"For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground / And tell sad stories of the deaths of kings."
This is the first of four plays to be screened by the BBC under the title of "The Hollow Crown". Coming next will be Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, followed by Henry V, all of them, like this play, filmed as full dramas, with elaborate costumes, sumptuous location filming and the full visual feast of modern, high budget, television drama. And that isn't something that has been done since the 1970s, a very different age of television. This is not one of those occasional BBC 4 dramas, based on current theatre runs, which still have one foot in the theatre, with only limited use of the moving camera. This is the full medium of television being applied to Shakespeare. Modern methods of visual storytelling, unheard of the 1590s, are fully utilised. Realism is the rule; the locations and settings straightforwardly evoke the real world of the late fourteenth century. This is television, not theatre.
And that's very interesting, because there's a constant tension between the theatrical medium of Shakespeare's playscript and the medium of television to which that script is being applied here. Modern television drama, with its fast pace and fast cutting, adheres to a philosophy of "show, don't tell". This fits awkwardly with those scenes, so frequent in Shakespeare, where characters describe battles, gruesome happenings and other things which happen off-stage. This was a necessary device for the Elizabethan stage, of course, where it was best to avoid having to depict such things. But it sits awkwardly with the medium of television, where beheadings by the cliffside and location filming at real beaches, woods and castles are all possible. There are many scenes in which speeches are juxtaposed with a visual depiction of what is being described. On the one hand, all of this is brilliant. On the other hand, it is often made awkwardly obvious that Shakespeare was writing for a very different medium.
That isn't always the case, of course. The television medium can often serve instead to emphasise meaning; Richard's last minute decision to cancel the trial by combat between Mowbray and Bolingbroke is made all the more effective by the visual depiction of the sheer expense of organising the event. Nevertheless, there's a tension between the two mediums.
Ben Whishaw is superb as a fey and effete Richard, famously based on Michael Jackson and a little reminiscent of John Hurt's Caligula from I, Clavdivs. It's a stand-out performance, showing us a Richard who seems to care little for affairs of state, and robs his nobles for his wars as but a casual afterthought. The pet monkey pretty much symbolises his fickle, pleasure-loving nature. This is a man who ill befits the rather warlike nature of mediaeval kingship. He's a camp king in a very butch world. I recall at University I studied this play in conjunction with Marlowe's Edward II. The parallels are strong in any case, but such a very camp Richard makes them all the more so. This is the first time I've seen Ben Whishaw (I've yet to see The Hour), but he's truly a revelation here. I don't doubt that his Hamlet would probably have been superb.
The rest of the cast is hugely impressive, too, from Rory Kinnear's troubled, more than usually conscientious yet determined Bolingbroke to Patrick Stewart's outstanding John of Gaunt. The "This Sceptred Isle" speech is delivered slowly, with deliciously bitter irony, in one of the standout moments of the production. Yet the highlight is undoubtedly Whishaw's self-pity, as power slips gradually away from Richard. David Morrissey's merciless Northumberland and Tom Goodman-Hill's anxious Sir Stephen Scrope are also worth singling out for praise. The play's awesomely rich themes of the nature of kingship, whether any subject has the right to depose a king anointed by God, and how Richard, in denying Bolingbroke his rights of succession, thereby undermines his own, are brought out anew by the performances. These themes may seem as if they belong to another age, but they don't really. They point forward, of course, to the follies and the death of Charles I. And we see the same power relationships everywhere, whether within the ranks of the Mafia, in the boardroom, or in the dynamics of teenage gangs. Because that's what mediaeval aristocrats and kings always were: gangsters.
This is only the beginning, of course. Henry ends the play in deep penitence, filled with a mixture of regret and paranoia. He's dismayed to hear of Richard's death. This original sin will lead to profound and bloody consequences…
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