Love and Liberty

Sixty years ago tonight, the BBC broadcast the centrepiece of their hugely ambitious, brilliant Shakespeare Henriad An Age of Kings – beginning the really popular one, Henry V.
Eight years ago tonight, the BBC broadcast the centrepiece of their hugely ambitious, brilliant Shakespeare Henriad The Hollow Crown – the really popular one, Henry V.

It’s Robert Hardy vs Tom Hiddleston as the one Official Good King of the set, fifty-two years apart.

Hiddleston looks fantastic and has glorious weight in speeches and in battle, but doesn’t look like he’s enjoying himself nearly as much as Hardy, who gets his big matches with Sean Connery and Judi Dench* and whose St Crispin’s Day speech is the most rousing I’ve seen.






Mores have changed so that Falstaff was still a big draw in 1960, but he’s just drunk and unappealing in the later version to the extent you can’t see what they see in him.

*I think Dench is the one actor in both series (though not on July 21).




I’m at most a very casual Shakespeare fan. Sometimes I’m in the mood and swept away by a series like this; sometimes I run up against modern avant-garde interpretation of the sort insightfully described by Shakespearean scholar Philomena Cunk as “completely f—ing unwatchable” and founder.

What’s A Henriad and Why Do I Need To Watch Two of Them?

An Age of Kings and The Hollow Crown are both fantastic but very different takes on the same plays. They do the complete run of the two Henriads in historical order (which even Shakespeare didn’t): Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI and Richard III. Two of the Kings here, and not the best ones, get multiple plays to their names; Edward IV [don’t mention V] doesn’t get his own.

These series are the only times I’ve watched all the plays as a set, though I’ve seen half of them presented solo in other versions (not counting Game of Thrones). But you might think of the two Henriads – sets of plays about the Henrys – as the original Roses Wars plus the Prequel Trilogy (OK, tetralogy, but Henry IV’s in two Parts, which is cheating).

An Age of Kings is one continuous story shown fortnightly across April-November 1960, the plays broken into hour-and-a-bit episodes.
The Hollow Crown is seven movies, shown in two series in 2012 and 2016.

“An Age of Kings” is a title fit for grandeur, ambition and six-months’-worth of TV. “The Hollow Crown” sounds bleaker and darker; less appealing, more modern. For me, it better evokes the Henriads, as they have a lot of Kings but most of them aren’t up to it (nor enjoying it).
They knew that in 1960, too. The opening episode of An Age of Kings is the first half of Richard II and takes its title from a famous line in that play: An Age of Kings 1 – The Hollow Crown.
(Sadly, no episodes of The Hollow Crown are subtitled “An Age of Kings”).

Richard II and Epic Vs Pace

Richard II in 1960 is much less fabulous than Ben Whishaw but even more all at sea than in other versions I’ve seen and Bolingbroke is just creepy, so even from the first you think ‘Neither as King, please’ (and also think ‘How can I work “insatiate cormorant!” into conversation?’).

The main things I remember from each of these series are what you might call grand historical sweeps, from how TV is produced to how monarchs are compared in Shakespeare. That, and some fantastic actors.
Richard II is the key to both.

An Age of Kings is made in small studios, in black and white, with an amazing cast of soon-to-be-very-famous actors who often pop up weeks later in different parts and wigs, like a theatre rep company.
The Hollow Crown is epic movies for television.

You’d think the 2012-2016 series is more modern than the 1960. Well, yes, by definition. Except… With grand locations and epic sweeps of the camera come actors striking poses and declaiming as seriously as their cinematography demands.
1960 is fast, and much less reverent.

While The Hollow Crown is staged far more naturalistically, An Age of Kings is played far more naturalistically.

My defining scene: Bolingbroke has Bushy and Green, two of the other side / traitors murdered / executed (you get these fuzzy edges in undeclared civil wars).
In 2012, Rory Kinnear stands on the edge of a cliff and makes his self-justifying speech, the others make their self-justifications, there is a sweep of the camera and a sweep of the blade and the two heads fall. It looks real.
In 1960, Tom Fleming snaps out his orders on a cramped bit of stage, his two victims gabble across each other in a panic, he cuts off their lines and they’re dragged off to be slaughtered without him listening. It feels real.

