Although there are of course the expected blemishes, the newly DVD-released "Will Shakespeare" series turned out to be everything I hoped it would be. John Mortimer writes a script worthy of a Tom Stoppard, addressing myriads of details from Shakespeare scholarship and the historical debates surrounding it. Perhaps this series is only for those with a really deep interest in Shakespeare - most others will probably find it boring. But I belong to its narrow target audience, and for me it is just what the Bard ordered. We got plenty of interesting (if speculative) insights into theater life, with close-up focuses on the entire troupe of players.
But, no, the series isn't perfect. We don't really get under Shakespeare's skin; we don't see much of his actual working process, or why he wrote such intricate and multi-layered poetry. The man himself, in this series, seems strangely unenthusiastic, always rather melancholic and distant. Even his relationships with Southampton and the dark lady don't truly seem to touch him. We never feel that this matters to him, and therefore we are never quite convinced that those people and experiences really were the source of his poetry. Of course, even if this were convincingly portrayed, I'd still not believe it, because I think the whole Southampton thing is bunk. Sure, Shakespeare had Southampton as a patron for a while, but the sonnet addressees do not represent real people; they talk about poetic constructs which extend infinitely farther than to the details of Shakespeare personal life. Shakespeare didn't bother with that kind of details; that kind of small-talk. He wrote about formidable events of the human condition; about the roles of history and art, delving deeply into the most hidden nature of reason and emotion and the human psyche.
But anyway! It's interesting to contrast this series to the 2005 TV movie "A Waste of Shame" - much of the material recurs in the latter, incl. the silly fabricated romance between Shakespeare, the Sonnet Youth (once again thought to be Southampton) and a "dark lady". The only major difference between the two versions is that in the newer version, Shakespeare is seen to order the printing of his Sonnets himself (in 1609), while in the 1978 series he weirdly and unhistorically smashes the printing plates so that the Sonnets *can't* be printed! And they also fabricate an earlier, unauthorized printed version of the Sonnets, most copies of which are then burned at the order of Southampton.
Still, the series has many interesting and worthwhile elements and gives a very nice and well-portrayed feeling of what Shakespeare's world may have been like. The limited budget sometimes shows itself in the very small number of characters present (Essex's entire rebellion consisted of five guys in the street, trying to get a reaction from other people, who were however all indoors and never showed themselves), but I must say the sets, costumes and acting performances all make splendidly up for whichever shortcomings may mar the rest of the show. The producers indeed husbanded their means in such a way that they went far with little.
8 out of 10.
But, no, the series isn't perfect. We don't really get under Shakespeare's skin; we don't see much of his actual working process, or why he wrote such intricate and multi-layered poetry. The man himself, in this series, seems strangely unenthusiastic, always rather melancholic and distant. Even his relationships with Southampton and the dark lady don't truly seem to touch him. We never feel that this matters to him, and therefore we are never quite convinced that those people and experiences really were the source of his poetry. Of course, even if this were convincingly portrayed, I'd still not believe it, because I think the whole Southampton thing is bunk. Sure, Shakespeare had Southampton as a patron for a while, but the sonnet addressees do not represent real people; they talk about poetic constructs which extend infinitely farther than to the details of Shakespeare personal life. Shakespeare didn't bother with that kind of details; that kind of small-talk. He wrote about formidable events of the human condition; about the roles of history and art, delving deeply into the most hidden nature of reason and emotion and the human psyche.
But anyway! It's interesting to contrast this series to the 2005 TV movie "A Waste of Shame" - much of the material recurs in the latter, incl. the silly fabricated romance between Shakespeare, the Sonnet Youth (once again thought to be Southampton) and a "dark lady". The only major difference between the two versions is that in the newer version, Shakespeare is seen to order the printing of his Sonnets himself (in 1609), while in the 1978 series he weirdly and unhistorically smashes the printing plates so that the Sonnets *can't* be printed! And they also fabricate an earlier, unauthorized printed version of the Sonnets, most copies of which are then burned at the order of Southampton.
Still, the series has many interesting and worthwhile elements and gives a very nice and well-portrayed feeling of what Shakespeare's world may have been like. The limited budget sometimes shows itself in the very small number of characters present (Essex's entire rebellion consisted of five guys in the street, trying to get a reaction from other people, who were however all indoors and never showed themselves), but I must say the sets, costumes and acting performances all make splendidly up for whichever shortcomings may mar the rest of the show. The producers indeed husbanded their means in such a way that they went far with little.
8 out of 10.