23/11/2012 The Review Show


23/11/2012

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On the review show tonight: Can mental illness really be played

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for laughs in Silver Linings Playbook PlayBook. I wanted raisin

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bran, because I didn't want any mistaking of a date. It can still

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be a date if you order raisin bran. A 19th century farce, amusing a

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21st century audience? It is like a comedy machine delivering. John

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Lithgow is Pinero's Magistrate. Does an all-male Twelfth Night with

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Mark Rylance and Stephen Fry refresh Shakespeare's comedy And

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gore and goreier, as Jon Hamm and Daniel Radcliffe play the same

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country doctor in remote Russia. saw a lot of horror and tragedy in

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here. Happy days! Joining me here in the studio are

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Natalie Haynes, author and critic, Ekow Eshun, writer and broadcaster,

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and John Carey, writer and critic. Bipolar disorder isn't exactly a

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normal subject for a Hollywood movey, let alone a comedy. But

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David O Russell, director of Three Kings and The Fighter, has really

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gone for it in Silver Linings Playbook PlayBook, which could be

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tipped for the Oscars t stars Robert De Niro, Jennifer Lawrence,

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from Winter's Bone, and Bradley Cooper from The Hangover. Pat

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Solitano, played by Bradley Cooper, has just been released from eight

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months on a psychiatric ward. He returns to live with his parents,

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Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver, just outside Philadelphia. He's

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determined to woo his teacher wife back, by losing weight and reading

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her entire English syllabus. whole time you are rooting for this

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Hemmingway guy to survive the war and be with the woman he loves,

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can't anyone say is there a good ending. I can't apologise, but on

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the part of Ernest Hemmingway I will apologise. That is who to

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blame. Have him call us and apologise. While integrating him

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back into the neighbourhood, Pat strikes up a friendship with the

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equally dysfuntional Tiffany, played by Jennifer Lawrence,

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despite Tiffany's advances, Pat still convinces himself he only has

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eyes for his estranged wife. Do you want to share this? Why order

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raisin bran. Why did you order tea? Because you ordered raisin bran.

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ordered raisin bran because I didn't want any mistaking it for a

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date. It can still be a date if you order raisin bran. It is not a date.

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Tiffany persuades Pat to help her with a dance contest, channelling

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their manic energy into something positive. They get advice from scat

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pat's friend from hospital, Danny, played by Chris Tucker. Little bit

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more soul Pat. Black it up Pat. What does that mean. You dough damn

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well what it means. Black it up! Oh, oh, oh, I have an idea. So is David

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O Russell's quirky perspective on mental health insightful as well as

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entertaining. I'm going to be there, I want you guys to win. Excelier

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Pat! That's my man. This film is dealing with some serious issues,

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bipolar disorder, restraining orders, psyche cat trick hospital.

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Do you think it strikes -- psychiatric hospital, do you think

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it strikes the right tone? It plays it lightly, Bradley Cooper has

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mental issues, but they dissolve through the film. It is an old-

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fashioned romance. What is interesting, is less how seriously

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how it deals with the issues, but how seriously it deals with love.

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How seriously it deals with connection between people. I

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thought it was very charming, I thought it was funny. I surprised

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myself how much I enjoyed it. What it is, it is very, very old

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fashioned, boy meets girl, they meet cute, he's a bit damaged,

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she's a bit disturbed. What it has is veal verve and is contemporary,

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David O Russell isn't a classic romantic director, he has given it

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an edge and it works for that. you think the mental health issues

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were a backdrop for the romcom or more centre stage? They probably

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were in the end. Mental health problems, they do a very good job

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in the first hour to show how messy it is to live with someone who has

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a serious bipolar disorder, in the first hour. It is an interesting

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line to walk, he's clearly not mad enough to remain in an institution,

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but at the same time he's extremely difficult to live with, not because

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he's evil or unpredictable in a violent way, but because he doesn't

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understand other people's space and perameter, it doesn't occur to him

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it is not appropriate to shout about a book at 4.00am and wake

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everybody up. It doesn't enter his world view. It does a good job with

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that. Mental health issues are intrinsically messy and romcoms are

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neat. If he had gone for straight comedy the mental health issues

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could have stayed in it. But they have to let's forget about that,

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dance competition. I'm as big a fan of a dance competition than most

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people, bigger than most, but it seems cheap that you set up

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something complicated and say it won't fit into the structure and

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then go, all right then. Perhaps that portrayal of somebody with

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mental health problems is more realistic, it is not completely

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extreme, this is somebody who is living at home, and his parents are

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having to cope with his, certainly at the outset, quite disturbing

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behaviour? I found it much more disturbing, I think, than the other

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two. What I felt was that the sense of danger was there. I mean, you do,

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it is not just messy, you don't know, Bradley Cooper is a very