The rapid-fire TV speech vs showing sumptuous locations might be the biggest difference between the two productions.
Another is, I think, that the statelier Hollow Crown is more kindly to its Kings, but that’s harder to crystallise.

I have to admit that one reason I adored An Age of Kings was that it was full of actors who would go on to Doctor Who – albeit most looking startlingly young, lean and hungry (to the point of undernourished, having grown up under rationing).

There’s Jerome Willis being dragged to his death – he’ll be back in many roles, most strikingly as the Dauphin.
There’s George A Cooper with a full head of dark hair and a beard! Is it a wig, or did all his go really suddenly?
Great Who villain John Ringham doesn’t get to be Richard III in this one, so he’ll play an Aztec as Olivier instead.
Most of all, my favourite Julian Glover, who gets a mass of parts and is luckily cast in his biggest last, so his repeats stand out less.

Michael Hayes directed An Age of Kings; by a strange coincidence, I’d rewatched his 1979 Doctor Who – The Armageddon Factor before seeing his epic Shakespeare, so did he put in the “This blessed plot” line, or was that in the script, or a Tom Baker ad-lib, and another huge coincidence?

Watching in historical line, the Yorks are set up as baddies from the first. At least Bolingbroke has some balls, it seems to say, but the Yorks haver from side to side (part of why Richard II is a bad king). The father even says his son – or is he? – deserves to die (mirrored in the finale when Richard III’s cursed by his mum)! So the whole line’s condemned at the root: the House of York descends from a compromised, possibly bastard, all-round traitor and eventual kingslayer, the damned son Aumerle.
Just a little weighted there.

One acting criticism for The Hollow Crown: in context, Tom Hughes needs to be a scene-stealing proto-Richard III as Aumerle. He’s adequate for a smallish part, but if you’re looking through the line he ought to be compelling (no match for Ben Whishaw’s deserved BAFTA).
[To be fair, I realise that I only thought of this deficiency in the character while watching The Hollow Crown and I don’t remember anything about Aumerle in An Age of Kings, which probably comes to the same criticism.]

OK – big skip, because although I was enthralled I didn’t make a lot of notes, and I’ve already told you all I had on the most popular King and play. So onto the Henry VIs, which aren’t much celebrated and each of which are cut down but in interestingly different ways…

More Failed Kings and Three Cheers For Richard

An Age of Kings keeps the common rebellion at home but loses most of the noble battles in France; The Hollow Crown is mostly the reverse. Although both versions rush through the three Henry VI plays to get to Richard III, I preferred this second half.

Henry IV’s a more coherent story than VI, but I’m less keen on Falstaff and on patriotic conquest as the punchline – and of the two big, popular plays here, the Hollow Crown season finales, I’m always for Richard III over Henry V.
The Henry VIs aren’t very satisfying unless you add Richard III – or, as in McKellen’s Richard III (my favourite Shakespeare), just do the brilliant one and pillage extra bits from Henry VI.
But it really works when you see Richard on the rise through someone else’s plays.

Paul Daneman’s 1960 Richard (III to be) is terrific, a slow build, then leaping to seize it. I remember thinking, thank god! when he makes his electric speech, miming seizing the crown, lines I knew from McKellen.

Intriguingly, it’s not that Richard III forswears love for power, but goes for power because love has forsworn him from his mother’s womb. Not least juxtaposed with Henry VI’s long and whiny self-pity, you can respect Richard!

The Hollow Crown deftly simplifies the story (dropping the rabble, shortening the conflict), but it also makes all the would-be kings here more sympathetic – bar Cumberbatch’s powerfully vicious Richard.
An Age of Kings really critiques the whole idea of kingship.

