The 1970s/1980s BBC adaptation of all of Shakespeare's plays would be done very differently today. Back then, nearly all the actors and most of the stories were played in an old-fashioned Elizabethan style that you just wouldn't see nowadays.
This is exactly what plagues "The Tempest", one of Shakespeare's last plays and a story that just cries out for modern special effects to really add life to it's language and it's characters.
The story tells of Prospero (Micheal Hordern), the deposed Duke of Milan, reclaiming his Dukedom on the island where he's been exiled and he uses his powers of magic to whip a storm (the tempest of the title) to bring those who ousted him to the island, where they can resolve their differences. Complications arise with Prospero's daughter Miranda (Pippa Guard), the sailor Ferdinand (Christopher Guard) with whom she falls in love and the machinations of Ariel (David Dixon), a spirit of the island and Caliban (Warren Clarke), Prospero's slave...
It is as always very well acted, with notable performances from Hordern as Prospero and Pippa Guard who makes a very pretty Miranda. It is wonderful to see Nigel Hawthorne and Andrew Sachs pop up as clowns Stefano and Trinculo and they are good fun to watch on screen.
The design of the play is a perhaps a little bit too stagey, and not enough is made of the character of the island itself. Caliban's speech in Act 3, Scene Two tells of the wonders of the island but there is too little of these wonders on screen and a parade of naked man masquerading as spirits does not compensate for this.
Good to watch, but definitely for Shakespeare buffs only.
This is exactly what plagues "The Tempest", one of Shakespeare's last plays and a story that just cries out for modern special effects to really add life to it's language and it's characters.
The story tells of Prospero (Micheal Hordern), the deposed Duke of Milan, reclaiming his Dukedom on the island where he's been exiled and he uses his powers of magic to whip a storm (the tempest of the title) to bring those who ousted him to the island, where they can resolve their differences. Complications arise with Prospero's daughter Miranda (Pippa Guard), the sailor Ferdinand (Christopher Guard) with whom she falls in love and the machinations of Ariel (David Dixon), a spirit of the island and Caliban (Warren Clarke), Prospero's slave...
It is as always very well acted, with notable performances from Hordern as Prospero and Pippa Guard who makes a very pretty Miranda. It is wonderful to see Nigel Hawthorne and Andrew Sachs pop up as clowns Stefano and Trinculo and they are good fun to watch on screen.
The design of the play is a perhaps a little bit too stagey, and not enough is made of the character of the island itself. Caliban's speech in Act 3, Scene Two tells of the wonders of the island but there is too little of these wonders on screen and a parade of naked man masquerading as spirits does not compensate for this.
Good to watch, but definitely for Shakespeare buffs only.