Missy - Richard II ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 I love the Henriad and I enjoy many things about the War of the Roses .  That whole conflict was set into motion largely by the events depicted in this play.

The first version I saw of this play had Richard as some sort of homophonic’s idea of an effete lily livered coward and Henry Bolingbrook as a basic John Wayne swaggerer.

This version is the first Richard II I loved. I bought the DVDs as soon as they came out and my mom bought them for me later that year for my birthday. Apparently I also bought them from Amazon because when I looked it up to rent it I found that I last watched it in 2023 when I purchased the series (ha thanks ADHD). 

Things I love about this version: sets, casting, delivery. 

Things I don’t love: it’s fairly dense and I’m glad we started with other plays because this is one that takes some Shakespeare in the ear. Don’t get me wrong, the language is beautiful and its complexity, especially in Richard’s case is fully intentional.

Mariam was looking forward to getting to the histories and here we are. I very much hope she’s likening them so far.

The sets were beautifully shot but were also, in and of themselves, beautiful. Everything here was shot on location and for the most part the palaces and forests are still mostly as they were. When my little SCA loving, history buff of a heart imagines the best things of the Middle Ages this is the stuff. Many things are in their platonically ideal state in this series. There are castles and knights and bowers and bridges all worth drooling over. I don’t tend to think of backgrounds as lush but Richard’s tent or the simple throwing stones into the river scene, during the ‘planning’ of the Ireland campaign, are just plain lush.

The delivery here is tricky. There is an awful lot of iambic pentameter in this play. There are many many speeches that could as well be lists. There is the floral speech of the elite aristocracy and very little else for many scenes. 

It’s delicate work to be true to the text and not off putting to the modern ear, with Richard II. I feel like they did a bang up job. The delivery felt authentic and poetical. It felt idealized rather than patronizing.

It’s the cast though that takes this one to 5 stars. I love Shakespeare but I don’t throw my 5 stars around without consideration. 

Ben Wishaw, who I adored as Ariel in our recent Tempest watch, IS Richard II. He got the BAFTA for this and it was well deserved.

His Michael Jacksonesque money and sense of celebrity leavened with a risible messiah complex make for a riveting watch. He speaks poetry like conversation and pushes camp to a complexity rarely matched. He’s earned the 5 stars all by himself.

Look at his moods here.

He is a figure that would make my daughter yell “Slay”. He’s full of drama and grandeur and I love him.

He’s a terrible ruler though.

The Divine right of Kings is at issue here and boy is it an issue.

His cousin Henry Bolingbrook is honorable and ambitious and Kingly in most other ways. He’s also in the end a traitor. 

I like very much the portrayal here by Rory Kinnear. He is a little at a loss, most of the time, and has both real affection for his cousin and a constant internal battle when obeying his orders. 

I like that he feels so aware of himself  throughout. He lies to himself and others to justify his actions, but he knows it. The rationalizations are sensible and inexcusable.

But also, and especially to a modern American non monarchist, he is right. 

My shout out this time goes to Patrick Stewart. John Gaunt/Old Gaunt is a small part, if pivotal, and I’d forgotten that he was even in this version. Then I saw him and couldn’t believe I’d forgotten. He is great here, sympathetic and honorable and full of righteousness indignation. 

Three cheers for Patrick Stewart (his Macbeth is also worth a look).

The Hollow Crown series was made for the British Cultural Olympiad in 2012 when they had the Olympics. I wish that every nation would do one of those. What a gift of funding and energy and what a jewel of accomplishment.

The Histories don’t get as much love as they deserve and I’m so glad to see the Henriad get this treatment.

I know some reviews of this production have called it pandering but I am fine with that. Pander to me. Make the plays seem beautiful and sordid and scandalous. Shakespeare is all of those things. They are lascivious and they are thought provoking. I roundly reject the critics who tried to fault this production. 

Richard II - 5 stars for cast and watchability 

Mom score - 4 stars for the Duchess of York pardon scene. It’s not a 5 star as it’s such a small part but excellent moming and a bonus for her little scold at the end. 

If you want a fun War of the Roses recap please watch this Horrible Histories video summary. 

I know Horrible Histories is gross and juvenile at times but it’s just so darned good. 

It used to be my son’s favorite show and it delivered him

 into kindergarten with a fully accurate rendition of the full lineage of the Kings and Queens of England from Athelstan on down. 

