In college I had the good fortune to play Henry II in the Lion In Winter. The next year, they were producing Becket. The director had already decided to cast another fellow as Henry (who was a younger character here), and he asked me to play Becket, and I agreed. I ended up hating it. Becket's speeches are tedious and kind of stupid in places, and really the whole play is.
O'Toole and Burton and all the actors give it their best efforts, and the production is lavish, but the material of the play itself is simply unsatisfying. It is a translation of what was originally in French. Maybe something was lost there.
