| BBC Television Shakespeare | |
|---|---|
DVD Box-Set |
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| Also known as | The Shakespeare Collection (UK) The Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare (US) |
| Genre | Drama, Comedy, Tragedy, History |
| Created by | Cedric Messina |
| Written by | William Shakespeare |
| Theme music composer | William Walton |
| Country of origin | UK |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 7 |
| No. of episodes | 37 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Cedric Messina Jonathan Miller Shaun Sutton |
| Production company(s) | Time Life Television BBC Television |
| Distributor | 2 Entertain BBC DVD |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | BBC2 |
| Picture format | 4:3 |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original run | 1 December 1978 – 1 April 1985 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | An Age of Kings The Spread of the Eagle |
| External links | |
| Production website | |
The BBC Television Shakespeare was a set of television adaptations of the plays of William Shakespeare, produced by the BBC between 1978 and 1985.
The concept for the series originated in 1976 with Cedric Messina, a veteran BBC producer, who was on-location at Glamis Castle in Angus, Scotland shooting J.M. Barrie's The Little Minister for the BBC Play of the Month series. During filming, it occurred to Messina that the castle would make a perfect location for an adaptation of Shakespeare's As You Like It for the series. By the time he had returned to London, however, the concept had grown considerably, and Messina now envisioned an entire series devoted exclusively to the dramatic work of Shakespeare; a series which would adapt all thirty-seven of Shakespeare's plays.[2]
At first, Messina envisioned the series as having six seasons of six episodes each, with the plan being to adapt the three Henry VI plays into a two-part episode. This idea was soon rejected however, as it was felt to be an unacceptable compromise, and it was decided to simply have one season with seven episodes. Initially, Messina also wanted to shoot the plays in chronological order of how they were written, but this was rejected because it was felt that doing so would necessitate the series beginning with a run of relatively little known plays. Another early concept of Messina's which had to be rejected was the idea of shooting the eight sequential history plays (Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, Henry V, Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2, Henry VI, Part 3 and Richard III) in chronological order of the events they depict, with linked casting and the same director for all eight adaptations (David Giles). During the early planning stages for Richard II and Henry IV, Part 1 however, the plan for linked casting fell apart when it was discovered that although Jon Finch (Henry Bolingbroke in Richard II) could return as Henry IV, Jeremy Bulloch as Henry 'Hotspur' Percy and David Swift as the Earl of Northumberland were unable to do so, and the parts had to be recast, thus undermining the concept of shooting the plays as one sequence. Ultimately, during the first season, Richard II, although still directed by Giles, was treated as a stand-alone piece, whilst Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2 and Henry V (all also directed by Giles) were treated as a trilogy during the second season, with linked casting between them. The second four plays were then directed by Jane Howell during the fifth season as one unit, with a common set and linked casting, with most of the cast playing multiple roles in the four plays. For example, Ron Cook, who played Richard III, also appeared in minor roles in Henry VI, Part 1 and Henry VI, Part 2.
The BBC had screened many Shakespearean adaptations before, but never on this scale. The first broadcast was on the afternoon of 5 February 1937; an eleven-minute scene from As You Like It, directed by Robert Atkins with Margaretta Scott as Rosalind and Ion Swinley as Orlando. Later that evening, a fourteen-minute segment from the wooing scene of Henry V was screened, directed by George More O'Ferrall and starring Henry Oscar as Henry and Yvonne Arnaud as Katherine.[3] O'Ferrall would oversee numerous productions of Shakespeare over the course of 1937;[4] a ten-minute excerpt from Mark Antony's funeral speech in Julius Caesar, starring Henry Oscar (11 February); a ten-minute excerpt from Much Ado About Nothing with Henry Oscar as Benedick and Margaretta Scott as Beatrice (also 11 February); a twenty-five minute extract from Macbeth, with Henry Oscar as Macbeth and Margaret Rawlings as Lady Macbeth (25 March); a thirty-minute extract from Twelfth Night, with John Wyse as Orsino and Greer Garson as Olivia (14 May); and a sixty seven-minute extract from Othello starring Baliol Holloway as Othello, D.A. Clarke-Smith as Iago and Celia Johnson as Desdemona. O’Ferrall also produced a 1938 broadcast of a live thirty-minute extract from an Old Vic production of Macbeth, directed by Michel Saint-Denis and starring Laurence Olivier and Judith Anderson. 1938 also saw the first full-length broadcast of a Shakespeare play; Dallas Bower's modern dress production of Julius Caesar at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre starring Ernest Milton as Caesar and D.A. Clark-Smith as Mark Antony. These transmissions came to an end with the onset of war in 1939 and none of them survive now.