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powerfully-built young man, and you just don't know when he's going to

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go violent. It was terrifying when he did. The scene where he decides

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he wants to look for his wedding video, you know. Middle of the

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night, starts tearing through the place, throwing open cupboards, his

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poor parents, the parents were wonderfully done, I thought, De

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Niro was terrific. But also, his mother, the poor woman, who thinks

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that all you have to do is keep on cooking crab cakes, and some how it

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will all go away. It is tragic, terrible. Imagine having a

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childlike that, who is going to explode at any moment. That danger,

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that tension for me, it last the right through the first part of the

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film. I rather agree about the dance stuff. But it did seem to me

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to bring home how utterly terrifying it is to have a mentally

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ill person in the house, and just not know when they are going to

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start fighting you. He fights his father, it was a terrifying scene.

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It has to be said that his father is on the edge as well. There is a

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a mounting illness and instability running through the family. Robert

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De Niro, violent as a character, banned from his favourite American

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football stadium, because he has had too many fights with other fans

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and supporters. There is a sense that Bradley Cooper isn't just

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isolated in this thing. You get a lot of characters who are on the

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edge. That is part of the pleasure of it. What I liked is that it

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actually reminded me, it is slightly odd analogy, it reminded

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me of something like Bringing Up Baby, old-fashioned Hollywood

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romances from pre-war. Cary Grant was eccentric! I like the Cary

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Grant playing characters who were eccentric, and saved by cookie

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female characters who came in. There is a phrase they use in,

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Bradley Cooper said something like "you met me crazy", where they both

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have to be something manic, slightly on the edge, in order to

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find a balance of normality in there. I quite liked that as a

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premise for the film. I liked how that was mirrored by Robert De Niro

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and other characters. Everyone is spinning on their on axis. Very few

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people seem balanced and ordinary. There was a subtext, wasn't there,

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that mad people, are, in a way, saneer than the sane. Tiffany, I

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thought, Jennifer Lawrence, amazingly played. She's a very

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intelligent woman, and indeed, manages to bring the whole thing to

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a successful conclusion. The scene where they go to a friend of Pat's,

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Veronica and Ronnie, who give a dinner party. They both, these two,

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Tiffany and Pat, tell the truth, which is very unacceptable at the

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dinner party, when they decide to walk out, they have had enough,

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they walk out, they want it all. Veronica is showing off all the

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latest gadgets and her beautiful home, they don't want that, they

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don't pretend to want that, they don't pretend. Mad people are

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genuine, they are, they obey instincts. That was an interesting

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layer, I thought, in the film. is very funny, I thought? It is

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funny. At least for me it starts funnier than it ends up. In the end

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the smalzt overwhelmed even me. I think probably in the end it is a

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little bit vacuous that the point it comes to is, but everybody is a

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little bit mad. You go, OK, I see your point, which is everyone is on

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a spectrum. Let's not forget at the start of this film, we are given

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insight into how he ends up there. He spent eight months in an

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institution because he beat somebody nearly to death. There is

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something a little bit obnoxious about them going, we're all a bit

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quirky, yes, but! There is more depth to it at certain points. Not

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just skirting over the mental health issues, the references to

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Hemmingway, to Golding. It gives it an indie film for a mainstream

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commercial film, I thought. It is, David O Russell, Three Kings and a

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bunch of other films, which are more indie in sensibility than they

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are mainstream. He has married the two together here very well. He has

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a great A-list cast. But the film making itself is really fluid, and

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actually, it keeps you on the edge. The camera is always fluid and

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moving around the editing is choppy. There is music in there.

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Golding reference is interesting, Tiffany throws Lord of the Flies

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out of the door. She won't have it. She can't accept Golding's view of

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life. I wonder if it is self- criticism in the film, she can't

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accept what he says that everyone has barbarity inside of them, we

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look for the silver lining, it is ironic, and directed against

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herself. Clever, I thought. There was a lot in it, do you think the

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Oscar buzz is justified? It doesn't feel like a strong year for Oscar

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predictions, nothing touted is as obvious a winner. For the last

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three years I have predicted all winners, this year, no idea,

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nothing has stood out. It might, it could be one of those cookie films

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that goes through. It doesn't deserve to, but it could.

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The film is in cinemas now. A woman should never lie about her age. At

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36, I personally never felt the need to. Don't laugh so much Echo,

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when Mrs Posket does just that in Arthur Wing Pinero's Victorian

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farce, the Magistrate, all manner of chaos ensues. John Lithgow stars.

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Three 3rd Rock From The Sun. whole play is based on a woman

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lying about her age, for fear her suitor won't propose to her. This

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is a wildly funny play. But that is a very poignant little lie to tell.

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It is all about a woman fretful about her own attractiveness. This

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is not a Victorian phenomenon, it is a if you Nomura of the human

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condition, particularly the female human condition.

