BBC Shakespeare: The Hollow Crown, BBC2 / BBC HD

[DracoM]

Which is why - as FF notes above - Shakespeare is at some pains to distance the York family from the death of R2, as does Marlowe in Ed2.

Exton is a hired gun but he does appear earlier in the play and the BBC version had him lurking at the edge of almost every scene with Bolingbroke in it from returned refugee to king. OK, plus Whishaw as R2, they want pretty boy involvement to candy up the scenery - cf the ghastly Birdsong TV thing with E. Redmayne - but to get the scion of one of the mightiest families in the land to wield a crossbow in anger in killing a king is tricky: very 21st century, but isn't it just a teeny tad inconvenient that Shak specifically did NOT write it like that? he is trying to show that [well, in THIS production] Bolingbroke was very clearly not a revolutionary, but one who wanted the older, hierarchical, property owning values to stay, he is a status quo man and thrust unwillingly into the hot seat. York, Aumerle's dad, hates what he sees first as Bol's insurrection but thaws when he sees that R2's plundering of the nobility is upsetting that order system thus he reluctantly backs Bol when he sees that at least that way, England will not as he sees it be ruined by kingly unthrift precipitating a wholesale revolt by peers that would tip England into a civil war - again?

So to have his pretty little son going off with nasty others to do the deed of helping this R2 live out his Sebastian fantasy for real is a bit much. I do hope they debated all that behind the scenes?

[french frank]

Isn't it what they call 'creativity'? It's very highly valued at the Beeb, I hear .

[aeolium]

Isn't it what they call 'creativity'? It's very highly valued at the Beeb, I hear .

Ah, but for real creativity you have to go into opera production

For all that, this was a very enjoyable start to the 4-part series of history plays.

[DracoM]

Gulp? Is that what they call it. I can just imagine Wily Willy S at the read through muttering imprecations under his breath as the zeitgeisty re-write proceeds excitedly until someone says 'hey, Willy babe, you want the cheque or you don't want the cheque?'

I want to know what he said next? maybe muttered something about Essex. Which would have gone down big with all those jealous TOWIE fans at the Beeb.

And yes, it was on the whole engaging - a very tricky text to do on telly, and they did it. H4 is more televisual and H5 so freighted to the gunwales with baggage it will be fascinating to see Beeb deal with it.

On reflection, that long, long series of scenes on the beach was worth it. Neither on land, nor properly in the sea, neither England nor furrin parts, tidal [ geddit? the tide of history / Cnut? etc ], no props except what the characters brought with them, and above all, none of the characters dressed for such stuff. Wonderful visual mismatch / juxta-position between clothes / environment. Court, church, scheming in corridors, that was what those costumes fitted them for, not wallowing in unfamiliar territory, AND clever of the sun to appear at crucial intervals as well as the Sun King paraded in his sun attire. Hmm. OK, a tad OTT, but very, very effective.

[Nick Armstrong]

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....

Yes, really poor... Completely unconvincing, both in terms of verse speaking and physical presence. Probably miscast, but also failing to do anything with the part. One to miss.

[french frank]

Shameless misuse of Clemence Poesy.

I meant to comment on how educational the board is. I looked this up to see what Clemence Poesy was, thinking it might be an ornate style of Renaissance versification, or perhaps a way of reciting Shakespearean blank verse.

You live and learn

[BBMmk2]

Good Heavens, Bbm! How tantalizing! You don't mean to say that you're related to ... to ... to ... Barbara Cartland, do you?!

:) No thankl goodness! I am a descendant of John of Gaunt!! Properely that is of his elder son Henry Bolingbroke

[Nick Armstrong]

:) No thankl goodness! I am a descendant of John of Gaunt!! Properely that is of his elder son Henry Bolingbroke

Had I a forelock, I'd be touching it right now

Interesting stuff Mrs Bbm has indeed been busy!

[JFLL]

but to get the scion of one of the mightiest families in the land to wield a crossbow in anger in killing a king is tricky: very 21st century,

But don't forget William Rufus who 'died after being struck by a [crossbow] arrow while hunting, under circumstances that remain murky'. He seems to have been shot, accidentally or not, by his companion Walter Tirel, a magnate. Tirel wisely fled abroad after the event.

[DracoM]

I was thinking late 16th century rather than mid 11th. Just seemed a bit over elaborately 21st century, Kremlin looking after its own stuff?

[agingjb]

Any boundaries about the representation of kings being deposed had, by the time of the writing of Richard II, been thoroughly overstepped by Shakespeare himself in the Henry VI plays and Richard III.

[aeolium]

Any boundaries about the representation of kings being deposed had, by the time of the writing of Richard II, been thoroughly overstepped by Shakespeare himself in the Henry VI plays and Richard III.

And Marlowe (though employed by the government) in Edward II.

[DracoM]

And JC is of course a barely disguised disquisition on the nature of and consequences from semi-imperial political assassinations

[Panjandrum]

Any boundaries about the representation of kings being deposed had, by the time of the writing of Richard II, been thoroughly overstepped by Shakespeare himself in the Henry VI plays and Richard III.

Excepting the fact that both the Henry VI and Richard III plays dealt with the Wars of the Roses and questions of legitimacy over the incumbents of the throne (viz Henry VI descended from Bolingbroke "the usurper"and Richard III the probable murderer of Edward V), whereas there were no such questions over Richard II's right to be king,at least not in his lineage.

[vinteuil]

Henry Four [part one] : tonight.

However - I find Jerry Irons insufferable, so am not sure whether I'm up to watching....