have a bunch of reviews
...of the 1960 BBC miniseries An Age of Kings. Which I don't think I have ever properly posted about. It is good stuff.
'This English blood': Richard II
'Die all, die merrily': 1 Henry IV
'Uneasy lies the head': 2 Henry IV
'We happy few': Henry V
'Between the red rose and the white': 1 Henry VI
The reviewer does not seem to have gone any further than that, alas.
In lieu of in-depth engagement, a by-no-means complete list of things included in the links that I do not agree with:
- that David William's Richard II is uncompelling
- that campiness is not appropriate to Richard II
- that Sean Connery is at all "effective" as Hotspur (think for a minute about Sean Connery's career as a great Shakespearean; there is a reason you're not coming up with anything)
- that Henry V is preferable to the Henry IVs (I do not understand not liking the Henry IVs, largely because I feel about them as Samuel Johnson did about London)
- just about anything he says about the Eastcheapies, although Age of Kings does not really do them very well (I don't think I'll ever see a production that does those scenes better than Michael Bogdanov's ESC history cycle, which absolutely NAILS them. Except for Doll Tearsheet, who sucks.)
'This English blood': Richard II
'Die all, die merrily': 1 Henry IV
'Uneasy lies the head': 2 Henry IV
'We happy few': Henry V
'Between the red rose and the white': 1 Henry VI
The reviewer does not seem to have gone any further than that, alas.
In lieu of in-depth engagement, a by-no-means complete list of things included in the links that I do not agree with:
- that David William's Richard II is uncompelling
- that campiness is not appropriate to Richard II
- that Sean Connery is at all "effective" as Hotspur (think for a minute about Sean Connery's career as a great Shakespearean; there is a reason you're not coming up with anything)
- that Henry V is preferable to the Henry IVs (I do not understand not liking the Henry IVs, largely because I feel about them as Samuel Johnson did about London)
- just about anything he says about the Eastcheapies, although Age of Kings does not really do them very well (I don't think I'll ever see a production that does those scenes better than Michael Bogdanov's ESC history cycle, which absolutely NAILS them. Except for Doll Tearsheet, who sucks.)