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Reviews
I, Claudius (1976)
Never has a cast and audience had so much fun!
Equally terrifying and hilarious! These polar opposite responses are what make I Claudius such a uniquely entertaining drama. Like some amphetamine-fuelled version of Dallas or Dynasty, with grotesque murders amidst cheery domesticity, I Claudius never fails to entertain. That the cast are clearly enjoying themselves in the roles of their careers - none more so than the wonderful Sian Phillips and Brian Blessed - brings extra delight for the viewer. And very cleverly, someone at the BBC hit on the brilliant idea of playing up the disadvantages of ageing, (with a hilarious use of ghastly prosthetics), thus underlining the transitory nature of earthly power and the sheer stupidity of wanting to be an emperor. This emphasis on ageing helps to convey the passing of many years, of course, but it also allows for another comic opportunity - the sheer weariness that comes with a lifetime's familiarity with evil. The wonderful cast embrace the opportunity to age with gusto!
Everyone's vote for best performance seems to go to Jacobi, Phillips, Hurt or Baker but I want to talk up Brian Blessed as Caesar Augustus. I just love him in this and it is a scandal that more directors haven't had the courage to cast him in other big projects. What makes him so compulsive is his winking matiness one moment and his terrifying rage the next and also how he responds to his wife's snakelike massaging of his ego. There is much genius in Blessed's portrayal of a rather stupid man who thinks himself judicious and wise.
1976 is nearly 50 years ago and I enjoyed this series as much last week as I did when watching it at age 19. It's wackily modern in its way, finding comedy in the most inappropriate subject matter. And the episodes are so memorable, you won't need to watch it all in one go to keep track of the plot. A delicious fortnight awaits unfamiliar viewers.
Bleak House (1985)
Perhaps the best classic television drama...
Dickens' ambitious masterpiece, dramatised by the BBC in 1985, remains the benchmark by which all other period dramas can be measured. The casting is particularly inspired but the success of this epic series really rests with the editor who manages to maintain a finely judged pace which, like the BBC's earlier War And Peace (Antony Hopkins version), gives the original novel a chance to breathe whilst also maintaining momentum.
The famous London fog dominates the novel as it does here, allowing for a nightmarish quality and a lovely fluidity of camerawork so that we glide from one little locale to another with ease and conviction, all building to a convincingly cruel world in which there are only a few islands of humanity which eventually become connected..
Bleak House is Dickens' most angry novel and Denholm Elliot is magnificent as a John Jarndyce outraged by Society's inequalities. TP Mcenna provides a wonderful counterpoint.as his charming but loathsome leech of a friend, Harold Skimpole. The plot, of course, revolves round Mr Jarndyce's three young wards and Suzanne Burden does particularly well with Esther, the main character. Personally, I really liked Philip Franks' performance as an optimistic young man, Richard Carstone, brought to despair by bitter experience. This brings us to Dame Diana Rigg's tragic Lady Dedlock and one of television drama's greatest performances. La Rigg doesn't shy away from the cold imperious mask Lady Dedlock wears, her severe hairstyle emphasising her haughtiness and total lack of feeling, Behind that mask is a mind racing ever more desperately in a bid to escape the deadly trap which into which Lady Dedlock's heart has led her. And then comes the self-realisation that there might be no escape. All of this is achieved by the late dame without a hint of melodrama, with few words, but with eyes that speak volumes.
Bleak House is particularly rich in secondary characters, almost as memorable as those in David Copperfield. Sylvia Coleridge gives us poor mad Miss Flite, twittering musically like all of her trapped birds, and the ever wonderful Sam Kelly captures Mr Snagsby with equal success.
I cannot recommend this wonderful production more highly, with its musicality, its cinematography, its editing and its beautiful performances. Don't try to watch it all in one go. Two episodes nightly will furnish you with a wonderfully entertaining week because this is the BBC at its very best , in the middle of its golden decade, the 1980s, when it respected its viewers' intelligence and honoured the classic writers who inspired its epic dramas.