Today we started the grade for our film of the RSC’s Julius Caesar. The final sound mix is underway too. So it’s all a bit busy, and that’s without the other projects to finish off and the new ones to prepare. Here is how ‘the order of the course’ plays out over the next few days. Remember too that all of this is against the backdrop of continuing PR and marketing (my BBC blog post has just gone live, and Greg Doran’s Guardian feature has appeared). Oh, and a pile of paperwork is waiting back at the office, transmission notifications to send, and even this note to scratch out… read more »
It may be that in all the excitement about the imminent transmission of Julius Caesar you have missed the news that the England football team play Ukraine this evening. And although your faithful blogger would not normally bring his interest in the beautiful game to this column, there is a connection between Caesar and what may chance tonight in Donetsk. England are playing for a quarter-final place in the Euro 2012 championship, and should their result better the score of France’s simultaneous game against Sweden, then not only will we proceed to the next round (cue unrestrained rejoicing across the land) but we will also top Group D. In which case we will face Italy on Sunday night, with kick-off at 7.45 pm UK time. read more »
There is something a little strange about seeing in print a review of your programme when it is not yet finished. But the transmission master of our film of the RSC’s Julius Caesar will only be delivered on the morning of the broadcast – which is next Sunday, 24 June. So in the last few days we have released a handful of not-yet-complete copies for journalists to take a look at – and our first advance review has appeared, courtesy of Michael Moran at The Lady(‘for elegant women with elegant minds’). More on this below, along with extracts from Saturday’s All the world’s a screen by Sarah Hemming for the Financial Times. She discusses films from stage productions, with contributions from our director Greg Doran and nice comments about Macbeth andHamlet as well as Julius Caesar. read more »
We are 30 years old today!! Illuminations was incorporated on 15 June 1982. We were sort of aware of that but could not quite remember the exact date. But my colleague Linda Zuck has just looked out the paperwork and there it is in black and white. I’m a little overwhelmed, but I will try to blog some birthday thoughts later this evening… after a glass of something fizzy.
We are thrilled to confirm that our television film of the RSC’s production of Julius Caesar, directed by Greg Doran, will be broadcast on BBC Four at 8pm on Sunday 24 June. As you can imagine we will be blogging throughout next week in the run-up to transmission. The BBC Four programme page is here and this – which I hope is something of a treat – is a three minute clip from the BBC web site. The conspirators have just murdered Caesar. Do let us know what you think…
The emerald-green grass is sodden from the rain that has fallen through the day. But the sky shows a patch or two of bright blue. Richly pungent from a wealth of flowers, the air is full of noises from unseen birds and insects. During a break in the downpours, thirty of us cluster by a wonderfully weathered wall in a corner of the rural churchyard of St Gregory’s Minster, Kirkdale (above). Standing by a small hole dug to receive the ashes of John Read, the vicar invites us to recall for ourselves the man we have come to celebrate. Alive to everything about this glorious corner of Yorkshire and of England, I close my eyes and think of John’s kindness, his warmth and his chuckle, of his documentaries, of the significance of his films and, yes, of the frustrating lack of recognition for his work. But there will be time for this last, and now is not that moment. read more »
Reviews of and responses to the stage production of Julius Caesar are appearing – an initial list is here, with extracts from a number of the articles across the jump:
• Michael Billington’s 4 star piece for the Guardian
• another 4 star review from Charles Spencer for The Telegraph
• 4 stars too from Quentin Letts, Mail Online
• … and 4 stars from Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard
• Moya Hughes for What’sOnStage.com agrees: 4 stars
• for the Financial TimesIan Shuttleworth is less convinced: 3 stars
• no star ratings from Ian Hughes for the Stratford Observer (but he likes it)
• stars are out for Michael Coveney at The Stage too, but he too is enthusiastic
• more fulsome praise from Kate Bassett in the Independent
• Andy Richards for the Birmingham Mail is positive, but with some reservations
• for the Oxford Times, Christopher Gray is very enthusiastic
• Gordon Parsons for the Morning Star says the production is ‘not to be missed’
• 5 stars from Kieran James at The Good Review • Chloe Stopa-Hunt at The Oxonian Review also likes the production a lot
• plus, Christopher Hart gives it 5 stars in the Sunday Times (but it’s behind the paywall – extracts below)
Also,
• Radio 3’s Nightwaves discussion is online (from 08:24 to 16:11)
• Radio 4’s Saturday Review item is also available (from 23:08 to 30:40) – Deborah Moggach and Dreda Say Mitchell absolutely love it, Paul Morley is a little more reserved
• BBC News has a video report online (with a contribution from me that lasts all of 4 seconds!)
• Stratford Herald online has a short interview with director Greg Doran
• Paul Edmondson chairs a short discussion (4:09) with three students from University of Vermont about the production
Thursday sees the start of a season of BFI Southbank screenings of rarely seen television productions of theatre plays from ancient Greece. The season is curated by Amanda Wrigley and has been organised with the research project Screen Plays, in which Illuminations is a partner. The nine Greek tragedies plus one quasi-satyr play offer a fascinating range of approaches to the foundational plays of Western drama and the screen presentation of ancient Greece (including an Electra, above, shown unsubtitled on ITV in 1962). Together they illuminate the richly interesting variety of ways that British television has experimented with capturing the force of these ancient tales from the late 1950s to 1990. One of the events is already sold out, and tickets for the others are going fast: to book go to the website for BFI Southbank or call 020 7928 3232. read more »
Today on the Screen Plays blog I discussed the new Network DVD release of the 1978 television presentation of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Comedy of Errors. I tend not to replicate copy between the blogs, but this version of the theatre production that premiered in 1976 reveals both stage and television versions as curious – and in many ways unsatisfying – hybrids. And given that over this weekend we have been in Stratford filming a hybrid version of the RSC’s Julius Caesar, it feels timely to review the disc – and to post my thoughts here as well. read more »
We left Stratford today having completed all our filming for our Royal Shakespeare Company Julius Caesar. And now we have a quite extraordinarily short time to bring it all together in the edit. I can’t confirm exactly when the BBC Four transmission will be, but it is highly likely to be before the end of this month. As you may already know, we filmed most of this new Royal Shakespeare Company production on location a month or so ago. Then for the last few days we set up camp in the backstage right of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre to film just two main scenes, together with the very end of the play, from the stage. We did a camera rehearsal on Friday, and then yesterday we shot the relevant parts of both the matinee and the evening performance – and pretty remarkable it was too. read more »
