The Hollow Crown: Henry IV, Part II

[selenak]

Last time on "It's Hard Out There For A Lancaster": yes, they do previouslies instead of the "Rumours" chorus, which actually I admit I don't miss at all. This second part is generally less popular than the first, but in this version I felt it was actually the better one. Still suffers from Chimes at Midnight comparison as far as cinematography is

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[cereswunderkind]

As FW and I said to each other, drop-jawed: who would have guessed Jeremy Irons could do that? Richard Eyre, presumably, so top credit to both of them.

Other fuckyeahs for me included Maxine Peake's Doll and Geoffrey Palmer's Chief Justice.

Now - SRB. To my mind the main criticism lies in the flatness of his performance. His Part 1 Falstaff foreshadowed his Part 2 Falstaff so effectively it was hard to tell the difference between them. And why? Well, my guess is that, as the Part 1 humour - which is meant to be rumbustious good fun - comes over today as self-entitled and cruel bullying, it was hard for SRB to put his heart into it. Nobody these days has much time for the antics of the Bullingdon Club, and its alumni are not acquitting themselves terribly well in their adult lives. Probably Osborne, Cameron, Johnson and co view their live's arcs as reruns of the Hal->Henry story. Well, actually chaps; no, they ain't.

The second problem for me was SRB's voice which, when you close your eyes, sounds just like the present Archbishop of Canterbury's. I'm sure Dr Williams would like to have you believe he was once a bit of a lad, but really...!

I'm still trying to work out why the use of Tallis's Miserere after Henry's death sounded anachronistic to these ears when the Handelesque (or was it really Handel?) music for the coronation was fine.

But - nit-picking (or more than that) - aside, has Shakespeare ever been done better on television? In places, maybe, but so consistently?

[selenak]

I am amused by the reviewer who wrote that Jeremy Irons "now snaps at the heels of greatness" and could someone make him play Lear already. It tells you something about Shakespeare versus Oscars, I suppose, since Jeremy Irons did win one of the later in the 90s, but yes, his Henry here is something else again. Who'd have thought when he was callow Charles Ryder?

Well, my guess is that, as the Part 1 humour - which is meant to be rumbustious good fun - comes over today as self-entitled and cruel bullying, it was hard for SRB to put his heart into it

Good theory. I'm really curious about the much praised Roger Allem performance in this regard, too. Because I never found the part I pranks Hal and Poins play funny, either, including the My very own Idaho version when it was River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves doing the pranking. But evidently it comes across as funny in the Roger Allam version? Anyway. My own guess is SRB might agree with Orson Welles who once said he didn't find Falstaff funny at all, but deeply melancholy and only putting on the clown mask for the prince to sing for his supper, so to speak. But then Orson W. had a deeply personal obsession with the role through the decades (the first time he played it was in his early 20s, when you'd think he'd have cast himself as Hal, but no, it was Falstaff already, and of course by the time he finally got around to filming his version he was actually old - and fat - enough for the part), which included a massive guilt complex about his own father (who drank himself to death and shortly before that got the "I know thee not, old man" treatment from 14 years old Orson who remained convinced that he had committed patricide this way), which inevitably coloured the interpretation.

Shakespere on television: well, I haven't seen all the BBC productions, and the 70s ones had a superb stable of actors to recruit from. But if it's not the best, it must be among the top 3!