The Plays the thing. Benedict Cumberbatch's Hamlet

I  recently drove to Galway to see the NT live broadcast of Hamlet from the Barbican Theatre.   It is an hour and half trip, each way.    Do I think it was worth it?    Wait and see.

Directed by Lyndsey Turner this was,  of course, the much anticipated Benedict Cumberbatch debut in the role – and I will come to him later.   Later, because any performance of this role is shaped by choices made by the Producer, Director, Designer and many others.  They create the context in which we see Hamlet’s tragedy enacted.

I do not know what influence of the Producer, Sonia Friedman, was, apart from recruiting the Director and other main players.      But I do know that the Designer, Es Devlin has a long and worthy track record setting plays, operas, ballet and and music concerts.  This is her second consecutive production with Lyndsey Turner.    Previously she has been employed by The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Royal Court, The National Theatre and the Theatre de Complicite, and many of the world’s leading theatres, opera houses and musicians.   She has designed eight previous Shakespeare productions, including another Hamlet, and worked with U2, Kanye West, PetShopBoys, Lenny Kravitz, Lady Gaga, Goldfrapp, Jamie Cullum and Nitin Sawney among others.     I mention this CV to illustrate her versatility and reputation, and because I think her set is one of the stars of the show.    The Barbican has a huge stage and her design is  reminiscent of that used for Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 film, but this set is turned slightly slant wise and she shows both Elsinor’s initial grandeur and then the gradual decay of the State of Denmark, and maybe of Hamlet’s state of mind.      I give top marks to Es Devlin and to the Lighting Director, Jane Cox, who exploits the set’s depth and shadows.   Controversially, Hamlet’s soliloquies are spot lit in front of a freeze frame of slow-mo background action.     I liked this.   Soliliques are difficult to stage, and moving them out of time is an interesting solution.   I thought the music was usually appropriate too, even if at times it almost drowned the words.

Talking of words, the script was cut to 3 hours instead of the full 4 hour text.  So was the recent Sarah Frankcom/Maxime Peake production for the Manchester International Festival,  and I had no problem with that.   It is good to have the full text at times (all praise to Branagh for his full four hour filmed version) but I did not miss anything here.    Some of the words were transposed, particularly in the opening scene, where Hamlet greets Horatio with ‘Who goes there?’ and much of the rest of Marcello and Bernardo’s conversation is cut or transposed. We were told that in the previews the play started with Hamlet’s ‘to be or not to be’,   but now we start with the grieving son sorting through his father’s possessions and listening to Nat King Cole’s Nature Boy.   This production had been criticized in The Times as "Hamlet for kids raised on Moulin Rouge".   Apart from this song being used in the Baz Luhrmann movie of Moulin Rouge (sung by David Bowie) I cannot see the point.   Did this tune subconsciously make the connection?  Anyway, I think it is good to start with Hamlet.  

The Direction delivers the text clearly,  coordinating the creative ideas of the crew, moving us along apace,  using the space, hits many of the emotional high and low notes, missing a few, works within the capacity of the actors,  gives the lead players room to explore and does not ignore the supporting roles.   All of these are important for a Director to manage.      I think Lyndsey Turner had done well enough.  

So what about the acting?

The play is set in the mid 20^th century,  judging from the weapons used, but Horatio, played by Leo Bill,  is presented as a late 20^th century  student, complete with self-inked tattoos and a back-pack.   Horatio being an academic fits the text, and Bill  plays his part well.   I could not quite see why he would be Hamlet’s bosom pal, but at least he is loyal and bright, unlike the deadly duo of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who are treacherous dullards.    I love Tom Stoppard’s play centering on them, and seeing it on the page, stage and screen has obviously engendered an affection for them in my heart, but here – quite rightly -  their off-stage death is no tragedy.   