Richard Plantagenet (father York of Edward, Clarence and Richard) is Magneto in X-Men, the best of them all in cunning, ability and even nobility. Like Magneto, 1960 Jack May must keep saying ‘I’m a villain!’ so you don’t side with him and think he has a point. By contrast, 2016 Adrian Dunbar is more blatantly noble, but rash and a bit dim (though in helmets showing only their profiles, he and Cumberbatch do look father and son).

Even with Shakespeare tilted against them, the Yorks seem much the more reasonable side. Richard Plantagenet the elder giving up his own claims for his sons is the reverse of Henry VI – saintly Henry, the exemplar of oathbreaking who would rather the land “unpeopled” by war than abdicate himself. Kill everyone!

Terry Scully’s 1960 Henry VI is a whining, petulant, entitled tosser with no ability as king and no sense of responsibility, far more of a failure than Tom Sturridge’s 2016 away with the fairies interpretation.
[From now on I’m concentrating on An Age of Kings – purely because I made notes when I watched it!]

But the real 1960 critique of monarchy is Julian Glover’s Edward IV, who steals it even from Daneman’s business with massive-I’m-king-really-look crowns and sprawling his crotch as he chats up sexy Elizabeth (like Helen of Troy, an unrewarding part for any woman). Glover’s Edward is a much loucher and far more insightful performance than any I’ve seen because you believe, yes, he really does only think with his knob, and he’s a terrible king – he wants a shag more than to do the job.

Clarence is another petulant, entitled one, and a drunk (fed by Richard, with a fabulous end credits business of saving Clarence falling into a barrel then repeated looks to camera that had me laughing aloud).
Completely changed as a character if you only see him in Richard III… Just like his brothers.

Richard III on its own is a terrific play, but it’s easy to take from it that Edward IV is a wise old King slandered by Richard, Clarence a nice old buffer who’s a bit too innocent for his own good, and Richard III an appalling villain who brings down a goodly court purely through his own ambition. None of these are true at the end of either series here.

Watched as the culmination of the Henriads, like any great series finale Richard III gains a lot more layers, just as you root even more for Richard himself getting a grip. Not only was Edward IV a bad King and Clarence a treacherous schemer, but throughout these plays England’s been mired in decades of pointless death, divided and leaderless under whichever self-indulgent waste of a king, save one brief golden moment.

So when Richard has magnetism and actual decisiveness, you might very well think that he might be evil, but at least he’s got it.
Much like the other spurned villain (through her sex), Queen Margaret, Mary Morris being amazing – she gives by far the best troop-rousing speech and is the only one who totally rocks a crown.



An Age of Kings’ finale is superb bar its women: haunted Mary Morris and Violet Carson guesting one month early in hairnet wimple, but they cut the cursing and the Elizabeths don’t even get to say yes or no to Henry Tulip (a terrible King to be, but barely in the play except as Hope).

Hardy’s Hal is in the crowd, hilariously, for a last curtain-call cameo in the ‘two priests’ (not actual priests) scene. An in-joke on the constantly rotating rep company – Glover’s so good in so many wigs and beards and fortunate in his Edward being last that he almost gets away with it, but Jerome Willis was so distinctive as the Dauphin and Jack May as York that you can’t miss them as Richmond (astonishingly pious) or Stanley (nearly as plotting) at the end.
Another cut: “I’m not made of stone!” Boo.
But though much of the scene resembles the Olivier staging, instead of the naked power at the end, Richard tips his prayerbook up to God and then tosses it down.
I don’t really like their Buckingham, though.



Which Richard III?
Iconic Olivier; devilishly charming McKellen; shockingly savage Cumberbatch…? 1960 Paul Daneman is as brilliant as any of them, from hysterical glee to bloodstained determination at the end.
And pious as Tudor may seem, he wins the crown writhing in the mud.

Though damning Richard III as the worst of villains, Shakespeare still explicitly rejects “A horse!” as Richard attempting to flee – it’s to fight on from strength, having already “slain five Richmonds”, and he refuses offers to get him away.
A bold fighter to the end – like Henry V, the only other King up to the job.
That is not an endorsement of crowns.