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The woman in question is his stage wife, Mrs Posket. Played here by

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Nancy Carroll, who shaves five years off her age, which means that

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her 19-year-old son has to become 14, when she marries the Magistrate.

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I saw Alistair Simmplay this role in 1969 at Chichester when I was a

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drama student over here, it was one of the great, funny performances

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that I had ever seen It was an era where Peter Hall and Peter Brook

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were doing fantastic work. Trevor Nunn was the new RSC director, I

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must have gone to the theatre four or five days a week, it was great

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training at LAMDA, but I really learned in the theatre seat several

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times a week. Director Timothy Sheader has added musical

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interludes into the play, musician Rcihard Stilgoe and his partner

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drew inspiration from Gilbert and Sullivan. It came out the same year

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the Mikado came out, 1885. It has a great sensibility. It isn't a

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Gilbert and Sullivan play, it is a Pinero play. The national's

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production is one of several Pinero plays that have been produced and

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are coming up. What does Lithgow put this down to? Pinero writes

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these remarkable well-made plays, I have been in a cop of productions

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of Trewlaney Of The Wells, I have been in the Magistrate before,

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years ago. Plays like that, they tend to come back, because they are

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so buesfully constructed. It is like a com-- beautifully

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constructed. It is like a comedy reason that keeps on delivering.

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You discover that Victorian humour needs a little bit of adjusting but

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it works wonderfully for this moment. And who can explain why.

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Natalie, the national, I think, had planned to put on The Count of

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Monte Cristo, for the big blockbuster Christmas performance,

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they changed course, relatively late, so there is pressure on the

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Magistrate, does it live up to the expectations? Yeah, I think

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probably it just about does. Everyone was waiting for The Count

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of Monte Cristo, that is fine, better to wait than slam it out in

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a hurry and not be happy with it. I saw Lithgow do the Stories with a

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Heart, he did that at the National, I'm devoted to him, Raising Cane is

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my favourite film, I think he's awesome, not being ironic. I had

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seen him telling Tories about PG Woodhouse, that he told his father

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when he was dying, I knew he had a passionate and emotional love for

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English farce in his nature. I was expecting him to kind of run away

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with it. I have to be honest, I think Nancy Carroll may have just

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stolen out from under him as his wife. She's incredibly funny. He's

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good in everything, so I'm completely biased, I guess. She's

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incredibly funny. She delivers every single kausic line at her own

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expense, everything with a lick. you think it stands the test of

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time? Performances are God, but I'm to the convinced by the play or it

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-- good, but I I'm not convinced by the play. It is a play about

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respectability and the boundaries of respectability that is where the

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farce comes in, it is a play bound by respectability, because in the

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end it suggests it is really important to retain virtues and

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bourgwoi appearances and so on. -- bourgeois appearances and so on.

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The peril of being seen to transgress that didn't strike me as

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convincing or important enough or as dramatic enough to have both

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farce and danger attached to it. For a play like this, you do have

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to buy into the conventions of the Victorian era to a certain extend?

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I suppose you do, it is very hard to. Do the bit that I found

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strangely disturbing was the notion of this boy who was actually 19

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dressed up as a 14-year-old. Today, you could easily mistake most 14-

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year-olds for 19-year-olds, that is why you have to show your identity

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before you buy alcoholic drinks. They are huge, well-fed. Not so

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many boys in Eton jackets? That's right. But to see this little chap

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dressed up like a schoolboy, and jumping around on the furniture,

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like a kuryis little ape, and yet, -- curious little ape, and yet you

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are told he's a fully formed male, I found that a bit grotesque,

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actually. I wondered how in 1890s what was the laugh like. I don't

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buy that it is a well-made play, the Lithgow idea there. For one

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thing, the big thing takes place off stage, you don't see the

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Magistrate confront his wife in the dock. You hear somebody say

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something about t it is a ludicrously undramatic way of

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dealing with it. That is a Greek tragedy, apart from Ajax where

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someone dies off stage. This is not up to Greek standard. When you said

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how much you liked Nancy Carroll's performance as the magistrate's

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wife. Although the women are very constrained by the position they

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have in society, these aren't weak characters, are they? They are very

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strong, that is a huge relief, as always, with these plays, you so

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rarely get where women are allowed to be centre stage and be just as

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clever, duplicitous and sneaky, she does a beautiful job of it, you

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completely buy it. I completely buy that she would be quite so deluded

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to think that chopping a few years off her age would be the only thing.

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He's much older than her, in the play he's 15 years older than her,

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she extends it a bit to help out. She's already a great catch. Times

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have changed, the idea that you would be 36 and it would be the

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equivalent of being ancient, has, I like to think, largely changed.

