Richard II
So, I was too clueless to get tickets to see the play in Stratford, as it should be seen (they will have to do a lot of restaging for the London run, I think) and last Wednesday I had two wisdom teeth out and an implant placed, so I was in no fit condition to see the live transmission of the play.
Fortunately, it did so well that a cinema in Coventry ran an "Encore" screening last night, and Dave and I went to see it.
Even without David Tennant the cast would have been fabulous - Jane Lapotaire and Michael Pennington, both characters dead before the interval (A Coarse Actor's prerequisite!), Oliver Ford Davies and many others. But Tennant was King. So arrogant at the start he didn't even grasp that what he was doing was capricious, by the end deeply humiliated, yet with a dignity and nobility that was truly moving.
The staging was amazing - beautiful set design (and an interval feature on how they did it, projecting images onto cascading chains "like bath-plug chains but longer") and some fabulous use of a flown scenic bridge, to show just how far removed the monarch was. And some really funny bits, too - especially the Yorks and Aumerle, near the end.
If you can manage to see it, it's worth it. Not quite as good as being there, but some excellent close-ups nearly compensate.
Tennant has an amazing hair style, much of it done with extensions, I think - but some of it his own, as this BBC item shows.
I am getting rather excited about this week's anniversary. I did see the first episode, and it's rather neat that the precise anniversary falls on the same day of the week.
Fortunately, it did so well that a cinema in Coventry ran an "Encore" screening last night, and Dave and I went to see it.
Even without David Tennant the cast would have been fabulous - Jane Lapotaire and Michael Pennington, both characters dead before the interval (A Coarse Actor's prerequisite!), Oliver Ford Davies and many others. But Tennant was King. So arrogant at the start he didn't even grasp that what he was doing was capricious, by the end deeply humiliated, yet with a dignity and nobility that was truly moving.
The staging was amazing - beautiful set design (and an interval feature on how they did it, projecting images onto cascading chains "like bath-plug chains but longer") and some fabulous use of a flown scenic bridge, to show just how far removed the monarch was. And some really funny bits, too - especially the Yorks and Aumerle, near the end.
If you can manage to see it, it's worth it. Not quite as good as being there, but some excellent close-ups nearly compensate.
Tennant has an amazing hair style, much of it done with extensions, I think - but some of it his own, as this BBC item shows.
I am getting rather excited about this week's anniversary. I did see the first episode, and it's rather neat that the precise anniversary falls on the same day of the week.