After the war, Shakespearean adaptations were screened less frequently, although there were numerous live transmissions of actual plays; for example, a one hundred-minute abridged version of Orson Welles' legendary modern dress Mercury Theatre production of Julius Caesar, starring Welles himself; a twenty five-minute extract from Stephen Thomas' Regent's Park production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, starring Alexander Knox as Oberon and Thea Holme as Titiana; and a one hundred and forty-minute version of Dallas Bower's production of The Tempest, with Peggy Ashcroft as Miranda and John Abbott as Prospero. In 1948, George More O'Ferrall directed and produced a made-for-TV two-part adaptation of Hamlet with John Byron as Hamlet, Sebastian Shaw as Claudius, Margaret Rawlings as Gertrude and Muriel Pavlow as Ophelia.
There were also three multi-part Shakespearean adaptations shown during the 1950s and 1960s. The first was The Life and Death of Sir John Falstaff (1959). Produced and directed by Ronald Eyre and starring Roger Livesey as Falstaff, the series took all of the Falstaff scenes from the Henry IV plays and The Merry Wives of Windsor and adapted them into seven half-hour episodes. The second was An Age of Kings (1960). Produced by Peter Dews and directed by Michael Hayes, the show comprised fifteen one-hour episodes which adapted all eight of Shakespeare's sequential history plays. The third was the Peter Dews produced The Spread of the Eagle (1963), which featured nine one-hour episodes adapting, in chronological order of the real life events, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra.
However, The Spread of the Eagle was not a huge success, and afterwards, the BBC returned to smaller screenings with less financial risk.[5] In 1964, for example, the John Barton adaptation of the three Henry VI plays and Richard III into a three-parter called The Wars of the Roses by the Royal Shakespeare Company was aired over a four-week period. Another 1964 production was Hamlet at Elsinore, directed by Philip Saville and produced by Peter Luke. Starring Christopher Plummer as Hamlet, Robert Shaw as Claudius, Michael Caine as Horatio and Donald Sutherland as Fortinbras, the entire play was shot on-location in Denmark at the real Elsinore Castle. Additionally, The Play of the Month series screened several Shakespearian adaptations over the years; Romeo and Juliet (1967), The Tempest (1968), Julius Caesar (1969), Macbeth (1970), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1971), The Merchant of Venice (1972), Love's Labour's Lost (1974) and King Lear (1975).
As such, the BBC Television Shakespeare project was the most ambitious engagement with Shakespeare ever undertaken by either a television or film production company. So large was the project that the BBC couldn't finance it alone and required an American partner who would guarantee access to the United States market, deemed essential for the series to recoup its costs. Financing took over two years to secure, with Time–Life acting as the series' largest underwriter. Later, Exxon, Metropolitan Life and Morgan Guaranty Trust also provided financing. However, because they had invested so much in the project, the backers were able to suggest terms.