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way the national has tried to make this more appealing to a modern

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audience, is by breaking it up with, I suppose, they are pastiches of

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Gilbert and Sullivan, the songs with the lively chorus? That is the

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low point. Every half hour or so this troop comes on with white pan

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make up and twirlly moustaches. What was, it, it was like the Go

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Compere guy, in the TV adverts, they do the sub-operatic numbers.

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You don't need it, in lyrical terms, especially, they just reiterate the

:19:44.:19:47.

main points of the play. What they are telling you is what you are

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supposed to think in the play, which in dramatic purposes is

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redundant, but there is as a viewer element doesn't work. Aren't they

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just punctuating the action with humour? Can I raise Greek tragedy,

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that they tell you what to think, but point in second, they are there

:20:05.:20:08.

to cover the scene changes so we are not bored by something going

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cloank in the dark. I don't love them either, but I would rar

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something happen than sitting there hopeless -- rather something there

:20:16.:20:20.

than sitting there hopelessly waiting for the scene change.

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other versions of the play they have managed to go there scene-to-

:20:24.:20:28.

scene. That is a massive space, it goes back and up a long way, you

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have to justify a huge space, they weren't expecting it, they have to

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use big sets. John? I rather disagree, I think it is true they

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did interpret the play, they were there to put in accents and themes

:20:42.:20:47.

that weren't in the play. However, it seem to me that the pastiches of

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Gilbert and Sullivan were pretty good, and Stilgoe's lyrics were

:20:52.:20:55.

good, and Sisson's music were good. It seemed just as entertainment

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they were better than the play. I really did think that, I would like

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more of that. They could have been livelyier, they will no doubt

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improve. They could have been more physical, but heavens, as

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entertainment, they had a lot to go for them. I'm thinking of Enron

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where you use song and dance to counter point. That works with

:21:20.:21:28.

drama. You already have a farce, there is already an antic element,

:21:28.:21:31.

to introduce song and dance doesn't Garland that further, or add

:21:31.:21:34.

something substantial. Especially, I would say, it actually reduces

:21:34.:21:39.

what is going on in there. Because you get this underlining of what

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you are supposed to think, and how you are supposed to read it. It is

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a very tame farce, frankly, isn't it, it is a farce where to go out

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on a really wild night on the town, you eat deviled oysters, there are

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no women there. It is like watching Terry and June. It is a dreadful

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thing to do is wear a red caf VAT, for God's sake. After the that the

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Gilbert and Sullivan stuff is good. Nobody here is wearing anything so

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wild as red cravat! Let's not do that. The Magistrate is on at the

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National Theatre in London, if you can't make it there, it will be

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broadcast live in cinemas on January 17th. The old tradition of

:22:27.:22:30.

Twelfth Night at Christmas time was really a world turned upside down,

:22:30.:22:37.

I suppose, you have masters waiting on servant, for example. That is

:22:37.:22:42.

certainly true of a new production of Shakespeare's comedy,

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transferred from The Globe. We see a man, playing a woman, playing a

:22:47.:22:51.

man, in the all-male cast. A star name has been lured back to the

:22:51.:22:58.

stage to play Malvolio. Much of the fanfare around this

:22:58.:23:02.

incarnation of Twelfth Night has centered on Stephen Fry's

:23:02.:23:06.

performance as Malvolio, 17 years after a famous attack of stage

:23:07.:23:13.

fright. Malvolio's pomposity is pubgttured, of course, by an ill-

:23:13.:23:17.

judged pass at his mistress Olivia, played by Mark Rylance, a character

:23:17.:23:23.

he last took on in 2002. Rylance juxtaposes Olivia's quiet composure,

:23:23.:23:33.
:23:33.:23:33.

with her agitated infatuation with Cesario. London's Shakespeare

:23:33.:23:38.

festival, part of London 2012, there have been many resiefls of

:23:38.:23:44.

Shakespeare, with an all-female Julius Caesar at the Donmar war

:23:44.:23:48.

house at the end of the month. Does this Twelfth Night add a -- Donmar

:23:48.:23:52.

Warehouse at the end of the month. Does this Twelfth Night add

:23:52.:23:58.

anything to Shakespeare with an all-male cast, or do modern

:23:58.:24:03.

audiences prefer women to be women. This production originally came

:24:03.:24:09.

from The Globe, that prides itself on traditional Elizabethan

:24:09.:24:14.

productions with an all-male cast. How did it work for you? I didn't

:24:14.:24:18.

really mind whether they were male or female or whether they could act.

:24:18.:24:23.