Nor, sadly was Ophelia’s.   Sian Brooke  has worked with the RSC,  and certainly knows how to speak Shakespeare, but neither I nor my companion could see why or how she might have captured Hamlet’s heart.   Pretty, but rather round shouldered (in the way Princess Diana was)   she had little sparkle, and therefor when her spark was extinguished we did not miss a lot.   Her final exit was given the works by the Director,  using timing, lighting and swelling music to move us,  but we not moved.   Her early business with a camera was designed to provide an emotional pay-off later,  but again we felt short changed.    I once saw Robert Laplace’s one-man Hamlet.     (Yes, One Man Hamlet).     I expected it to be interesting.   I did not expect to be profoundly moved by his portrayal of the multiple roles, but the death of his Ophelia moved me to tears.    There were early murmurs that Jessica Chastain would play the part.  Be still my beating heart. 

Her brother Laertes is played by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith with vigour and clarity, and their father, old Polonius, by Jim Norton who is a well known actor in Ireland,  but most English eyes are more likely to recognize him as Bishop Brennan in Father Ted.    He certainly does a workmanlike job here, but nothing distinguishes his performance, nor that of Anastasia Halle as Gertrude.   I confess that seeing the magnificent Janet Suzmann play this part opposite Derek Jacobi’s Hamlet (yes, it was that long ago)  set a high bar.   

Ruairi Conaghan, another Irish actor, is the Player King, always a difficult part to play, as he is such a bad actor.   (Hamlet’s coaching him for his performance at the Court is very funny).   The Player Queen role goes to (yet) another Irish actor, Diveen Henry, who impressed us with her brief moment in the limelight.  

Karl Johnson is the Ghost and Gravedigger.  I loved his work in Mike Leigh’s Mister Turner, playing another father.   Here I thought his vocal delivery as Hamlet Snr. was rather strange, but he did provide the necessary comic relief as the gravedigger. 

Ciaran Hinds, however, really impressed.   He filled out the role of Claudius well,  his flashing eyes, resonant tones and physical presence made him a worthy adversary for Hamlet.    

And what of Hamlet?    Of course I loved Cumberbatch’s  Sherlock, and admire the whiplash mind that he had to have in order to play that part convincingly.   I was very impressed by his physicality and grace as Frankenstein’s creature in the 2011 NT/Danny Boyle production.    The Imitation Game showed another aspect of his talents; vulnerability.     So I know he is smart and fast, funny and physical.   (Early on, in the banquet scene, he lightly leaps onto the table without a break in his stride.  In fact it is not a leap; he simply steps up with no discernable effort.)     Here I saw a burning intelligent intensity, an absolute understanding of who Hamlet is, even when Hamlet himself does not know who – or what – he is.   Every word seems to have been thought through,  ‘read, marked, learnt and inwardly digested’.     He carried me with him through all his character’s changes, moods, confusions, fears,  jokes and rages.    It has been lamented by some that Cumberbatch does not have a more stellar supporting cast.    I can see the point, but on the plus side I heard every word, which is rather important,  nobody walked into the set or into another actor (and there was a slot of rapid hustle-bustle for time to time),  and apart from Ophelia I didn’t feel that anyone was miscast - or mis-directed. 

There is no one perfect reading of the role,  or of the play.   There is no agreed ‘best text.’     It is like a diamond held up to the light, revealing new facets with every slight change in perspective.    That is why it is so fascinating.   Perhaps the most we can expect from any one production is clarity, to hear every word, and to let the  play itself shine.     That said,  I have not seen a better performance of Hamlet on stage or screen.   

The Doctor and the Knight

I was thinking  earlier today that the fictional Doctor Who could be described as jobless, homeless and stateless.   After all, you can’t really describe ‘being The Doctor’ as a job and he has no address, other than ‘Doctor Who, somewhere/anywhere, some time/anytime’, and even if his home state of Gallifray exists, no one – not even The Doctor – knows where or even when it is.    So jobless,  homeless and stateless.   

And then, later this morning, this thought chimed with the announcement that Peter Capaldi, who plays The Doctor, has joined other celebrities including Neil Gaiman, Cate Blanchett, Colin Firth, and Patrick Stewart,  who have come together  to share their message of solidarity towards the refugee crisis, by explaining why there is an important difference between the terms "refugee" and "migrant".    When the media and politicians confuse these words policies and the money to support refugees  suffer.    That means lives are lost.  Worth Googling. 