The most important of these was that the productions must be traditional interpretations of the plays set in either Shakespeare's time (1564 to 1616) or in the period of the events depicted (such as ancient Rome for Julius Caesar or c1400 for Richard II). A two and a half hour maximum running time was also required but this was swiftly jettisoned when it became clear that the major tragedies in particular would have suffered severely if truncated too heavily. The restriction regarding conservative interpretations was non-negotiable. The financiers were primarily concerned with ratings and the restrictions worked to this end, ensuring the plays had "maximum acceptability to the widest possible audience."[6] Partly because of this, although later productions under Messina's successors Jonathan Miller and Shaun Sutton, would be more experimental, in its early years the series developed a reputation for being overly conventional. Later in the series when Miller tried to persuade directors such as Peter Brook, Ingmar Bergman, William Gaskill and John Dexter to direct adaptations, he failed.[7]
During Messina's tenure as producer (seasons one and two), as per the financiers' restrictions the adaptations tended to be conservative, but when Jonathan Miller took over at the start of season three, he revamped things. Messina had favoured a broadly 'realistic' approach which worked to simplify the texts for audiences unfamiliar with Shakespeare. Miller was against dilution. According to Martin Wiggins, Miller came from,
outside the BBC's tradition of painstaking research and accurate historical verisimilitude. Messina's approach had treated the plays in realistic terms as events which had once taken place and which could be literally represented on screen. Miller saw them as products of a creative imagination, artefacts in their own right to be realised in production using the visual and conceptual materials of their period. This led to a major reappraisal of the original production guidelines."[8]
A change by Miller that was met with great delight by directors was his tendency to encourage the adaptations to be more adventurous than Messina had permitted, pushing the definition of "traditional". Miller adopted a visual and design policy of sets and costumes inspired by great paintings of the era in which the play were written, though the style was dominated by the post-Shakespearean 17th century artists Johannes Vermeer and Rembrandt. This allowed directors to stamp more of their aesthetic credo on the productions. Miller's aesthetic policies continued under Shaun Sutton who took over at the start of season six. The project was Sutton's retirement job after twelve years as the head of BBC Drama and he was under strict orders to bring the series to a close as it had run over by twelve months during Miller's reign. Sutton was successful and the series closed with a broadcast of Titus Andronicus roughly twelve months late. Messina's gamble in 1978 proved successful as the series was a financial success, having more than broken even by 1982.[9]
All productions were shot on video with multiple cameras in Studio 1 at the BBC Television Centre studios, with the exception of two first season episodes, As You Like It and Henry VIII, which were shot on location. Also worth noting is that composer William Walton, who had scored Olivier's three Shakespearean films (Henry V, Hamlet and Richard III) came out of retirement to write the theme music for the show.
Rebecca Saire was only fourteen when the production was filmed, an unusually young age for an actress playing Juliet (even though she is only thirteen in the play itself).
Filmed at Glamis Castle in Scotland, this was one of only two productions shot on location, the other being Henry VIII. Director Basil Colemen initially felt that the play should be filmed over the course of a year, with the change in seasons from winter to summer marking the ideological change in characters, but he was forced to shoot entirely in May, even though the play begins in winter.
Director Herbert Wise felt that Julius Caesar should be set in the Elizabethan era, but he was compelled by the financiers to set it in a Roman milieu. Wise felt that Shakespeare had written the play specifically as a commentary on Elizabethan culture, and that interpreting it literally as being a play about Ancient Rome trivialised the story.
Director Desmond Davis based the brothel in the play on a traditional Western saloon and the prison on a typical horror film dungeon.
Shot at Leeds Castle, Penhurst Place and Hever Castle and in the actual rooms in which some of the real events took place.
Director John Gorrie interpreted the play as an English country house comedy, and incorporated influences ranging from Luigi Pirandello's Il Gioco delle Parti to ITV's Upstairs, Downstairs. Gorrie also set the play during the English Civil War, hoping the use of cavaliers and roundheads would help focus the dramatisation of the conflict between festivity and Puritanism.
The special effects seen in this episode were not developed especially for use here. They had been developed for Top of the Pops and Doctor Who.
The casting of John Cleese as Petruchio was not without controversy at the time. Cleese had never performed Shakespeare before, and was not a fan of the first two seasons of the BBC Television Shakespeare, and took some persuading from Miller that the BBC Shrew would not be, as Cleese feared "about a lot of furniture being knocked over, a lot of wine being spilled, a lot of thighs being slapped and a lot of unmotivated laughter."[10] As such, Miller told Cleese that the episode would interpret Petruchio as an early Puritan, and that the part was not to be acted along the traditional lines of the swaggering bully a la Richard Burton in Franco Zeffirelli's adaptation. In tandem with this interpretation, the song sung at the end of the play is a musical version of Psalm 128, which was often sung in Puritan households at the end of a meal during Shakespeare's own day.