The acting is of a terribly high standard. I forgot, with Maria,

:24:23.:24:32.

that it wasn't a woman. I thought that Viola, with Johnny Flynn, was

:24:32.:24:36.

astoundingly done, there was Johnny Flynn, a man, pretending to be a

:24:36.:24:40.

woman, pretending to be a man. He managed to be a man, so to speak,

:24:40.:24:45.

as a woman would be rather awkward in a man's clothes. I thought it

:24:45.:24:50.

was an astounding piece of acting. I thought it was a very interesting

:24:50.:24:54.

balance between authenticity and artifice, in as much as I don't

:24:54.:24:59.

think, although it is an all-male cast, it is not an attempt to say

:24:59.:25:03.

let's be traditional as Shakespeare intended. The thing with the all-

:25:03.:25:10.

male cast is doing this version of this, and let's reach towards how

:25:10.:25:15.

it was back then, but then, after that, what seems to happen is, that

:25:15.:25:20.

they free themselves up. This is very naturalistic reading of

:25:20.:25:24.

Shakespeare, it is not a version sunk in tradition and being

:25:24.:25:27.

authentic. I think it is a really interesting take. What they have

:25:27.:25:30.

done is liberate themselves from the text. Saying let's try to find

:25:31.:25:37.

a fresh way into this. Although the trappings are apparently authentic,

:25:37.:25:43.

actually, what they have done is create something very fresh as a

:25:43.:25:48.

way of...I Wouldn't describe this as naturalistic? Me neither, not

:25:48.:25:52.

when there is men pretending to be women, that is panto where I come

:25:52.:25:57.

from. It didn't really work for me. I always find it a bit tack, when

:25:57.:26:01.

people say let's make it authentic, they never mean, that they don't

:26:01.:26:05.

want to get paid three shilings a day, or wear lead on their faces,

:26:05.:26:11.

or the lighting not to be safe. What they really mean, I hesitate

:26:11.:26:17.

to quote Calvin and Hobbs, it is getting rid of slimey girls, and no

:26:17.:26:23.

women here. I find it exactly as distasteful as I would were I to

:26:23.:26:28.

see a version of Othello and someone would be blacked up. I find

:26:28.:26:31.

it horrible. I think it is the opposite of that, they are

:26:31.:26:34.

suggesting you can have a version of the play but it doesn't have to

:26:34.:26:38.

be one thing. What they are doing is liberate the text and say

:26:38.:26:42.

Shakespeare can be read in a number of different ways. I don't think it

:26:43.:26:47.

is an attempt to say the version with the all-male cast is a truer

:26:47.:26:52.

version than with an all-female cast. Mark Rylance is playing

:26:52.:26:56.

Olivia in a farcical way, playing it for laugh, doesn't it mean you

:26:56.:26:59.

lose a little bit of the poignancy that you sometimes get with the

:26:59.:27:05.

portrayal of Olivia? I don't think so. That would be a risk, in fact,

:27:05.:27:12.

I think the first interview between Viola and Olivia is absolutely

:27:12.:27:16.

crackled with poetic poignancy. Viola's speech about making a

:27:16.:27:21.

willow cabinet was wonderfully done. What I liked about the production

:27:21.:27:25.

is trying out ideas, trying out Stephen Fry as a really dig

:27:25.:27:29.

nationwide malVeolia, I have always wanted to see that -- malVeolia, I

:27:29.:27:39.

have always wanted to he -- Malvolio, there is always those

:27:39.:27:45.

bits that I hate with Malvolio mocked, here he's dignified, as he

:27:45.:27:51.

would be in a house of that kind. And taken in, by what would be, a

:27:51.:27:58.

completely genuine-looking letter. When it comes down to the rousing

:27:58.:28:03.

Zatogabelch and he says, about my masters are you mad, it was a

:28:03.:28:06.

terrific moment, they look foolish, and they are foolish, and are shown

:28:06.:28:10.

to be at the end. Doing it with an authoritative Malvolio, I have

:28:10.:28:14.

always wanted that. I have thought why shouldn't he fall in love with

:28:14.:28:19.

his employer, what is so wrong about it. Is he really inferior to

:28:19.:28:25.

Sir Toby Belch. I I think it does lose something, not specifically

:28:25.:28:28.

because Rylance is a man, but because of his age. When the main

:28:28.:28:33.

plot line is played for laughs, you get more laughs, but structurally

:28:33.:28:39.

it starts to dra, the Comic Relief is to give you Comic Relief, if the

:28:39.:28:44.

if it is comic it slows down the main plot line. With the scenes in

:28:44.:28:48.

the second half, even with good people in it, they start to drag

:28:48.:28:52.

because they haven't anything to do. That is a terrible shame. Malvolio

:28:52.:28:59.

is completely undercut, if Olivia is a raunchy cougar, the idea that

:28:59.:29:02.

he would be in lust with her is ridiculous, there is nothing comic

:29:02.:29:08.

to do in the scene and leaves him exposed. I didn't think it dragged

:29:08.:29:11.