But where is the synchronicity?  It lies in the latest episodes of Doctor Who, in which Capaldi’s Doctor prizes compassion above all other human virtues.    The evil Davros tells The Doctor that ‘his compassion will kill him’.  ‘I hope it will’ The Doctor replies,  ‘I wouldn’t want to die of anything else.’   

Peter Capaldi is also, as it happens,  a UNHCR Ambassador.    I wonder if he took both roles because of their educational importance.    Doctor Who, especially in its 21st century Steven Moffat form, has provided a highly entertaining moral and ethical education for children (and adults).   So, of course, has Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.     In both moral education is fun.     

Sir Terry has always smuggled humanistic insights and lessons into his work - and that is why I was/am so delighted that young teenage boys love them so much.     He has subtly undermined sexism (even the opposition to women wizards/priests), racism (one book was bluntly called Jingo), and xenophobia of all kinds.  

As you may know  Ankhmorporth, the largest Discworld city,  has slowly become the place where humans, trolls, dwarves, werewolves, vampires, Igors (the stitched together creations of Frankensteins)  and now even the stinky goblins can live together with equal rights (one book is called Equal Rites).      And he made us laugh while he did it, right from the start with Cohen the geriatric Barbarian  and Luggage in The Colour of Magic).   I shall miss Luggage.     

I am sure Sir Terry has left the world a better place, and 'nothing became him more than the manner of his leaving it' as they say.    His sideways view of language - not to mention luggage (oh I just did) -  and of the world, illuminated us, educated us, and amused us.    Is there any institution he left unvisited and undone?     I will always remember his insight in Small Gods,  that when we put the things we worship (gods or God)  into buildings, they die, and so (this is my insight) we start to worship the buildings instead.      

So Doctor Who and Discworld are two great cultural treasures.   And such fun.      I thank God for them both. 

Far from the Madding Crowd.

The recent DVD issue of Thomas Vinterberg  adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd  reminds me that I did not review it when it first came out.   Here goes.

I think  this movie is superior in many ways to the 1967 John Schlesinger film, starring Julie Christie, Peter Finch, Terence Stamp and Alan Bates.   The Vinterberg film has only one failing, but it is major. 

I think Carrie Mulligan’s reading of Bathsheba is very good, less flirtatious than Julie Christie’s,  less impulsive and more emancipated, even though the early voice-over establishing her feminist credentials is soon abandoned.    Henry James complained of the novel that "we cannot say that we either understand or like Bathsheba. She is a young lady of the inconsequential, willful, mettlesome type," one who "remains alternately vague and coarse and seems always artificial."   I think that Carrie makes her much more than that.   She is never vague, coarse or inconsequential, even though she is willful.     This  seriousness makes Bathsheba’s  sending of the Valentine card  to Boldwood  even more  disastrous, as it is so out of character.   We can see why Boldwood takes it in earnest.    

Her relationship with Sergeant Troy is of course irrational.   She falls in love with him, and it is not Mulligan’s fault that this seems improbable.     Tom Sturridge is not Terrence Stamp.   He lacks the intelligence and charisma of Troy’s earlier incarnation, and he seems sullen rather than heartbroken.    I think this is the major failure.  The Schlesinger 1967 film lasted nearly three hours, and we had time then to see more of Troy and Fanny Robin (Juno Temple) and understand Troy’s bitterness when he believes she has jilted him.    He is of course punishing Bathsheba for (what he thought was) Fanny’s betrayal, but in the later film his profound feelings of bitterness are not well enough established.      So, although Sturridge is dashing  he does not have the depth to explain either Bathsheba’s infatuation with him, or his own discombobulation.     

