grown to this faction in the Temple Garden
So I spent my evening watching the BBC 1 Henry VI -- I bought the HVI set on DVD at SAA and hadn't gotten to watching them yet, because I am a lazy arse. It was...odd. I'm not going to write up a full review yet, because I think I shall watch them all, see how they work as a set, and do a big long post with screencaps for the entertainment of all (roz_mcclure, for instance, really needs to see Pimp!Suffolk).
It was a weird experience watching the Beeb production, though, because...well. It was like seeing the play as it's conventionally described: chaotic, highly-strung, disorganized, and often rather silly. Indeed, the production ran with all of these aspects -- this is the one that's usually described as having a playground for a set, though I wouldn't have thought of it in those terms had I not seen it so described; it looks sort of like an expressionist wooden set, really. (There was a scene with Joan la Pucelle standing on the walls of Rouen waving a torch and I sat there the whole time going "Watch out, Joan! Don't burn the set down!") It's painted in bright colors, and everyone is dressed likewise, often with extremely silly hats (and what the Arden editor of 1 Henry VI calls rightly "some extremely ludicrous wigs") and everybody runs about and yells loudly and it's all energetic and also sort of hard to follow. Henry himself is rather milquetoasty and looks rather, if he sneered all the time instead of smiling blandly, like he could pass for a young Severus Snape. But after all 1H6 presents the King as a very young man and perhaps he shall grow up to be less insipid: I hope so, as I don't think Henry VI should be insipid. Also, Lord of the Rings fans will note that Bernard Hill appears as a highly skeevy Duke of York who really seems to enjoy overseeing the burning of Joan la Pucelle (played by Brenda Blethyn with a West Country accent, I think, and a rather vampy physical characterization) more than is entirely healthy.
But tongue-in-cheekness and rambunctiousness, thus far, carry the production; I am led to believe the plays become more straight-faced as they get bloodier. We shall see. This one was good in places and dragged in others -- I found myself checking the clock a lot during the battle scenes in particular, but 1H6 is the weakest of the set anyway.
Also, it quickly became evident that it's been a while since I've read these plays: I couldn't identify the minor characters as soon as they started talking. I used to be able to do this; clearly I need to review the first tetralogy.
It was a weird experience watching the Beeb production, though, because...well. It was like seeing the play as it's conventionally described: chaotic, highly-strung, disorganized, and often rather silly. Indeed, the production ran with all of these aspects -- this is the one that's usually described as having a playground for a set, though I wouldn't have thought of it in those terms had I not seen it so described; it looks sort of like an expressionist wooden set, really. (There was a scene with Joan la Pucelle standing on the walls of Rouen waving a torch and I sat there the whole time going "Watch out, Joan! Don't burn the set down!") It's painted in bright colors, and everyone is dressed likewise, often with extremely silly hats (and what the Arden editor of 1 Henry VI calls rightly "some extremely ludicrous wigs") and everybody runs about and yells loudly and it's all energetic and also sort of hard to follow. Henry himself is rather milquetoasty and looks rather, if he sneered all the time instead of smiling blandly, like he could pass for a young Severus Snape. But after all 1H6 presents the King as a very young man and perhaps he shall grow up to be less insipid: I hope so, as I don't think Henry VI should be insipid. Also, Lord of the Rings fans will note that Bernard Hill appears as a highly skeevy Duke of York who really seems to enjoy overseeing the burning of Joan la Pucelle (played by Brenda Blethyn with a West Country accent, I think, and a rather vampy physical characterization) more than is entirely healthy.
But tongue-in-cheekness and rambunctiousness, thus far, carry the production; I am led to believe the plays become more straight-faced as they get bloodier. We shall see. This one was good in places and dragged in others -- I found myself checking the clock a lot during the battle scenes in particular, but 1H6 is the weakest of the set anyway.
Also, it quickly became evident that it's been a while since I've read these plays: I couldn't identify the minor characters as soon as they started talking. I used to be able to do this; clearly I need to review the first tetralogy.