovely....

St. David's Cathedral, Pembroke Castle and Packwood House, Warwickshire are listed.

[DracoM]

'Fraid I laughed quietly when we saw Kinnear 'returning' to UK in the same boat and on the same bit of coast as we saw him leave........erm?? I kept thinking of the practicalities of getting in and out of the same damned boat in grey cold sea a few times until the crew had got it right. Can imagine the language and it might have been a tad unShakespearian!

Whishaw fey, sees himself very, very self-consciously as a Christ figure [ and the produciton banged us over the head with that all the time - yes it's in the poetry, but THAT much?], sees himself as well as a star of the media arranging how he is seen by subjects in every minutest detail - curious mix of the epically vain to the boyishly giggly and vulnerable. They talked shallowly of Michael Jackson. R2 as Edward 2 in the making??

BUT I fear his narcissism [as seen in his shivery fascination for the Sebastian stuff] made me weary and I could muster no sympathy for his drama queen R2. Kept thinking how he would have loved to see the video of his own death. BTW, naughty change to have Aumerle rather than Exton doing the killing? Makes a very tricky nastiness out of the York family that Shakespeare did not intend at all.

For me, Kinnear's poker faced Bolingbroke was an intense disappointment at the very heart of this otherwise good show. Too inexpressive, too anonymous, given nothing to do, and he was acted off the screen by the brilliant Suchet, and very good Stewart, and the gruff, gangsta Northumberland. OK, they were very busy suggesting that they believed him that he did not want the throne but that he had merely returned for his own. As Jacobi said later, the scene when R2 snatches the entire Lancaster treasure etc turns the tide against him. Felt that the consternation in the court could have been made much stronger to underline that crucial political tipping point.

I liked the move from interiors to exteriors, and they used big moving camera arcs on that beach / voice-overs quite cleverly with some re-distribution of lines. R2 lost in a labyrinth of his own making nicely suggested. Bolingbroke desolate and alone in the throne room with not a servant / courtier around - yes, good touch. Shameless misuse of Clemence Poesy.

[eighthobstruction]

In the Jacobi programme after the play, I thought the actor who was to play R2 at the Globe Theatre had nothing going for him at all....completely bland and without interpretation/expression....

Thanks Anna....

[DracoM]

Yup - real warning to anyone thinking of going to The Globe's production. Ouch!!

[aeolium]

BTW, naughty change to have Aumerle rather than Exton doing the killing? Makes a very tricky nastiness out of the York family that Shakespeare did not intend at all.

Yes, Draco, that was certainly a bad alteration.

I liked the colours of the production, sometimes almost bringing to mind medieval paintings or illuminated books, especially after having endured several stagings where colour was largely absent. I'm sure Wishaw had listened to John Hurt's performance as RII on radio from about 12 years back (and I think available on audiobook). I did like the crown resignation scene where despite the petulance and self-pity there was the sense of the 'divinity that doth hedge a king'.

[vinteuil]

naughty change to have Aumerle rather than Exton doing the killing? Makes a very tricky nastiness out of the York family that Shakespeare did not intend at all.

.

... I rather thought the use of Aumerle as the murderer was an improvement on the Shakespeare. Of course, historically, it's totally wrong - but then so is a lot of the play Richard II - I have always thought the last act pretty weak, both in the writing and shape - as if Shakespeare (if it was he... ) had got bored, was in a hurry, was irritated with the various texts - or possible earlier plays - he was having to deal with. The introduction of a 'new character' (Exton) at the eleventh hour to do the dread act is dramatically hopeless; using the ambivalent and compromised figure of the Duke of Aumerle seemed to me an elegant solution.

I liked this a lot, photographically, looks-wise, pace-wise. Some of the actors were, to my taste, a bit too actorly - York, Gaunt - but, really, it was an impressive production which I shall remember.

Incidentally the BBC seems to have a link with Burberry when it needs male model pretty boys - we had ex-Burberry Douglas Booth as Pip in their Great Expectations - we now have ex-Burberry Tom Hughes as Aumerle...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

a promising start to the whole series which i hope will be as interesting .... however i still do not get the play and will obviously have to work harder ... [there is a deep theory of psychology in there i think]

[aeolium]

The introduction of a 'new character' (Exton) at the eleventh hour to do the dread act is dramatically hopeless; using the ambivalent and compromised figure of the Duke of Aumerle seemed to me an elegant solution.

Why is it dramatically hopeless? It's certainly not unprecedented - Marlowe did exactly the same with Lightborn in Edward II. And anyway, I don't think you should muck about with the drama just because you don't like what the author has done - write a play yourself and do it better

[vinteuil]

Why is it dramatically hopeless? :

... because we have no interest in Exton. We haven't had time to get to know him; his act of killing has no 'significance' for him; it is a (very) useful deus ex machina for Henry Bolingbroke.

Whereas by Act V we have begun to have an interest in the Duke of Aumerle, and he is left (in Shakespeare's play) as a bit of an untidy loose end: making him here an instrument in the killing of Richard gives an added level of complexity to a troubled and torn personality - still partly loyal (?) to 'his' King Richard, disowned by his father, prayed for by his mother, redeemed by the very King (Henry) he was planning to destroy...