Bathsheba’s  ongoing relationship with  Gabriel, however, properly reflects her growing maturity.     Thomas Vinterberg has worked with  Matthias Schoenaerts before, in the remarkable Rust and Bone.  I simply did not recognize him here as having played that previous role.    I thought he more than matched Alan Bates’s performance,  as strong and enduring as an oak, he brought a physical presence that Bates lacked.      Michael Sheen presents a more sympathetic Boldwood than Peter Finch, who played him as imperious and obsessed, whereas Sheen shows us his vulnerability and integrity.    The conversation between Oak and Boldwood is beautifully done.   It has been  said that in this film ‘the passions that drive Hardy’s characters remain more stated than truly felt’,  but at least the passions are Hardy’s, not Hollywood’s.

And this story is about more than a four-sided triangle.   Hardy was consistently intrigued by the capricious nature of fate and the consequences of the apparently inconsequential.   The lost scarf, the mistaken church, the impetuous Valentine are all crucial to the plot, and this theme is well presented.   But/and, in the end, destiny/love triumphs.   Hardy was, after all a true Romantic.

Vinterberg brought his usual cinematographer,  Charlotte Bruus Christensen, to England to shoot Far From, and her work is magnificent.   Christensen’s images are lustrous,  with misty mornings,  honey blessed sunny days,  unsentimental sunsets and the essential rolling landscapes, honouring Hardy’s love of the country.    I think the famous swordplay/foreplay scene is more effective here than in the Schlesinger version.   It may be rather sad that someone (the Producers?)  changed the location from Wessex to Dorset, no doubt trying not confuse Americans, who often need to be told that scenes are set in ‘Paris, France’, or even ‘London, England’).

So what do I make of it all?   I think it is thoughtfully Directed, beautifully shot, and with a good score.    It is well written by David Nicholls - even if the final script is too short to fill out the inner turmoil of Troy.   Well acted; even though Sturridge cannot make Troy’s attraction to Bathsheba really credible.   Schoenaerts  fills out Gabriel Oak and Sheen earns our sympathy as Boldwood.  

In Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby Carrie Mulligan was given an uphill task trying to make Daisy interesting.   Fitzgerald’s Daisy is essentially shallow.   Hardy’s Bathsheba, on the other hand, has a depth that was not plumbed in the 1967 version.   This is her film, and Carrie owns it. 

Dublin rocks with Welles, Carol Ann Duffy, the Song of the Sea, and Birdman flies.

Once a year our little West Coast Town is taken over by traditional Irish music fans and students from all over the world for Willie Clancy Week, honouring the memory of a legendary local piper.   The population increases 10 fold,  so everyone is called on to offer B & B, including me.    Afterwards I treated myself to a week in Dublin, enjoying access to the theatre and a more metropolitan cinema.    By the way, if you want to stay in Dublin it is worth checking out the accommodation at Trinity College, where student suites are available, right in the heart of the city, with free parking,  and the freedom to cook you own food if you want. 

To the west of the city centre, in Smithfields close by the main train station, you find the Light House Cinema.      This is a great cinema, part of the Europa network and the British National Theatre live broadcast group.   The architecture is imaginative, spacious and houses a couple of bars/cafes.    So what did I see?

First of all the restored version of Orson Welles’s Touch Of Evil.    Oddly enough this movie also explored the ‘ends and means’ dilemma explored in The East reviewed below.   This movie was made in 1958, when Welles’ was initially hired to play the part of Quinlan, a corrupt cop working on the Tex/Mex border.   He virtually rewrote the original script and, at the insistence of Charlton Heston,  took over the direction.     As soon as it was shot the studio fired Welles and butchered the final cut.     It took forty years before it was recreated (much to the credit of Heston) in something like Welles’  version.       I had only seen the  mutilated version before , and it was so good to see it more or less the way Orson wanted it to be cut,  and on the big screen,  as noir as noir can be.    Janet Leigh, Marlene Dietrich and Dennis Weaver joined Welles and Heston.    It must be on DVD now.

Two days later I was back  (having been The Gate Theatre the night before to see Brian Friel's translation of Turgenev's A Month in the Country) to see the National Theatre’s live broadcast of Everyman.    Carol Ann Duffy adapted this 15^th century morality tale, in which we are all (as Everyman) confronted with the reality of death and the question of whether or not our lives have been well spent.    Rufus Norris directed, with Chiwetel Enjiofor as Everyman, Kate Duchene as God/Good Deeds and Dermot Crowley as her heavy, Death. 

