21st October 2013
Unsurprisingly perhaps, I have been posting a lot recently about Richard II. As a consequence of that, today’s weekly post is rather shorter than usual. I should perhaps say that we had an excellent time at the opening night on Thursday (my reactions to the production are here, and go here for press reviews and other responses). The RSC has posted a selection of pictures from the party online, one of which I have featured above. There is, of course, a new Production Diary today, the eight, with the production’s composer Paul Englishby and RSC head of music Bruce O’Neil. This was shot when Paul and Bruce were recording the show’s music for release, along with a selection of speeches, as a download and on CD.
Otherwise, we head into the final three-plus weeks before the Live from Stratford-upon-Avon broadcast with a full schedule ahead and a lot of work to do. The first camera rehearsal is a fortnight today, and now that we have seen the show on stage our screen director Robin Lough is hard at work on a camera script. That is, he is working out which camera each line of dialogue and each move will be covered by, so that there is likely to be some 900 individual shots across the two hour forty minute broadcast. We will try out this script at the first rehearsal, watch the results on a big screen, and then refine that before a second camera rehearsal on the day before the broadcast.
Then there is also the admin necessary for a broadcast like this: schedules, call sheets, risk assessments, insurance documents. These are not the stuff of compelling blog posts, so over the next ten days or so I will be visiting other subjects and also, I hope, looking a little more at earlier productions of Richard II both on the stage and on screen.
20th October 2013
Let’s start with two important pieces of writing about politics. One is Charles Simic’s Bleak house, a short but devastating state-of-the-American-nation piece for the New York Review of Books blog:
We have forgotten what this country once understood, that a society based on nothing but selfishness and greed is not a society at all, but a state of war of the strong against the weak.
The other is Stefan Collini’s essay on the privatisation of higher education in the London Review of Books, Sold out:
[Future historians] will at least record that, alongside its many other achievements, the coalition government took the decisive steps in helping to turn some first-rate universities into third-rate companies.
If you have the energy to read further below are many more links, some even a touch more cheerful, with thanks for Titter tips to @emilynussbaum, @filmdrblog, @filmstudiesff, @CraigClunas, @KeyframeDaily and @melissaterras, read more »
17th October 2013
I said that I am not going to post a ‘review’ of Richard II, which opened to a wonderful reception last night in Stratford-upon-Avon (with live cinema broadcasts on and after 13 November). And I’m not. Nor am I going to answer the question, is this the best Richard II you’ve ever seen? Deborah Warner’s National Theatre production with Fiona Shaw (which we helped translate to BBC2) was extraordinary. So too was Steven Pimlott’s RSC staging with Sam West. I am also a fan, albeit a cautious one, of Rupert Goold’s television film with Ben Whishaw for The Hollow Crown. But having now seen Greg Doran’s production with David Tennant three times, plus a run-through in the rehearsal room, I am prepared to offer a brief and not in any sense complete list of ten things that I really really like about the production – and as you read the thoughts of others they might give you a sense of why I am excited. read more »
16th October 2013
On the day before the press night of Richard II, I am starting a page that I hope will be helpful to us all across the coming month and more. The cinema broadcast Live from Stratford-upon-Avon, in the UK at least, is on 13 November, but between now and then we can expect a stream of reviews of and responses to the stage production – and I want to catch something of that here. Inevitably, many of the links will contain spoilers. My aim is to update this page more or less every day, listing and linking to substantive responses to the staging. I will search assiduously, and I will draw on the links circulated by the RSC, but do let me know of others – either via the Comments below or in an e-mail to [email protected]. I do not promise to include everything, but I would be pleased to learn of pieces that you have found interesting or helpful.
Special thanks to Quentin Letts for the Mail who describes the evening as ‘a definitive production of a great play and well worth catching when it is broadcast live to cinemas next month.’
read more »
13th October 2013
After seeing Roger Michell and Hanif Kureishi’s very fine film yesterday (above), with the incomparable Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan, this clip – which I have featured before – picked itself – it’s from Jean-Luc Godard’s Bande à part (1964). Beyond are further links of the more conventional kind, with thanks due to @andykesson, @KeyframeDaily, @Dorianlynskey, @lukemckernan, @jmittell and @SPINmagazine.
read more »
11th October 2013
If it’s Thursday, it must be the first preview of Richard II. My posts from Stratford-upon-Avon towards the live broadcasts to cinemas have been appearing mostly on Mondays, but from now on there will be more than a weekly schedule can accommodate. Next Monday I will start a post to record links to as many substantive Richard II reviews and responses as I can, but today there is a new production diary with Simon Ash, senior production manager and the man responsible for getting the show into the theatre – with some terrific time-lapse footage here of the fit-up. And after that notes from yesterday’s dress rehearsal and first preview performance.
read more »
9th October 2013
We are thrilled to confirm that Illuminations is to release the BBC cycle of Shakespeare’s History plays An Age of Kings as a 15-episode, 5-disc DVD set on 8 December. You can place your advance order here.
An Age of Kings has never previously been released for home video in the UK and it has been seen only very occasionally since the single repeat of the series in 1962. Yet it is a wonderful compelling account of all eight of Shakespeare’s histories, with a stellar cast including Robert Hardy, Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins and Sean Connery. This landmark production was broadcast live from, first, Riverside Studios and then Television Centre, on Thursday evenings once a fortnight from April to November 1960.
First details about the release are here. Then over the coming weeks on this blog we will feature lots more information about the series and about our release, and we will be developing a range of online resources, starting with our new Twitter feed @AnAge of Kings; do please follow that for all the latest news.
7th October 2013
Now how do I write this latest post in my Richard II series? On Friday last I and others watched a full run of the play in the rehearsal room. On Thursday the production has its first preview. So I could speak of the surprises that lie in store, I could offer my first thoughts about its pleasures and excitements, and I could develop an initial analysis of how director Greg Doran has approached the text, how David Tennant has tackled the role and …
… but of course I’m not going to. Who wants spoilers like that? I have included some general thoughts from Friday below, with a brief update of how everything else is developing, plus links to some of the press that has started to appear. First, though, here is production diary no. 6 about all of the work going on in Stratford-upon-Avon to prepare the costumes, armour and more.
read more »
6th October 2013
I like this original video essay by Michael Coresky and Casey Moore about the films of Ingmar Bergman very much; it was made for The Criterion Collection.
There are lots more Links below, with thanks this week to, among others, @KnightLAT, @jmittell, @DavidjHendy, @mattcaines, @annaegardner, @karlinmarc and @johnpaulstonard, read more »
5th October 2013
‘On Saturday night I saw (and heard) the future of arts programmes.’
It is some five and a half years since I started my blog post Live from the Met with that line. The occasion was the first live High Definition broadcast from New York’s Metropolitan Opera. The opera was Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, with Renée Fleming as Tatiana and Valery Gergiev conducting. Tonight I was in the Clapham Picturehouse (in 2007 it was the Gate Notting Hill) to see Eugene Onegin once again live from the Met. Gergiev was in the pit once more, but Tatiana this time round was Anna Netrebko (above). How great is this? read more »
