The Comedy of Errors (NT Live) @ The Broadway, Nottingham
March 1, 2012
Writing about web page http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/67933/productions/the-comedy-of-errors.html The NT Live juggernaut rolls on. Now well-established as a theatrical/cinematic event, it was a pleasure to see the enormous Screen 1 of Nottingham’s Broadway cinema packed out with a lively audience for the latest offering, a broadcast of Dominic Cooke’s hugely successful The Comedy of Errors, which I missed …
Coriolanus @ The Broadway Cinema, Nottingham
January 22, 2012
The best thing about the poster for Ralph Fiennes’s new film of Coriolanus (and his directorial debut) is the contrast between the streams of red blood and those ice-cold eyes. In a single image we see the entire film – a steady, chilling gaze framed by horrific images and the messy reality of war. For …
The Duchess of Malfi (Blood and Thunder) @ Hall’s Croft, Stratford–upon–Avon (archive video)
January 9, 2012
Writing about web page http://bloodandthundertheatre.org.uk/ I’m beginning the year with a binge of EM drama film recordings, including Greenwich Theatre’s Volpone, Kozintsev’s Hamlet, Taymor’s Tempest, Doran’s Winter’s Tale and Fiennes’s Coriolanus, one or two of which I may review here. One pleasure of this quiet patch is the chance to finally catch up with a …
Anonymous
November 6, 2011
Writing about web page http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/knowledge/culture/anonymous/ This is a reprint of my article "Much Ado about Anonymous", written for the University of Warwick Knowledge Centre and published here. Shakespeare scholars have been outraged about Roland Emmerich’s new film since filming first began. Anonymous tells the story of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans), who …
The Tempest @ Warwick Arts Centre Cinema
April 30, 2011
Julie Taymor has had a rough year. She’s a favourite director of mine – I love her Titus and Across the Universe, and she’s borne herself pretty well through the fiasco that has been (and continues to be) Spider-Man: The Musical. It’s true, too, that we need a good film of The Tempest. Derek Jarman’s …
Gnomeo and Juliet (Rocket Productions) @ Showcase Cinema, Coventry
February 24, 2011
Writing about web page http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377981/ Film versions of Shakespeare are required, one way or another, to confront the docu-real potentiality of the medium in the transition from stage to screen. While a very few choose to exploit the possibilities for historical drama and lush scenography, the heightened language and inevitable familiarity of subject matter more …
Me and Orson Welles
June 22, 2010
This film comes as something of a holiday having recently written a performance history of Julius Caesar for the RSC Shakespeare single edition. Telling the story of Orson Welles’s seminal production of the play at New York’s Mercury Theatre in 1937 from the point of view of the actor playing Lucius, it’s a lovely slice …
Fiennes’ Coriolanus blog
April 8, 2010
Writing about web page http://30ninjas.com/blog/ralph-fiennes-coriolanus-blog-photos-from-the-set Following up a tip from Duncan, here’s a link to Ralph Fiennes’ Coriolanus blog. He’s playing the title role in a major new motion picture, so I’ll be following this with some interest.
All’s Well that Ends Well (NT Live) @ Warwick Arts Centre Cinema
October 2, 2009
Writing about web page http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=52899 Nicholas Hytner, in an interview with Alex Jennings that preceded the National Theatre’s second NT Live broadcast, qualified the expectations for this experimental programme in a way which chimed more with my own expectations. The broadcast of Phedre back in June was preceded by rather hyperbolic and over-ambitious suggestions that …
Compulsion @ ITV1
May 5, 2009
Writing about web page http://www.itv.com/PressCentre/Presspacks/Compulsion/default.html This one almost slipped under the wire. Last night, ITV premiered a new one-off drama called Compulsion, heavily based on Middleton and Rowley’s The Changeling and starring Ray Winstone and Parminder Nagra. The actual "Changeling" subplot is completely removed in order to focus on the main relationship between Anjika (Nagra, …
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