at all. I thought they were good at switching between comedy. I don't

:29:11.:29:15.

think it ever switches. Right at the end, how does Orsino play the

:29:15.:29:20.

thing about "kill what I loved", he draws his sword, and points it at

:29:20.:29:25.

her throat. Often it is done, he's directing it assesss, here it is

:29:25.:29:33.

extraordinary dram -- seas seas, here it is an exCesaria, here it is

:29:33.:29:38.

a dramatic wind up at the end of the play. It was wonderfully plient,

:29:38.:29:40.

and it was suggested at the start, coming into the theatre, there are

:29:41.:29:45.

the cast being made up, being dressed, putting on the wigs. It is

:29:45.:29:53.

a wonderful idea, trying out ways of doing it. It is terrific.

:29:53.:30:00.

agree, what disguised in this very traditional audience setting, is

:30:00.:30:05.

this actual whole freshness, an attempt to say, look, we know

:30:05.:30:08.

Shakespeare, infinite numbers of versions of this have been played,

:30:08.:30:12.

where can we find a way to introduce some new light into this

:30:12.:30:15.

thing that we know. Where can we find some possiblities in the text

:30:15.:30:21.

and fresh readings of it. It turns out, we can do that by actually,

:30:21.:30:27.

apparently, staging it as conventionally as archaicly as

:30:27.:30:37.
:30:37.:30:39.

possible. And correspondingly, with lines like "I was adored once too",

:30:39.:30:42.

thrown away, they are not going to bother about the things everyone

:30:42.:30:48.

knows about, trying new ways. you as disappointed with all the

:30:48.:30:52.

male casting, or what about the character of Maria? He is fantastic.

:30:52.:31:01.

It is brilliantly done. Paul Chaheady? He plays the character

:31:01.:31:07.

rather than a hilarious woman, I could have long done without Johnny

:31:07.:31:12.

Flynn's "this is a girl's voice", for three hours. But Maria is very

:31:12.:31:17.

well realised as being a bustling, and quite cruel character, that

:31:17.:31:22.

works a little better. But because Malvolio is no longer a buffoon,

:31:22.:31:27.

they are unkind. You can't see why they would gang up on him. A new

:31:27.:31:33.

idea was tried out with Maria, when Malvolio is in prison, she pours

:31:33.:31:38.

hot wax from her candle on to him, a horrible thing, full of new ideas.

:31:38.:31:46.

We are about to get an all-female Julius sees -- Caesar, what do you

:31:47.:31:51.

think of that? The notion that you can only play these things in a

:31:51.:31:56.

fixed way is ridiculous. The notion that you can only play Shakespeare

:31:56.:32:01.

with a male-female cast or all-male cast, I think, the reason

:32:02.:32:07.

Shakespeare stood for hundreds of years, is because you keep finding

:32:07.:32:09.

fresh ways of doing it. The obligation of any actors and cast

:32:09.:32:13.

is to try to find new ways of shuffling the pack. That is what

:32:13.:32:17.

this does and hopefully another version will do. You can make your

:32:17.:32:24.

own mind up, you can see Twelfth Night it is continuing in Rep with

:32:24.:32:29.

Richard II at the Apollo Theatre. Mad Men meets Harry Potter, not

:32:29.:32:34.

some crazed pitch about the moral degeneration of the boy wizard. But

:32:34.:32:38.

a new TV drama starring Jon Hamm and Daniel Radcliffe. The Young

:32:38.:32:42.

Doctor's Notebook is based on the real experiences of the rush author,

:32:42.:32:46.

Mikhail Bulgakov, as a country doctor. A chain-smoking Jon Hamm,

:32:46.:32:51.

no change there, swaps the Martineies of Mad Men, or the

:32:51.:32:56.

morphine of a medicine cabinet, and haunts his younger self-, played by

:32:56.:33:06.

Radcliffe. A The Young Doctor's Notebook is set in the desperate

:33:06.:33:11.

conditions of a small isolated hospital. Adapted from semi-

:33:11.:33:13.

autobiograical accounts of Bulgakov's work as a doctor, the

:33:13.:33:18.

plot revolves around newly- qualified Vladimir Bomgard, thrown

:33:18.:33:21.

pitilessly into the horrors of rural medicine, during the dawn of

:33:21.:33:30.

the Russian revolution. I'm the doctor. I am the doctor. Forgive me

:33:30.:33:37.

doctor, glad to have you here. Really, very glad to have you here.

:33:37.:33:43.

So glad. Doctor, this is our junior midwife. Do not let her distract

:33:43.:33:53.
:33:53.:33:54.

you. Oh, no. No. I won't. Played by Daniel Radcliffe the inexperienced

:33:54.:34:00.

doctor stumbles through waves of superstitious peasants, assisted

:34:00.:34:04.

only by equally strange nurses, as the harsh, snowy environment cuts

:34:04.:34:08.

him off from civilisation. So the midwife tells me you have travelled

:34:08.:34:18.

all the way from Dozsavos that far? A small village just outside

:34:18.:34:23.