That boy could do you a history list like some kids do dinosaurs. 

Missy - The Tempest ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 I love the Tempest and this is a visually stunning Tempest with some interesting editorial choices.

It was not particularly well received when it came out but everyone recognized how beautifully it was shot.

It’s a play I already enjoyed prior to this version and I liked it immensely when I first saw it. This time I liked it a lot but down graded it from 5 stars to 4 due to a sort of flat feel I got from some of the dialog and delivery.

Probably my favorite genre of story is Elfpunk and much of the origin of that love lies in works like The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman or The Borderlands anthologies.

Those works always feature fairies and elves, much in the way contemporary Romantasy books feature The Fae. One of the things that differentiates these two sub genera’s of Urban Fantasy (cliche fairy porn in the moderns notwithstanding) is that all of the old stuff had some basis in Midsummer’s nights Eve and The Tempest. 

The courts of Oberon and Titania featured heavily and Ariel and Puck show up all the time. Because of this most of my non-Celtic mythology  fairy’s look like and behave like Ariel does in this production. It’s a weird conformation bias of ‘this spirit is the one most of my fairies are based on therefore he acts like a fairy should act.’.

I love Ben Wishaw in this. For me this is the perfect Ariel and Fairy. Super capricious, semi androgynous, sweet and terrifying is IT.

Here he is in one of his scary modes showing off some of the beautiful makeup and lighting that I love in this film.

I think this movie did right by Ariel and I’ve always been drawn to that character so props for that. 

I was even impressed by the groans from within the tree part that sounds good on the page but can be cringy on the stage. 

The other characterization that I am drawn to here is Helen Mirin’s Prospera. Gender swaps in Shakespearean productions are fairly common, but usually not that great. Julie Taymor said that she wanted to try it because she thought she could pull it off as not too gimmicky. I think she managed that. 

This will circle me around to my Shakespeare writing pretty much only fathers and daughters theme. I found myself sympathetic with Prospera in a way I never was with Prospero. When he made arbitrary seeming decisions to challenge the love of Ferdinand I felt like he was just pulling power plays but when Prospera did it suddenly I was all in favor. “That’s your daughter” I thought “You’ve got to protect her. You know what men are like.” And when Próspero was inconsistent with Airiel I felt like he was just some typical noble pleasing himself but when Prospera did it I felt like she was tenuously balancing and desperate. When Próspero was controlling of his child and her love and her world I thought it was manipulative and self serving but when Prospera was the same way it was caution and justice for those who had wronged her. 

So much of this is just me projecting but, of course, a good deal of it is just in how I’ve seen these characters preformed. 

I liked the gender swap. I like that it made me think about my assumptions. 

I even enjoyed the sexual subtext that Ariel and Prospera displayed. 

I know that many read Prospero as Shakespeare himself, in this his farewell play. He is the all powerful creator and manipulator of his world. 

I think there is a lot to that reading and I am more than sympathetic with it. 

In a non allegorical sense though, I’d rather be locked in a room with Prospera, flawed as she may be, than with Prospero.  

My Shout out here goes to Djimon Hounsou as Caliban. 

That is not a modern part and all of the colonial implications are sunk deep into this character. 

The chasm between the text and the modern viewer is widest here, I think. Slavery is assumed for one and abjectly rejected by the other and portraying that part sympathetically while staying true to the monster and flat villain on the page is a mighty big ask. 

I’ve seen Hounsou in other Shakespeare and always felt he had the chops but this is such a tricky line to walk that he deserves some special recognition. 

I don’t think that it’s an accident that these three are on the official movie poster. 

That brings me to the rest. Some good actors here and ones that I usually enjoy watching but noting great in this Tempest for me. 

Russel Brand is distractingly himself, the romance is uninteresting, the Kingly plot feels flat and even the conspiracy to murder feels contrived. 

Meh. 

This is why 4 stars not 5. 

Principal photography took place on the Big Island where my dad lives so points for that. 

The costumes were great. The music good. 

Definitely worth watching.

I love this play in its historical context as a reaction to the Brave New World that is colonial America. I love the retirement vibe of Prósperos final soliloquy. 

I love how much thought it engenders on topics of power, colonialism, gender, and parenting. 

The Tempest - 4 stars for pure watchability 

Mom score - 4 stars for brining up your daughter the best you can and setting her into the world with all the advantages you can manage. 

On to the Scottish play.