fling away ambition!

[angevin2]

So I just finished watching the Beeb's Henry VIII, which means that I have seen all of Shakespeare's plays (plus one of Shakespeare/Fletcher's) in performance at least once. Henry VIII, btw, was quite excellent, which was a pleasant surprise; I had heard good things, and it has an excellent cast, but I remembered the play as being, with the

Comments

[auriaephiala]

Antony and Cleopatra because it has some great moments, and it's not done nearly enough (although I did rather like the Anthony Geary/Timothy Dalton/Lynn Redgrave version from the 1980s).

I'm agnostic as to the comedy, but I'd suggest picking one known to be good (e.g. The Tempest, Twelfth Night) to offset all the rarely-seen ones you've been seeing lately.

[angevin2]

I have the one on tape that stars Janet Suzman and Richard Johnson; it is quite good, and it has Patrick Stewart as Enobarbus, which is awesome. This one has Colin Blakely and Jane Lapotaire and is generally acknowledged not to be very good, but we shall see, I suppose. I have a vexed relationship to the play: my initial reaction was that it had brilliant bits with a lot of filler; my late diss director convinced me to like it, but then I went off it after my attempt to teach it was a total disaster.

[upstart_crow]

This is the Hamlet with Jacobi in the title role, right?

And if this is the Winter's Tale I think it is, you will cry.

Then again, Winter's Tale is the only one of Shakespeare's plays that can make me cry. I've cried every time I've seen it - except during one hideous production (that the Royal Shakespeare Company did in 2002, no less!)

[angevin2]

It is indeed! So I am looking forward to it, because Derek Jacobi is never not awesome except when he is talking about authorship, because that's just a collective delusion and not something that has ever really happened. Winter's Tale is this one, if that helps.

[tekalynn]

I imprinted on Derek Jacobi's BBC Hamlet. I knew the play, of course, but it was the first time I'd had a chance to see it all the way through.

I really enjoyed the BBC Twelfth Night and would love to see it again. Felicity Kendall is rather less butch than Imogene Stubbs, but charming. The real glory is the downstairs comedy plot in this production, although they're both well done. I imprinted on the musical setting on this big time.

[reynardo]

I second "Twelfth Night" but I think you should save Derek for a glorious last.

Romeo and Juliet with the wonders that are Alan Rickman and Anthony Andrews (*sigh*).

[gillo]

I'd go for
Antony and Cleopatra, one Miller did himself, which I remember as rather good.
Romeo and Juliet has a young Alan Rickman (Tybalt, I think) but is mostly rather painful. I didn't like
Twelfth Night either - it's very short on the funny.
AMND has Mirren as Titania and Robert Lindsay as Lysander, though they don't make enough of the Mechanicals, considering they cast some excellent people. I remember using Coriolanus when I taught it for A Level in the 80s, and being disappointed in it - no real sense of a young firebrand. The actor (Alan Howard?) was too old.

This is what I remember of these

[elettaria]

A&C - underwhelmed

Re: This is what I remember of these

[angevin2]

Charles Gray is far better as a sleazeball.

But he was good as York in Richard II and York isn't -- well, okay, maybe he's a little bit of a sleazeball...

Re: This is what I remember of these

[elettaria]

OK, OK, he was a nice York too. Now go and watch Coriolanus getting groped.

Re: This is what I remember of these

[angevin2]

It'll have to wait, now -- Beth took me out to dinner, and then we came back here and watched Taming of the Shrew, because she wanted to see John Cleese as Petruchio, so I don't think I'm up for watching Coriolanus until 3 am. Perhaps tomorrow, if I get my class prep done in time.