Grabalovka. I'm new to the area, I don't know where anything is,

:34:23.:34:27.

geographically, I know a transverse lie when I see one, this is one,

:34:27.:34:33.

well done Anna. Those experiences, recorded in a

:34:33.:34:37.

notebook, are remembered by the doctor in later life. Jon Hamm, who

:34:37.:34:42.

returns to the hospital to taunt his younger self.

:34:42.:34:49.

Yeah, I saw a lot of horror and tragedy in here. Happy days.

:34:50.:34:57.

Come along doctor, must you dawdle. This is the dispensery.

:34:57.:35:02.

Ex lent. As the doctor struggles under the

:35:02.:35:05.

burden of medical responsibility, and doubt his own ability, we are

:35:05.:35:11.

exposed to the darker side of his inner demons.

:35:11.:35:15.

With Bothham ham and Radcliffe professing their love for Bulgakov

:35:15.:35:21.

-- both Hamm and Radcliffe professing their love for

:35:21.:35:25.

Bulgakov's writing, can they deliver it with wit or will the

:35:25.:35:30.

adaptation be left out in the cold. We have the bleakness, the Russian

:35:30.:35:37.

winter, the grinding poverty, and quite a lot of slapstick, which we

:35:37.:35:42.

saw there? That's what I like, none of this mistaken identity, I like

:35:42.:35:46.

bleak jokes and people taking morphine. Ro it is exactly what

:35:46.:35:49.

Northern Exposure would have been like if made by a Russian. Doctor

:35:49.:35:53.

comes from the big city, into the middle of nowhere, and he's

:35:53.:36:01.

appalled by the small-town values he finds, and hilarity ensues --

:36:01.:36:05.

ensues. It is nasty, it is gory, people who are squeamish may well

:36:05.:36:10.

not like some scenes in this. my TV supper to one side when I was

:36:10.:36:14.

watching this. I would suggest not eating while watching, as a rule of

:36:14.:36:18.

thumb. I would suggest that. Daniel Radcliffe, when you say of an actor

:36:18.:36:22.

they are trying hard, it is an insult. When I say it from the

:36:22.:36:26.

bottom of my heart, I mean it as a compliment. He could have Waltzed

:36:26.:36:31.

through the rest of his life off the back of Harry Potter, he has

:36:31.:36:38.

gone to Broadway and done a musical, and doing bleak comedy. People

:36:38.:36:44.

thinking he would be a child star will be glad he's having meaning

:36:44.:36:49.

less sex and smoking and drinking in this. This was a passionate

:36:49.:36:53.

project for him, he spent his 25th birthday at Bulgakov's house, and

:36:53.:36:57.

Jon Hamm, who loves the original book? It is hard to see how it

:36:57.:37:02.

would have been made otherwise. It is comedy, but it is actually, it

:37:02.:37:08.

is a four-part drama. But actually it is really in two parts. The

:37:08.:37:13.

first half is slightly antic, slapstick, as Natalie said. The

:37:13.:37:18.

second half, the last two parts get very, very dark that is where the

:37:18.:37:22.

morphine addiction slips in. There is not much else inbetween. It is

:37:22.:37:27.

like tolls toy meets Trainspotting, it starts off with this thing of

:37:27.:37:32.

the Russian winter, then it is into the compulsion, addiction, squalor,

:37:32.:37:37.

really. It get much more internal. So, yes, it is a passion project,

:37:37.:37:42.

but not a vanity piece. It will be the passion project for you, in a

:37:42.:37:46.

way, John, like Jon Hamm, you really like the original book, The

:37:46.:37:50.

Young Doctor's Notebook. It was one of your top 50 books of the 20th

:37:50.:37:54.

century? I love it. Hence didn't like this at all. I thought it was

:37:54.:38:01.

ruined from the start by having the old, older Bulgakov around at the

:38:01.:38:06.

shoulder of the younger Bulgakov. It is crazey. This is about

:38:06.:38:10.

loneliness. Let's see a bit about this, it will help make your point,

:38:10.:38:14.

I think. Give me the book. What are you doing, I need that? No you

:38:14.:38:19.

don't. I do, I don't have time for this. Right, you have to get back

:38:19.:38:24.

to theatre. Give me the book. won't jump for it, I won't demean

:38:24.:38:34.
:38:34.:38:45.

myself. Give it back. No. Ahhh. No. Stop it. No what are you doing.

:38:45.:38:52.

What. No, what are you doing? this is what you are talking about?

:38:52.:38:57.

