Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => Literature, Music, Art & Entertainment => Topic started by: Steve H on November 10, 2023, 02:30:48 PM
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A brilliant production of my favourite of Shakespeare's plays, 'Henry V', from the Globe in London in 2012, which I saw at the Globe as a groundling then (not on this night, though: I did look for my self amongst the groundlings, but I'm not there: I was up against the stage edge.) Having a female chorus is unusual, but there are precedents; in the 19th Century, female choruses were often costumed as either Britannia or as the muse of history.
This has been put on iplayer as part of the BBC's celebration of the 400th anniversary of the publishing of the First Folio, There's lots of other good Shakespearean stuff up as well.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001rrz7/henry-v-from-shakespeares-globe
My programme:
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I went to see Kenneth Branagh in King Lear on Saturday. Better I would suggest than the reviews for it. It's a short versio - 2hrs - and I think benefited from that more than the reviewers suggested. Where they suggested that some motivations seemed surprisingly fast, I think they remain surprising in longer versions just slow.
In some ways, it felt quite old fashioned. When I arrive at a theatre now, and see the stage set up to be revolving, a small groan escapes.
A lot of people struggled with the tv programme Succession, which is in many ways just an updated Lear, because there are so few, possibly none, likable characters. That is true to its source though, and in longer versions they just extend that unlikability.
Not a piece of theatre that I would put in greats I've seen, though my issues with the play itself are core to that, but way better than the reviews.