In line with producer Jonathan Miller's new aesthetic policy, director Elijah Moshinsky composed many of the shots of the film as live action replicas of the work of Johannes Vermeer.
Michael Bogdanov was originally hired to direct this episode, but he resigned after his modern-dress interpretation was considered too radical.
During the shooting of the scene with the snake, the snake crawled down the back of Jane Lapotaire's dress.
James Earl Jones was originally hired to play the role of Othello, but Equity, the English Actor's Guild, refused to issue a work permit. During production itself, Jonathan Miller based the visual design on the work of El Greco.
Director Jonathan Miller used the work of gothic painter Lucas Cranach as a visual influence during the production, and several of Cranach's paintings can be seen in Ajax's tent.
Elijah Moshinsky based the fairies in the play on the baroque eroticism of Rembrandt and Peter Paul Rubens.
Jonathan Miller had previously directed an adaptation of King Lear in 1975 for the BBC series Play of the Month. Like the BBC Shakespeare version, Miller's previous production starred Michael Hordern as Lear and Frank Middlemass as the Fool. Originally, however Robert Shaw was cast as Lear but died in 1978 before production began.
Director David Jones originally wanted to shoot the episode in Stratford-upon-Avon but was restricted to a studio setting. Jones got around this by basing his set on the house which belonged to Shakespeare's son-in-law, John Hall.
This episode was filmed on the same set as The First Part of Henry the Sixt. However, designer Oliver Bayldon altered the set so it would appear that the paint work was flaking and peeling, and the set falling into a state of disrepair, as England descended into an ever increasing state of chaos.
This episode was filmed on the same set as The First Part of Henry the Sixt and The Second Part of Henry the Sixt. However, designer Oliver Bayldon altered the set so it would appear to be completely falling apart, as England descended into an even worse state of chaos.
This episode was filmed on the same set as the three Henry VI plays. However, designer Oliver Bayldon altered the set so it would appear to be a ruin, as England reached its lowest point of chaos. At 239 minutes, Howell's The Tragedy of Richard III was the longest episode in the entire series, and when the series was released on DVD in 2005, it was the only adaptation split over two disks.
The music in this episode was created by Anthony Rooley, who wrote new arrangements of works from Shakespeare's own time, such as John Dowland's piece 'Lachrimae'. Performed by The Consort of Musicke, other musicians whose music was used include William Byrd, Thomas Campion, Anthony Holborne, John Johnson, Thomas Morley and Orazio Vecchi. According to director Don Taylor, the use of the young actors dressed as cherubs was to convey the idea that the characters lived in a 'Garden of Courtly Love', which was slightly divorced from every day reality.
Director Elijah Moshinsky modelled the relationship between Coriolanus and his mother after that between Rose Kennedy and her sons.
A production of Much Ado About Nothing directed by Donald McWhinnie and starring Penelope Keith and Michael York was the first production to be recorded in the series, but was thought unsatisfactory for US audiences, and never broadcast.[12] During the reshoot for season seven, director Stuart Burge initially thought about shooting the entire episode against a blank tapestry background, with no set whatsoever, but it was felt that audiences may not respond well to this, and the idea was scrapped.
Director Elijah Moshinsky used the paintings of Jean-Antoine Watteau, the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the writing of Pierre de Marivaux as inspiration during the making of this episode, which is the only play of the thirty-seven to be set in the eighteenth century.
Because Titus was broadcast several months after the rest of the seventh season, it was rumoured that the BBC were worried about the violence in the play and that disagreements had arisen about censorship. This was inaccurate however, with the delay caused by a BBC strike in 1984. Initially, director Jane Howell wanted to set the play in present day Northern Ireland, but she ultimately settled on a more conventional approach.[13] All the body parts seen throughout were based upon real autopsy photographs, and were authenticated by the Royal College of Surgeons. The costumes of the Goths were based on punk outfits, with Chiron and Demetrius specifically based on the band KISS.[14] According to Howell, the reason the Roman populace all wear identical generic masks without mouths was to convey the idea that the Roman people were faceless and voiceless.
With the exception of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, all of the productions were based on the texts of the First Folio (1623),[15] however, numerous changes were made throughout the series.
Shakespeare: The Animated Tales