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 »
2nd October 2013
How fascinating to see three different productions of the same great play in one week. Last Friday I watched a preview of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts adapted and directed by Richard Eyre at the Almeida (until 23 November). Over the weekend I wrote a Screen Plays post after viewing the 1987 BBC television production by Elijah Moshinsky (which is available on the Judi Dench BBC Collection DVD box-set). And tonight I was at The Rose Theatre in Kingston for Stephen Unwin’s new production of the play (until 12 October) with Kelly Hunter as Mrs Alving (above). A co-production with English Touring Theatre (see link for tour dates until 7 December), this is Stephen Unwin’s final offering as artistic director of the Rose. All three productions have considerable strengths, but it’s striking that from a direct comparison across six days the starrily-cast small-screen adaptation (with Judi Dench, Kenneth Branagh, Michael Gambon, Natasha Richardson, Freddie Jones) comes off least well. read more »
1st October 2013
Press features for Richard II get into gear this evening, Tuesday, with the appearance of David Tennant and director Greg Doran on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row at 7.15pm. I will post an iPlayer link once that goes live. Other elements in this (once again, delayed) update from the preparations include RSC rehearsal photographs (one of which is featured above), news about this final week before the production enters the theatre and the newly released Young Shakespeare Nation video with the voice of David Tennant.
First, though, here is the latest production diary video, featuring the terrific James Shapiro, Larry Miller Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Professor Shapiro is the author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare and Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare, both of which are highly recommended. He also wrote and presented last year’s BBC Four series The King and the Playwright. Among much else, he a governor of the RSC and recently he attended rehearsals and spoke with the Richard II cast. Here he reflects on the play’s reception at the end of Elizabeth I’s reign.
read more »
29th September 2013
Throughout the summer my MacBook Pro was developing little signs of fatigue. The ‘u’, the ‘i’ and ‘o’ keys started working only intermittently. The lower part of the screen sometimes showed a light brown stain. Then somehow or other, I really don’t know how, the casing got damaged and the power input proved dodgy. Just over a fortnight ago I took it to the ‘Genius Bar’ at the Apple Retail Store in Bromley (it was the only place I could get an appointment) and now , with nothing to pay because it was still – just – in warranty, I have it back in perfect working order. I had no idea how disruptive this would prove to my life but I am happy to have it all resolved. There have been occasions on which I have been driven mad by Apple, and especially by various ‘Genius Bars’, but on this occasion my sincere thanks are due to the Apple staff in Bromley. And now… there are some links below, with thanks due this week to @emilynussbaum, @lukemckernan, @KarlinMarc and @Chi_Humanities. read more »
27th September 2013
To Clapham Picturehouse last night for the NT Live broadcast of Othello with Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear. Excepting only the sound bleed from the bar next door through much of the second half, this was a triumph. An exceptional staging translated to the screen with skill and sensitivity. Nor was this simply a pale reflection of a theatrical original; the evening was one of the best demonstrations yet of the expressive power of the live-to-cinema form.
I felt the play was revealed to me as never before, in part because of the intelligence and immediacy of Nick Hytner’s production and in part because I was taken by the cameras right into the play and its relationships, its deceptions and its horrors, even on occasion its humour. read more »
26th September 2013
So just how excited are we? Homeland S3 starts in the States on Sunday – and a week later, on Sunday 6 October, on Channel 4. In one of my Sunday Links… columns I highlighted the recent Varieties of disturbance, John Lahr’s terrific New Yorker profile of Claire Danes. For those of you recently returned from Mars, Danes plays troubled CIA operative Carrie Mathison – and her performance is among the edgiest, most dangerous and most compelling that I think I have ever seen on the small screen. Danes has had a remarkable career, literally growing up on television and invariably taking on roles that are far from comfortable. As Lahr writes,
Over the decades, in her performances, she has explored a full spectrum of disturbance, from spousal abuse, autism, and paralysis to Carrie’s bipolar disorder and the paranoia of adolescence.
Anne Helen Petersen’s 2011 Claire Danes’ second act (on celebrity gossip, academic style) is another exceptional piece of writing about Danes. And then there is Margaret Lyons’ New York Magazine piece, also from 2011, Is Claire Danes’ Homeland character secretly Angela Chase? Re-reading the three together suggested today’s tiny trawl through the online collective memory. We start with Claire Danes’ 13-year-old headlining debut as Angela Chase in the pilot episode of the comedy of adolescent angst My So-Called Life…
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25th September 2013
Here was one we made earlier. More than fifteen years ago in fact, and now brought from the archive for an outing at BFI Southbank on NFT1’s big screen. The production was Gloriana – A Film and the occasion last night was a showing as part of the BFI’s Britten at 100 season. As I am coming increasingly to recognise, it can be disconcerting seeing a production from the past in this way, especially if – as was the case for me last night – you have not watched it during the intervening years.
As it turned out, I need not have been apprehensive. Tony Miller’s Super 16 film images looked terrific, the performances of the stars Josephine Barstow (as Elizabeth I) and Tom Randle (Essex) were as good and rich as ever, Phyllida Lloyd’s debut direction came through as imaginative and creative in all the right ways, musically – under conductor Paul Daniel – it sounded very fine, and even the stereo mix, while thin (there was no 5.1 in those days), seemed acceptable. read more »