Duffy’s script is decidedly  21^st century,   using both heightened and demotic language,  sometimes properly (and very) vulgar.      Enjiofor brings enormous physical and emotional energy to his role,  the Irish actor Dermot Crowley plays Death with relish, and Kate Duchene is the cleaning woman 

You find me at my work –

She who cleans the room before the party

Mops up afterwards… a vicious circle…

Skivvying for those who are immortal.

Or think they are…

who also happens to be God.     She is deeply unhappy  about what Everyman thinks is success, and by what we are doing to her Creation.

For I perceive here in my Majesty

How all mankind grows worse from year to year,

Cavorting with Wrath, Greed, Sloth,

With Pride, Lust, Envy and with Gluttony.

It seems to me that Everyman  has had enough of me

Or takes my name in vain.  The angels weep

To see the ruins of the Earth;

The gathered waters, which I called the seas,

Unclean, choking on themselves.

The dry land – fractured fracked, 

The  firmament so full of filth,

My two Great Lights, to rule the day and night,

have tears in their eyes.    

I loved it, but most of all Duffy’s wonderful script.  

Another night at the theatre (this time a student production back at Trinity College) and then the new Irish film The Song of the Sea.     I say Irish, and this is as Irish as can be, but even though it cost less than £5 million to make, it still needed European money to help the Irish Cartoon Saloon to get it made.  

This is a cartoon, but the Cartoon Saloon’s  house style is unique, as previously seen in  their Book of Kells.      It takes on board the  style of the ancient  illuminative scriptures and uses the  two-dimensionality of the screen with profound seriousness as it brings together two ancient Irish legends.    David Rawle (Moone Boy)  is the boy with the silkie sister,  Brendan Gleeson is his Lighthouse keeper father, and Lisa Hannigan provides a voice - and her music.   

 I was simply ravished by the beauty of this movie.   Go see it on the big screen if you possibly can. 

Back home at last I watched Birdman Or (The unexpected Virtues of Ignorance).    I had heard so much in praise of this, but I had also heard a lot of praise for Babel,  Alejandro  G. Innaritu’s earlier film, and was disappointed by it (in the main).   No disappointment here though;  I thoroughly enjoyed this.  

Much has been made of the fact that the whole film seems to be one take.  It’s not, of course, but the edits are skilfully hidden, and the actual uninterrupted scenes are indeed sometimes very long.     Not as long as in the live theatre of course, where only the scenes or acts break up the action.  And I had just seen Everyman; one long take.    Impressive though the choreography of Birdman is, along with the discipline of the actors who have to hit every mark not only in the right place but at exactly the right time, that does't seem to me to be the point.   The movie is set in a theatre, as a new play is rehearsed, previewed and eventually performed.      Ironically, the rehearsals and even performances are continually interrupted.   There is no flow.  The lives of the actors keep getting in the way – their lives, problems and egos.   All of the them are looking for meaning and coherence in their own lives, but the play will not deliver it to them.  There seems to be wonderful irony here.    

Michael Keaton plays the self-referential role of the actor who was a Tent-pole movie hero  twenty years beforehand, cf his Batman,  and who now wants, needs, to make a comeback in something with more artistic authenticity.      He is wonderful.   Edward Norton plays what may also be a somewhat self-referential role as the gifted but difficult actor who steps in at the last moment to make or break the play.   The wonderful Naomi Watts is simply wonderful, again, Emma Stone and Andrea Risborough (another of my favourite actresses) also offer great support.     

Of course the real hero must be the cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki,  whose work in Sleepy Hollow,  Y Tu Mama Tambien,  The New World,  Children of Men, The Tree of Life and Gravity puts him up there among the truly greats.    

So what a lucky man am I.   Someone called me a Culture Vulture, but culture is not a rotting corpse,  it is a lively body of ongoing work, and it feeds my soul in so may ways.