Finale to the whole Age of Kings: murk over Bosworth ends the brief dynasty heralded by the Three Suns / Sons of Mortimer’s Cross. And “England hath long been mad” is far more powerful as the cap to a series rather than a single play.

This 1960 production’s “Despair and die!” ghosts are so terrifically done they look like a big influence on the climax of The Caves of Androzani…
I always see things through Doctor Who eyes. But Shakespeare’s sometimes pretty exciting, too.


(I started writing this as a Twitter thread this afternoon, on spotting the enticing double-anniversary where the two adaptations crossed. Then I found I’d made intermittent notes on watching some of these, and the thread grew into a yarn. So I decided that I’d simply blog it all at the same time, as that might be easier to follow.

This is the sixth of what might be a series of Fragments – not-quite-finished, not-quite-polished, from ideas I’ve written up over time and maybe I’ll share some of them anyway. If you’d like more, please let me know, and if you’d like to help, please ask me, ‘Have you at some point written something intriguing about Story / Series X, and could you find it, consider it and post it?’ You might suggest one that I can (TS;RM [Too Short; Read More]? Here). Nobody requested this one, but I got carried away.

Labels: Fragments, Henry V, Ian McKellen, Julian Glover, Richard II, Richard III, Sean Connery, Shakespeare, The Armageddon Factor

Last weekend, the BBC’s new Shakespeare series The Hollow Crown was given a fanfare on the cover of the Radio Times. This weekend, it was given a raspberry as a Sixteenth Century fictionalisation of Fifteenth Century history was sabotaged by Twenty-first Century programming, weather and sport. When these days all you should need to record a TV show is to select its Electronic Programme Guide entry and let your digital device activate on broadcast, the BBC managed to mess up both broadcast and EPG, leaving recordings across the nation as less Henry IV, Part 1 than Henry IV, Part 0.5.

Regular readers may be aware that I’m not exactly a fan of sport. However, I do understand that live sport will occasionally run over time and delay other programmes. In the olden days, when people were out they had to set their own video recorders and hope that the TV schedules advertised might bear some relationship to reality. In theory, these days the channel’s programmers can update the EPG for a delayed programme and everyone’s digital recorders will simply act on the new information.

This requires, as do all computers for the information you get out of them, that the people putting in the information aren’t completely incompetent.

A Dumb Box and Dumber at the BBC

There are many different varieties of digital recorder, so I won’t claim to speak for them all, but ours is fairly standard: it’s a dumb box that assumes its users are dumber, so there’s no manual override. In theory, this is to prevent someone setting a recording going, forgetting about it, and using up all the memory in one great lump. In practice, when TV stations are rarely known for sticking to the precise minute of their schedules, this would usually mean missing the end or the beginning of programmes, as almost all start a minute or two early or finish a minute or two late. There’s no option to press a button that says, ‘Keep recording until I stop, you bastard!’

To correct this obvious problem, the manufacturers do allow you to change the default setting on the machine so as to top and tail your timer recordings with a few extra minutes (ours is set to start three minutes ahead and finish five after; sadly, you can’t set it by channel so that the BBC gets the full five at the end for running over time, while channels carrying advertising finish on time so most recordings don’t end in an extended ten minutes of ads and unwanted programming). But this only applies to shows you’ve checked by EPG in advance; if you simply press “Record” for something going out live, it will stop recording the very second that the EPG (that again) says it’s scheduled to finish, and no amount of swearing at it will extend that.