Absolutely, that epitomises what is wrong with this. Why don't they

:38:57.:39:01.

just trust Bulgakov, all that is completely made up. What nonsense.

:39:01.:39:06.

Bulgakov is a very humane writer. Of course it is gorey, in his own

:39:06.:39:11.

writing, but it is never slapstick, and it is humane in a way that is

:39:11.:39:16.

positive. The point was made it was pulled into two halves. What is not

:39:16.:39:21.

there, is that the young woman whose leg he has to amputate, and

:39:21.:39:27.

the young woman who he does the tracheotomy on, come back in the

:39:27.:39:34.

bulk healthy and grateful. He has a real positive side, not there.

:39:34.:39:37.

you are translating a piece of writing to the screen, often you do

:39:37.:39:41.

want to be more adventurous, dramatically for the sake of the

:39:41.:39:46.

drama. There are gains and losses, when you adapt something there are

:39:46.:39:50.

always gains and losses, on screen you can't portray the level of

:39:50.:39:54.

loneliness that you can portray in print, ever. What is the gain in

:39:54.:39:57.

eating that piece of paper. Because you need to find, I would suggest,

:39:57.:40:02.

at least in some way, a comic may of pointing out, even though they

:40:02.:40:07.

are playing the same person, Jon Hamm is a good eight inches taller,

:40:07.:40:12.

I think that is a heads up to the audience when he says he won't jump

:40:12.:40:19.

for it. The audience is more likely to be about the actors rather than

:40:19.:40:23.

the author. They are serving the audience. What did you agree about

:40:23.:40:26.

the older doctor coming back? you have set it up there aren't

:40:27.:40:31.

places to go, I agree with John. Jon Hamm pre-figures all the things

:40:31.:40:34.

that will happen to Daniel Radcliffe, the main thing is he

:40:34.:40:37.

pre-figures the addiction. We see it coming from the beginning, and

:40:37.:40:43.

it looms and looms and looms. There is nowhere for Daniel Radcliffe to

:40:43.:40:46.

go as a character. In fact, there is nowhere for him to grow. There

:40:46.:40:51.

is none of that redumb that we might otherwise see -- redemption

:40:51.:40:55.

that we might otherwise see coming into play. They are playing it as a

:40:55.:40:59.

sitcom, the definition of sitcom is they don't change. Nobody

:40:59.:41:09.
:41:09.:41:12.

developing during the entirety of Steptoe and Son, or Fraiser. We do

:41:12.:41:18.

see him change substantially, from young, hopeful niave, to bitter.

:41:18.:41:21.

don't see him change, but two separate stages. The problem of the

:41:22.:41:27.

book for them is it doesn't end. It is a collection of two short

:41:27.:41:32.

stories, the last story is called More stpeen, it is about morphine,

:41:32.:41:36.

and it happens to a doctor who shoots himself. It was true of

:41:36.:41:43.

Bulgakov's own life, he became Ayew directed for morphine? Yes, he

:41:43.:41:49.

chucked it after 1918, he was wounded in the war. The character

:41:49.:41:52.

that Daniel Radcliffe portrays has been wounded in the Great War, he

:41:52.:41:57.

has been married for three years. In the end you switch to the

:41:57.:42:01.

Russian revolution in Kiev, and a very horrifying scene where he's

:42:01.:42:04.

captured by the white Russians, they hadn't enough money to do that,

:42:04.:42:09.

so they end it with a ludicrous hallucination scene where it is

:42:09.:42:15.

true, the wolves are there, they are in the book, and where he

:42:15.:42:21.

shoots a hallucination of his predesos sor. It made me want to

:42:21.:42:25.

search out -- predecessor, it made me want to search out Bulgakov's

:42:25.:42:33.

book T starts on the 6th December at 9.00. Thanks to my guest, do

:42:33.:42:37.

stay with BBC for music on Later, with Sinead O'Connor and Courtney

:42:37.:42:43.

Pine. Kirsty is back for more review next Friday at 11.00. Just a

:42:43.:42:49.

stone's throw away from the studio, are Glasgow's shipyards, one of its

:42:49.:42:54.

most famous workers turns 70 tomorrow. Billy Connolly, here is a

:42:54.:42:59.

taster of the special that you can watch here on the 4th January.

:42:59.:43:04.

Happy birthday Billy. Did you ever think you would get to 70?

:43:04.:43:11.

Seriously? I didn't think I would get to 50. The queerist thing was I

:43:11.:43:18.

was looking forward to it as well. Dying? Burning out. Really? Boom!

:43:18.:43:23.

But that is a James Dean thing? is like a firework, it is a

:43:23.:43:25.

romantic stupid, self-indulgent notion. I always thought I would

:43:25.:43:29.

explode, you know. You were kind of on the way there in a major way.

:43:29.:43:35.

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