Falstaff

[tealin]

I've been very slowly picking my way through The Hollow Crown, partly out of a desire to savour it, and partly because of limited time, but mostly because the ISC's summer season is on so my Shakespeare needs are amply met.

Another reason my consumption of the series has slowed dramatically is because I saw Henry IV Part I, and am not overly keen on sitting through whatever Richard Eyre has done with Part 2.

I was reluctant at first to pin all the blame on him, and I'm still not certain he is solely at fault for what I found lacking, but the more I think on it the more it seems my problems with the show are directorial decisions. There's a sort of fogginess to the whole thing; it feels like in order to get to the plot and characters you have to fight through layers of batting. I am not certain what is responsible for this effect – it might be a combination of cinematography, sound mixing, and interpretive decisions – but it served very effectively to distance me from the story, and I had to concentrate really hard just to stay on top of what's happening. It reminded me forcibly of the filmed Shakespeare we'd watch in school, which along with round-robin cold readings made me think I didn't like Shakespeare; the language was impenetrable, the characters dull, the visuals all sort of mush ... It astonished me that shots from this installment had way more emotional punch in the Hollow Crown trailer than they did in full narrative context.

Before the series started airing, there was an interview with Sam Mendes, who oversaw the whole thing somehow, and the topic of verse speaking came up. This is a technique for approaching Shakespeare's dialogue which basically takes the attitude that Shakespeare wrote in verse for a reason, that the line breaks and stresses that occur in the poetry imply the intended delivery and meaning, and that when performed this way the language is effective communication rather than a barrier. The ISC is a verse speaking company, and that's a big part of why their Shakespeare is so clear and accessible. Mr Mendes said that some of the directors of the Hollow Crown plays were into verse speaking and some weren't – I wonder if that's a deciding factor here, and whether the director of Richard II took the verse speaking approach, because there is a marvellous crisp autumn morning clarity to Richard II, compared to Henry IV Part I. Some of that is definitely down to the camera work and focused characters, but I had to put in a lot more effort to comprehend the language in Henry than Richard, and I listen to Shakespeare pretty much all the time these days so I didn't think the language would be a problem anymore.

Adding to the frustration was the awareness that, hidden somewhere in all the batting, was a really excellent story with some intriguing themes that could really have been taken advantage of if they'd been brought to the surface. The same goes for the characters: I wanted to like the characters – shoot, I would have been happy just to get a good sense of who they were – and it was entirely within the capability of the talented cast to bring them vibrantly to life, but decisions on how to portray them, and further muddying in the shooting and editing, did them a tremendous disservice.

While the Internet seems interested solely in Tom Hiddleston's Prince Hal, I'd like to direct your attention to his friend Falstaff, because my disappointment with this adaptation was sparked by him, and it's easiest to demonstrate what I mean by all the above rambling with Falstaff as an example.

Before seeing any of The Hollow Crown, I watched Simon Schama's two-part documentary on Shakespeare's place in his own contemporary culture and his timeless influence on England's image of itself (which is excellent, and highly recommended if you get the chance to see it). The doc is peppered with soliloquies, a number of them from Falstaff as exemplar of the hearty, bombastic, sentimental side of the English character. They cast Roger Allam for the part, and he played him brilliantly. I take it for granted that Mr Allam brings the quality to everything he does so I didn't think much of it, but when presented with the image of Falstaff Mr Eyre chose to present, I appreciated him all the more. Allam's Falstaff enjoys the high life, certainly, but he's got a sharp wit and intensity of character that make him both enjoyable and plausible as an over-the-hill ne'er-do-well. The Falstaff played by Simon Russell Beale in Mr Eyre's film version is, in one word, doddering, which is much less fun to watch, and I found it clashed distractingly with how he's written – if he's so inept at everything, how can he have lived by his wits for so long? It would be one thing if the fox was starting to lose his touch – that's interesting – but all signs point to Beale's Falstaff never having been a fox in the first place, just someone who thinks he's a fox and is incognisant of how lucky he's been to land a comfortable life.

Anyway, I can talk all day, but won't illuminate my meaning any better than these clips will. Here's Mr Allam's take on the 'Honour' soliloquy, as seen in the Schama doc:

When I was poking around YouTube looking for that, a few weeks ago, I learned he had played Falstaff in the Globe's production of Henry IV Part I a few years ago, which means we can see a side-by-side comparison of his Falstaff and the Hollow Crown version, thanks to a keen YouTuber who also noticed the difference.

Then there's the role-playing scene ... When I watched it in The Hollow Crown I was grateful I'd had it explained to me in the Schama doc because I would have been unable to parse it otherwise – I was having enough trouble just making out what they were saying.

But soft! What's this? The Globe's rendition makes it clear as day? And can it be, I get a better sense of Hal and Falstaff's relationship in these eleven minutes than I do in all the Hollow Crown version?

I do not blame the actors for this weakness, because as far as I can tell, the acting itself is fine – it's the characters they've been given to portray, their unclear relationships with each other, filtered through distracted visual storytelling, which ends up in such a muddle onscreen. Mr Beale acts Doddering Falstaff excellently - it's the decision to make him doddering I take issue with. I quite enjoy a number of performances in this adaptation in isolation, it's just that when strung together they don't make a cohesive whole.

tl;dr - Still safe in saying the ISC has spoiled me for Shakespeare forever, though I may invest in the Globe's Henry IV Part 1 to see the potential of the play more fully realised.