Last Night’s Stopping and Starting

I tuned in a few minutes before 9 last night to catch BBC2’s broadcast of Henry IV, Part 1. Or not, as they were still showing Wimbledon. Richard was away; I was meant to be, but not well enough; fortunately, this meant I could at least stop our EPG recording from saving us the tennis. So it clicked on at 8.57, and I switched it off, and waited. Within a few minutes, the EPG had changed to indicate a start time for the play of 9.15. So I selected the new EPG, and our machine started again at 9.12. It was still tennis. I stopped it again. Within another few minutes, the EPG had changed again to start Henry at 9.30. By this time, people who claim that live sport needs special treatment were losing the argument: the simultaneous broadcast on BBC2 and BBCHD was showing a mixture of interminable post-game sports babble, bits of game in daylight (and so clearly not live, unless the Isle of Dogs has suddenly switched to a different time zone from Wimbledon) and even minutes-long shots of the stadium in darkness from high above, cars driving away from it. Yet 9.27 and then 9.30 passed, still with no move to the scheduled programme.

By 9.35, the EPG had updated yet again to suggest a start time of 10pm. So I reset my digital recorder yet again… But noticed something was wrong. Henry IV, Part 1 was scheduled to show from 9pm to 10.55; on the first new EPG, all the programme times for the rest of the night were put back by 15 minutes; on the second, by half an hour; but this time, although the start time had been altered to encompass the hour’s delay, the BBC munchkins setting the EPG hadn’t altered the end time, with the next programme claimed to be starting at the original 10.55. Even though this couldn’t possibly be true, unless they were going to play the two-hour Shakespeare at double speed.

So I spent the next quarter-hour on hold with the automatic voices at the BBC, which eventually auto-hung up on me ironically mid-way through telling me for the 463rd that my call was important to them. Because I could see what was coming, even if the people who were paid to couldn’t.

You see, if you set a recording by EPG, then it starts when the EPG tells it to, and finishes when that EPG tells it to. If the EPG changes later, it’s too late – the machine’s had its instructions. So when the EPG changed a few minutes after 9, for anyone who’d set in advance and their machines had started recording at the proper time, it was too late. And the same for when it changed at about 9.20, and then 9.35. Had the people paid to programme the EPGs changed them in advance of the due time, even by a few minutes when it was bleeding obvious that they needed changing, then recorders would have sat patiently waiting for the live EPGs to tell them to start.

And if they’d bothered to put the correct end time for the eventual 10pm showing before about quarter past ten, by which time it was of no earthly use, my recording wouldn’t had stopped on the dot of 11pm, as I’d predicted it would an hour and a half earlier but the incompetents at the BBC hadn’t.

So, despite trying not to watch the play because I was hoping to wait and watch it with Richard, I had to watch half-way through for the moment when it stopped part-way into Henry telling off Hal. Then look again at 11.55 because, of course, it finished 3 minutes late on top of all the other lateness, which meant that the manual recording I’d had to start of the second half had neatly stopped, again, at precisely the moment the EPG said it was due to stop, half-way through Falstaff’s soliloquy. Splitting the play into three separate recordings, all because the EPG programmers didn’t do their jobs properly.

Richard is now home, and we’re now watching the hastily-arranged repeat on BBC4. It was announced immediately after the chopped-about first broadcast. The EPG wasn’t updated until today, of course, so you couldn’t set up for it right then.

Some might say that you can watch these things on the iPlayer. Well, yes, but if I’m going to spend two hours watching something, I’d rather do it on my big screen with no blurring and no buffering, and that’s what EPG recordings are meant to be for. And if you wanted to watch The Hollow Crown in HD, you’re stuffed. If you’re very, very lucky, the BBC might eventually release it on Blu-Ray – but, irritatingly, despite now making so many programmes in high definition, and ‘protecting’ them from copying with signals that mean you can’t back most of them up, those programmes they do release are usually just on DVD and not Blu-Ray. So, congratulations again, BBC, for making programmes in HD and then going to such lengths to prevent people watching them or keeping them that way.

And if you think that’s a rant, you should have heard me last night. Patrick Troughton used to say he didn’t do theatre because it was just “Shouting in the evenings” – I think our neighbours might agree.

After all that, the infamous ‘tennis as insult’ scene in The Hollow Crown’s finale Henry V in a fortnight is going to see almost bitterly satirical.

Labels: BBC, Patrick Troughton, Shakespeare, Technology, Theatre